M*A*S*HCast #56 – Life With Father

M*A*S*HCast -  Season 3, Episode 8: Life With Father

Special Guest Star: Jeff Messer

Air Date: October 29, 1974

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7 responses to “M*A*S*HCast #56 – Life With Father

  1. As always, I like to give the show a re-watch after listening to the podcast. I know the episodes well enough to follow along, but I like to pay attention to aspects Rob and his guests point out that I may have missed.
    Here are some observations I made watching again:
    -When Chim Sah approaches Frank and Margaret with the baby, Frank is very quick to get away. Margaret on the other hand wants to check on the child. This is another spot where her goodness is showing through leading to her eventual transformation as a character.
    -The exchange in the mess tent where Hawkeye, Trapper, and Father Mulcahy are greeting each other, they go from greeting one another to saying hello to the cast of the Jack Benny program (typical of the Jack Benny radio program itself). Father Mulcahy then says ‘Hello, Mr. Benny’ in a spot on imitation of Dennis Day. I laugh every time I hear it, but then I get sad when I think of the younger viewers who don’t understand that exchange at all. (Not my teenage children though. They’ve probably heard as many Jack Benny programs as they have seen episodes of M*A*S*H.)
    -Father Mulcahy talks about Captain Epstein and calls him meshuga. Growing up in a Lutheran home, we didn’t have much occasion to speak Yiddish. It wasn’t until high school that I finally understood that joke completely.
    -When Chim Sah leaves the Father’s tent, does anyone know what he is singing?
    -I really liked the ‘conversation’ between Henry and Father Mulcahy. Each talking about a woman in their lives, but not really hearing one another.
    -“Do I know what you are saying?” I’m sure a lot of people think this when speaking with Radar.
    -McLean Stevenson’s acting ability was plainly visible in the “I’m not going to cry” scene. He honestly looked like he was about to cry.
    -Anyone else impressed by Radar’s pronunciation of the Hebrew based on what he wrote down in Morse code? Maybe they coded it phonetically?
    -After the bris, Hawkeye just casually takes the glass of wine to drink. It’s a small thing, but fits the character.
    -You’re right, Wayne Rogers did a great job mounting the horse. I just wonder what happened the first time. It seemed plainly obvious when he walked away from the horse to get a running start that they were going to film his mount in the same shot. There was an awkward cut and he then just hops on. I’m assuming the horse moved or Wayne Rogers was otherwise unsuccessful in that shot.

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  2. Great show as always, men, and Jeff makes a fine guest. Iron Guts, I was all set to tell you about Jody, the nemesis of every service member with a spouse or a steady, but you knew all about him (or her — unisex names are handy like that) already! Write yourself up for an Army Achievement Medal and a three day pass — for research above and beyond the expectations of your listeners.

  3. I happened to watch the Nancy Sue Parker episode on TV last night. So I wasn’t too sympathetic with Henry being worried about his wife fooling around.

    My father was an orthodontist so that bit about Mrs. Blake’s “friend” always gave me a chuckle.

    Doing the puzzle would have been hard if you didn’t have access to what the presidents look like.

  4. Yeah, when my wife and I were doing our watch -through — inspired by this podcast — we actually skipped old Nancy Sue. She has absolutely zero need to see a middle-aged man deployed with the military fall head over heels for some cheerleader in a war zone.

    And I needed her to see it even less than that.

  5. I thought it was fitting your guest made the comment about knowing pornography when he sees it. The quote was made by a Supreme Court justice named Potter. (Potter Stewart).

    I also liked the shout-out to Captain Forrest.

  6. This is one of those MASH episodes that does a good job of mixing the humorous (i.e., Hawkeye and Trapper’s hunt for the presidents’ faces) and the serious (i.e., Henry dealing with his wife’s infidelity). In the case of the latter, it’s not clear to me if Henry ever realized the hypocrisy between his response to his wife’s infidelity and his own infidelity, but I know that’s long been a stark lesson for me from this episode. In the case of the former, I agree with Anj that the scene where Hawkeye and Trapper look at the picture through the microscope is one of the funniest in the episode for me.

    I’ve always been impressed by the fact that Hawkeye and Trapper seem able to identify the presidents’ faces. Of course, we don’t know that they are identifying the faces correctly. If the only faces hidden in the picture are those of the presidents, then you could find all of the faces without knowing to which specific president each belongs.

    Thanks for another entertaining episode.

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