M*A*S*HCast - Season 4, Episode 6: The Bus
Special Guest Star: Rev. Rob
Air Date: October 17, 1975
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Great coverage of what I’ve always considered the “family road trip” episode of MASH.
As I mentioned in “It Happened One Night” this is one of my least favorite episodes. I will say that I believe the gun that Frank has was taken from the prisoner.
I really enjoyed the discussion with Rev. Rob at the beginning of the episode. The thing I always liked about Father Mulcahy was his ability to work with all faiths. I’m a Southern Baptist (even studied to be a missionary at one time) but I’ve been open to other denominations and faiths. I’ve always said that you can go between New York and LA a thousand different ways but you eventually wind up at the same spot. I feel the same about religion.
I married a Jewish lady. She wanted a Rabbi for officiate the service. Since we were a mixed couple I asked him if during the ceremony he could mention Jesus or Christianity. Although that was thirty years ago I can still hear his laughter at my suggestion. Intolerance like that I believe has led to so many problems in this world. I think religious leaders and followers can learn a lot from Father Mulcahy’s openness.
Please have Rev. Rob on again, Iron Guts! (Rob, I’m using your nom du guerre to distinguish you two.) He’d be a wonderful guest even if I weren’t biased to support a man of faith. As usual, you two covered almost all my thoughts on this episode and more insights on top of that, but I’ll add the following:
– Fascinating to find out the writer was a combat veteran. That obviously helps add (Iron Guts’ favorite word) verisimilitude.
– I can’t help but reflect on how lucky that wounded North Korean soldier was to find this particular bus to surrender to (Frank’s presence notwithstanding). On the subject of faith, if he hadn’t been a believer before, he likely would have been after.
– There is not a combat zone in the world today wherein American service members would be allowed “outside the wire” in such an unarmored, unarmed, unstocked, unaccompanied, lightly equipped vehicle with nearly no communication ability. That said, based on stories I’ve heard from veterans of other eras, it might not have been so unrealistic for the time. The difference may be that we rarely fight in conflicts with such defined battle lines anymore. However, as other MASH episodes point out, there were irregular forces fighting in ostensibly friendly-controlled areas even in Korea. For sheer audacity, the trip in the “Rainbow Bridge” episode still beats this one, but this is impressive, nevertheless. Call me a Monday morning quarterback, but were I in charge of the movement, I would have done this differently.
– Randall complimented Father Mulcahy on his ability to work with people of other faiths (or none in particular). I concur. I will add that I find this to be typical of chaplains like Father Mulcahy and Rev. Rob, whether in the military or not. I imagine it’s a job requirement.
Here’s the last three paragraphs without my accidental italics, for those who find them hard to read:
– I can’t help but reflect on how lucky that wounded North Korean soldier was to find this particular bus to surrender to (Frank’s presence notwithstanding). On the subject of faith, if he hadn’t been a believer before, he likely would have been after.
– There is not a combat zone in the world today wherein American service members would be allowed “outside the wire” in such an unarmored, unarmed, unstocked, unaccompanied, lightly equipped vehicle with nearly no communication ability. That said, based on stories I’ve heard from veterans of other eras, it might not have been so unrealistic for the time. The difference may be that we rarely fight in conflicts with such defined battle lines anymore. However, as other MASH episodes point out, there were irregular forces fighting in ostensibly friendly-controlled areas even in Korea. For sheer audacity, the trip in the “Rainbow Bridge” episode still beats this one, but this is impressive, nevertheless. Call me a Monday morning quarterback, but were I in charge of the movement, I would have done this differently.
– Randall complimented Father Mulcahy on his ability to work with people of other faiths (or none in particular). I concur. I will add that I find this to be typical of chaplains like Father Mulcahy and Rev. Rob, whether in the military or not. I imagine it’s a job requirement.
I love this episode, For me this starts one of the best runs of great episodes in the history of the show! This podcast is tremendous! You deserve all the chocolate bars!…I’ll take the point
Another great episode, and a fun review and discussion about it. I agree with everyone that I would like to hear Rev Rob come back. Great show!
The *only* minor criticism I have with this episode is in its air date. The way that Potter supports Radar and Radar appreciate it….I always thought this episode should have been broadcast after Potter’s anniversary episode, where Radar says he still feels uncomfortable around him. That absolutely should have been aired earlier than this one IMO.
