suicide is painless.

RIP Harry Potter.

WTF?! Did his plane crash into the Sea of Japan or something?

/He was always my second favorite
//In all fairness you cant beat Klinger in regards to awesomeness.

SilentStrider: as an actor he brought such a dignity to that show that it had been lacking before he arrived. And until he arrived, you never knew the show needed it. But it did, and he made the show better for it.

Alan -- is that you? -- The show was never better than when frank and trapper were still around.

Potter was the good part of the bad part of M.A.S.H
The show was much better before they killed of Col. Blake -- after that it turned into Alda's soapbox.

Heres to Harry Morgan - The man that kept Mash worth watching.

I also enjoyed the ones where he took the sleeping pills during the heat wave, and had the discussion w/ Hotlips about her prickly heat rash on her "lovely back porch" The giggles from the other actors seemed to be quite legit for that last bit of that episode.

That's how my dad taught me to sing "Pop-eye the Sailor Man."

/much to the horror of my mother

I liked Harry Morgan, but I just could never get into "M.A.S.H."

It's just not very funny. And it likes to get maudlin all the time. The cast is good and charming, but the writing...bleh.

Confucius say a bird on the collar beats your silver dollar.

/have no idea why that quote has stuck with me

realmolo: it likes to get maudlin all the time.

This isn't a war, it's a murder



realmolo: It's just not very funny



This isn't a war, it's a moider!

abagdan: realmolo: it likes to get maudlin all the time.

This isn't a war, it's a murder

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realmolo: It's just not very funny

[theinfosphere.org image 225x169]

This isn't a war, it's a moider!

DAMNIT -- i was just trying to think how to spell moider...

SilentStrider: mikefinch: Alan -- is that you? -- The show was never better than when frank and trapper were still around.

I thought the show was at its best between when Trapper and Blake left, but before Frank Burns left. That window to me had the best episodes. Or at least my favorite.
I don't think the show really jumped the shark until Radar left. At which point it still had good episodes left, but its best episodes were in its past.
I don't know the name of it, but my favorite episode of the series, where they sit down and are being filmed for a documentary about the war (with no laugh track), was from that period.

Season 4s "The Interview" which was actually a clip show. They brought that reporter character back in a later episode, but I can't remember the name of it for the life of me, but Radar was in The Interview.

I have to agree that seasons 4 and 5 were the peak of the show. After Frank left, the started to soften the antagonizing characters. Winchester was never someone you could hate like Frank, and Hot Lips kinda fell into the "not such a biatch" category.

HotLips showed up with Platinum Blonde hair and everything became meaningful..... took all of the fun right out of that war.

Great show, good run. Actors that raised the bar, and in the end, when you raise bars, looking back 20 - 30 years back, everything looks mediocre at best.

because THEY raised the bar.

/Think about Roseanne. And the bars THAT show raised in the 1980s/1990s.

RIP

Give that man a cheroot.

/RIP Old Actor Guy

fatalvenom: [DUMB IMAGE]

I will make sure I post your image when they find you hanging in the closet from erotic asphyxia.

SilentStrider: SamFlagg: I actually always liked Winchester,

I like that, he was an arrogant bastard like Frank, but unlike Frank, actually had the abilities that demanded you respect him.
You wanted to hate him, but you couldn't, because he was just too damn good.

This. I prefer Winchester for the same reason. Between Frank's incompetence and dickishness, it seemed wrong for him to even be in the unit. He would have either killed enough patients to get sent home with his ineptitude, or been shot by his own men for his attitude.

Winchester was a good foil to Hawkeye, but he was also an excellent doctor. Not to mention, when push came to shove he was actually a good guy.

It's too bad the show became Alda's soapbox in the latter years. The finale had some real downers in it for a "comedy". The chicken was bad, but Winchester's band was even worse.

realmolo: I liked Harry Morgan, but I just could never get into "M.A.S.H."

It's just not very funny. And it likes to get maudlin all the time. The cast is good and charming, but the writing...bleh.

I had a friend who used to say that Alan Alda was always trying hard to get you to cry, but Harry Morgan could get you to do it with just the right harumph.

vossiewulf: Total fail without the episode where he shoots his jeep after Frank ran over it with a tank.

IIRC he was playing a crazy General in that episode. It was a few years before he came on as Potter.

I was going to write a FB tribute to him, until I saw he beat the crap out of his second wife.

xtalman: IRC he was playing a crazy General in that episode.

Are you sure about that, I remember it being Potter.

xtalman: IRC he was playing a crazy General in that episode.
Fraid not. The General Episode was under Henry Blakes Command. He came in as a General that tried to court marshal Hawkeye for sending his helicopter for wounded when he wanted to take it up for spotting a place to move the hospital closer to the front. He wanted the court marshal to start with a song a dance number from the black helicopter pilot, with some racist comments, then Morgan broke into a song and dance number dancing out of the camp straight to the funny farm.