The previous owner of my house planted bamboo lining two sides of the property border. The stuff can spread like wildfire unless you bury deep barriers. These “sorta” work, but I still get random bamboo shoots sprouting up in the lawn. It grows at a rate of one inch per day. So if I let it go for a week, those shoots will be half a foot tall. Needless to say, the idea of letting bamboo grow under fingernails is horrifying!
Besides that, dang this episode was fun.
Rob: Tell us about your love for MASH.
Guest: My favorite characters were Klinger and Father Mulcahy.
Rob: So let’s talk about today’s episode. Klinger and Mulcahy stay home as the doctors and Radar go on a trip.
Seriously, a good episode. I think this is the only time we don’t see the 4077th. I agree it is weird all four doctors go to a conference. What was the conference? Did the 8063rd send the whole staff?
I agree Potter should have avoided teasing Frank. I get Frank brought a lot of the abuse, but Potter was the same way to Charles and Charles wasn’t trying to take over.
Still, Frank wasn’t that bad here. He was honestly trying to help with the walkie-talkie and fixing the bus. And I did enjoy the scene with him and Radar in the woods. He also defended Radar when Hawkeye was being rude to him and he seemed concerned when he couldn’t find him in the woods. I have said before Linville and Burghoff had good comic timing. I wish Potter had been delayed 3-4 episodes to see Frank as CO with Radar as the clerk.
There are some episodes where you could pop Henry in and it wouldn’t matter. This isn’t one of them. He would have been as useless as Frank.
This is the only time Potter mentioned being a POW.
I think I have seen Potter talking about Collette but the end scene you mentioned is new to me. Wish there was a way you could post it on here.
The bit about Frank making the toilet lids stand at attention was from No Time for Sargents. I took a class in college about the Depression and we read a book that mentioned Father Coughlin. That was a big aha moment for me.
George, my father considers No Time For Sergeants sublime comedy. It may have had something to do with him going to Air Force basic training in 1957. Anyway, I saw it a couple times growing up, and I remember the scene you’re talking about.
I just looked up the movie and found out it was based on a novel and spun off a television series with a different lead actor. The series was placed against the Andy Griffith Show (ironically, since Griffith started in the movie) and only lasted one season. There were also a few comics drawn by (believe it or not) Alex Toth (!). Some are preserved and re-presented in The Alex Toth Reader, Volume 2 by Greg Theakston.
I hereby nominate the film No Time For Sergeants for the Film and Water podcast. If Rob can’t find a better guest (I’d be a novice), I’d be honored to serve. Failing that, I suggest Chris Franklin and Ryan Daly do a series on the whole phenomenon (novel, movie, tv show, and comics) — Chris for the Appalachian connections and Ryan because he’d get to cancel it after a year or so when he ran out of material.
I saw it once a long time ago. Don Knotts was in it. I think he was a shrink who had to evaluate Griffith’s character. It was funny seeing him as straight man to Griffith’s zaniness. The scene with the toilet lids really cracked me up.
I am aware of the TV show but have never seen it. Strange they aired against Griffith’s show. I suspect Gomer Pyle USMC was loosely based on the movie as it was a hick recruit driving his stereotypical drill sergeant crazy all the time.
Getting back on the bus, I wonder if Potter’s comment about Asian torture techniques would get aired today. Yes they were bad based on what I have read about Vietnam and Japan POW camps but I could see how the line might be perceived as non-PC today.
If I remember my history on this correctly, the North Koreans were brutal, but initially unsophisticated in their efforts to exploit prisoners of war before the People’s Republic of China’s was involved. The PRC was equally brutal, but they also applied tactics that were based on a greater understanding of psychology and other social sciences.
The Department of Defense learned from the experiences of American prisoners of war in Korea. They improved how they prepared American service members for capture. Consequently, even though the American prisoners of war held by North Vietnam experienced similarly horrific treatment — and for far longer time periods, some as many as seven years — they were better equipped to sustain themselves and each other, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
Great discussion. I’ve always like The Bus. Frank is really going way off the deep end at this point, with the walkie talkie and especially when he’s guarding the prisoner. He seems to have lost touch with reality. It’s like he’s a child playing war, similar to the prior episode in the tank. I do think Potter probably shouldn’t have piled on Frank with the others though.
When Frank is secretly eating his chocolate bars, I can’t help thinking the others would notice him chewing or smell the chocolate on him. He sure had a lot of chocolate bars when he passed them out at the end.
The epilogue with the walkie talkies was new to me and I found it hilarious. The way the prisoner is laughing along with Hawkeye and BJ is priceless and Frank is so funny with his over the top responses.
There is an outdoor museum in Århus Denmark called Den Gamle By (the Old City) that is basically a collection of buildings from around Denmark going from the 1500’s up to the 1970s. In what is called the 1970s section they hid a “Kilroy was here”.
Also there is a Danish travel agency called KilRoy for obvious reasons.
Your discussion of this episode really got me thinking that it serves as a great character study of Frank Burns. I don’t recall how much we know about Frank’s past at this point, but, over the course of the series, we learn that he comes from a fairly dysfunctional family. As a result, he seeks to both fit in with the other guys, and prove himself superior to them. All in an attempt to restore/protect his fragile self-esteem. In the end, he shoots himself in the foot, and fails at both.
Thanks for the excellent discussion, and the chance to play armchair psychologist. (I’ve got nothing on Sydney Friedman).
It’s weird, but as much as I disliked the character of Frank Burns, I began to feel sorry for him around this point. Frank began to feel like an element of the first three seasons that wasn’t growing. Every other character was getting deeper and more complex, while Frank remained the eternal heel. I am not sure they could have found any way to make him work as a serious character by this point, so perhaps his exist from the series was inevitable.
My thought on why I, and perhaps a little why Rob may feel bad for Frank is that he had lost most of his agency with Potter in the picture. Henry was so loveable yet incompetent that Frank could bully-brow-beat him into getting his way. Potter will stand for none of that, and with that last shred of threat removed, Frank has become a somewhat unfunny clown.
Frank Burns aside, I enjoyed the episode. Something of a simple bottle episode, but it helped broaden the horizons of MASH off the camp set, and kept the format fresh. I agree whole heartedly that the bit between Radar and Burns really didn’t flow right, and when recently rewatching this my wife called that out as an odd sequence. I won’t speculate too much on what happened here, but perhaps some film got damaged and they had to work with what they had instead of trying for a reshoot on the alternate (temporary) set?
Longtime Fire and Water listener, but I’ve only just recently discovered the M*A*S*H*CAST, and I’ve been binging it (along with the corresponding series episodes).
If I had never seen this episode before, and I was watching it for the first time with a 21st Century viewer’s perspective, I might wonder if they were setting up this story to kill off either BJ or Potter. Obviously such a death wouldn’t have had the resonance of “Abyssinia, Henry”, but it still would have been utterly shocking to see in 1975. Putting the cast into an entirely different environment and eliminating the laugh track creates a tense setting that, these days at least, would almost make it irresistible for producers to knock off one of their newer characters. Thankfully, neither BJ nor the Colonel were ever intended as cannon fodder.
And Potter’s World War One experience must have been a nightmare toward the end. The Battle of Chateau-Thierry was in July of 1918, and he was blinded for a month in that (and somehow not shipped home, but rather returned to the front when his vision was restored). Then the Battle of the Argonne Forest was from late September until the war ended on November 11, and somewhere in the midst of that Sherman was lost, captured, and tortured by the enemy. And as rosy as his recollections of his cavalry days are, we know from history that the U.S. Cavalry was largely ineffective during the Great War and its static trench warfare and tanks, and they suffered great numbers of casualties. By the Spring of ’18, many members of the cavalry were reassigned to artillery and infantry units, and the horses were largely phased out of a combat role.
In a somewhat lighter vein, I find myself wondering just what side of the ‘Father Coughlin for President’ debate Frank would have been on. Coughlin was rabidly anti-communist, which would have appealed to Frank, but he was also a Roman Catholic, which I suspect Frank would never have accepted in a president. But given the fact that Coughlin was also a virulent anti-Semite, I find myself doubting that Helen Rapaport would have been arguing in favor of him.
This is a great podcast, and I thank you for reigniting my lifelong love of M*A*S*H*!