The one he shot the Jeep was when Frank told Hotlips he trained on a Sherman during basic, running amok thru the camp running thru tents and finally over Col Potters Jeep. Wounded like a horse, Potter pulled his 45 without a word and shot it thru the Radiator.

/my old man never missed MASH during my childhood years.

about face! forward skedaddle!

so we honor a man by showing quotes some writer some where was paid to create and that ave nothing at all to do with the actual man himself?

NeoCortex42: SilentStrider: SamFlagg: I actually always liked Winchester,

I like that, he was an arrogant bastard like Frank, but unlike Frank, actually had the abilities that demanded you respect him.
You wanted to hate him, but you couldn't, because he was just too damn good.

This. I prefer Winchester for the same reason. Between Frank's incompetence and dickishness, it seemed wrong for him to even be in the unit. He would have either killed enough patients to get sent home with his ineptitude, or been shot by his own men for his attitude.

Winchester was a good foil to Hawkeye, but he was also an excellent doctor. Not to mention, when push came to shove he was actually a good guy.

It's too bad the show became Alda's soapbox in the latter years. The finale had some real downers in it for a "comedy". The chicken was bad, but Winchester's band was even worse.

I sincerely hope you were just avoiding spoilers when you typed that, but you might not be....

Back in the day I used to have a midway-decent apartment with good internet and crappy (basic) cable. One of the few non-local, non-QVC, non-C-SPAN channels I got was the Hallmark channel, which right around that time decided to start showing Magnum: P. I., Simon and Simon, and MASH. Inevitably they showed the MASH finale, which I decided to sit down to watch from start to finish since I'd never seen the entire thing. When it came time for Hawkeye's shocking confession regarding the chicken, he told the doc all about the chicken... just the chicken... and then was sent back to the camp after coming to grips with it.

Yes, that's right, Hallmark channel stripped out the shocking part of Hawkeye's ordeal. Did a fairly seamless job of it, if I had to say. Still, it always irks me, knowing that some bastardized version of the finale is out there with the emotional impact completely stripped from one of its most pivotal scenes.


AAANNYWAY, CSB aside, I really did like Charles Emerson Winchester, and like to hate him. He was such a sneak and a prude and a general douchebag when left to his own devices, but unlike Frank he wasn't two-dimensional: he had decent qualities and basic humanity. Why does that matter? I've met people in the real world who were remarkably like Winchester, but I've never met anybody like Frank Burns. So long as Burns was on the show it resided entirely in the realm of comical farce, somewhere between Hogan's Heroes and Sergeant Bilko, because (as someone so adeptly put) nobody who was actually like that could exist in any world other than one of farce without being fragged.

SamFlagg:

Pardon me for asking, Colonel, but why are you dressed like an Italian usher?

kvinesknows: so we honor a man by showing quotes some writer some where was paid to create and that ave nothing at all to do with the actual man himself?



Actors often add their own dialogue to scenes, "or adlib", where the specific words or content is not vital to the plot.

Girion47: RIP
[www.rankopedia.com image 295x370]

Came here for that. Not the RIP part, that's just farking stupid.

"It is with a heavy heart that I give my official Okey Dokey to this lad's adios"..

Loved Sherman T. Potter.

Matticus: SamFlagg:

Pardon me for asking, Colonel, but why are you dressed like an Italian usher?

"I'm disguised as Chinese agent Ling Chow"
"You don't look Chinese."
"Neither would Ling Chow if he was dressed like this. You follow me?"
"As far as I'd like to."


Also-


Burns: "I love it here."
Col. Potter: "Either you or Klinger is nuts. Now I have to decide which one."

TKM: HotLips showed up with Platinum Blonde hair and everything became meaningful..... took all of the fun right out of that war.

Mustache/pink shirt/sneakers BJ wasn't exactly a load of giggles either.

The Mclean Stevenson years were generally funnier. The Harry Morgan years were more message-oriented. All were pretty good to excellent.

My favorite was the ep where Klinger was going for bereavement leave and Potter says, "Here's an oldie but a goodie: Half of the family pregnant, other half dying".

cygnusx13: The Mclean Stevenson years were generally funnier. The Harry Morgan years were more message-oriented. All were pretty good to excellent.

My favorite was the ep where Klinger was going for bereavement leave and Potter says, "Here's an oldie but a goodie: Half of the family pregnant, other half dying".

That was Blake.

xtalman: vossiewulf: Total fail without the episode where he shoots his jeep after Frank ran over it with a tank.

IIRC he was playing a crazy General in that episode. It was a few years before he came on as Potter.

Incorrect.

"Colonel Potter, Sir! Corporal Klinger. I'm section 8, head to toe. I'm wearing a warner bra. I play with dolls. My last wish is to be buried in my mother's wedding gown. I'm nuts. I should be out."

Potter returns salute

"Horse hockey."