M*A*S*HCast #139 – What’s Up, Doc?

9 responses to “M*A*S*HCast #139 – What’s Up, Doc?”

1. This was a lovely discussion to listen to, thank you for that! Nice to “meet” other vegetarians! 🙂

   I can’t be the only one who thinks Hawkeye might be the potential father here… Comrades in Arms happened not too long ago, and even though MASH never stuck to a strict time line, the possibility of a Houlihan/Pierce-child is absolutely on the table. I would actually have loved to see this explored, for the two of them to face this very real consequence of an event I’m sure both of them had written off as temporary insanity by this point. Imagine how good that would have been, for these amazing actors to get to dive into all of those emotions. Oh, I wanna see it!
   I think Colonel Potter senses something between the two of them, though, maybe that is where his comment about if Margaret should tell Donald comes from… He is quite perceptive, that man…

   I absolutely love Loretta Swit here (I always do). The way she is so dedicated to her character is always a thing of beauty, she just completely embodies all of Margaret’s sides and personality traits, good and bad. Here, the way she is fighting back tears, and is just so uncomfortable in her own body is simply amazing.
   And I love this duality in Margaret. She is so untraditional and rebellious in many ways, choosing to live a life in the army, be so serious about her career, and yet she has this deep longing for something, someone, of her own. A relationship, stability, maybe a family. The way she as a character can be so many things at once is so important, and really impactful to see in a female character, especially when you consider the era the show is set in, and when it was written.
   And, as you talk about, that duality comes out in her willingness to break the rules too. She will insist rules and regulations are the most important thing, everyone needs to follow them, except when it comes to something she wants, then all rules are just out the window.

   And also Amanda – we should be friends! None of my friends watch MASH, they don’t even know who Loretta Swit is, and I need someone to gush about how awesome she is with! 🙂 🙂 🙂
   I have only been able to watch a little of her other work (have found some on Youtube etc), and she is just such an beautiful actress, not just physically, but in the honesty and dedication she gives to every role. There is a movie called “The Execution” which I love, where she plays a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp. The way she with very small means makes us understand how broken this woman is, is simply amazing.
   And there is another one called “Games Mother Never Taught You”, about a woman trying to be respected in ta male dominated workplace. As a woman in that kind of workplace myself, that movie speaks to me a lot! 🙂
   So, in conclusion, Loretta Swit rocks. On screen and in real life! 🙂

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2. Both stories in this episode are really good. I particularly loved the Margaret storyline, as we get to see her concerns about being pregnant. I love the moment where Hawkeye says how glad he is that it turned out the way she wanted, and that he was sorry. It shows a great understanding and compassion he’s gained for her over the years, and we get a better understanding of the complexities that Margaret tries to hide from others, and maybe even herself in this case.

   With the other story, the more comedic ending tends to stick in my mind more than the rest of it, but I really like how much depth it has up to that point. As you said, it does a great job of showing a different reason why someone may not want to go back to the war, other than fear for their own life, and it’s great seeing BJ trying to get through to him.

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3. I don’t think Hawkeye is potentially the father because we only see them kissing.

   On the topic of great Charles episodes, there’s one that stands above the rest for me and that’s the episode Sons and Bowlers where only Charles is helping out Hawkeye while everyone else is preoccupied with the bowling tournament. It’s also the only time Charles refers to Hawkeye by Hawkeye. Every other time he calls him Pierce. That was the turning point for their friendship.

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4. This was a great episode of MASHcast, but it is not one of my favorite episodes. Rob, I’ve never had the same relationship to animals that you and Amanda have, but as a kid, I thought it was crazy that they had to kill a rabbit to conduct a pregnancy test in the 1950s. How many rabbits did that take? Where did hospitals and labs keep them? Also, the Yale grad lieutenant was horrible. It was a great picture of how selfish and irrational we humans can be when we’re depressed, but it sure wasn’t any fun to watch.

   Of course, as the two of you said, the episode covered great issues, revealed a lot about the characters, featured wonderful performances, etc. It’s still MASH, you know? And Klinger was hilarious.

   I think there was a question directed toward military veterans in this episode, but I listened three days ago, so I can’t remember for sure. I’m guessing it was about the lieutenant, so I’ll comment on that. As a college grad draftee, it makes sense that he would have been directed to officer training. That would have included being taught how to lead an infantry platoon, but much like Frank and medical school, some people can get through a course of instruction and still not be able to do the job. Ideally, he would’ve gotten better mentoring from his company commander (a captain), but he may also be overwhelmed. If he really wanted to not do his job and he was okay with going to the stockade, there are many, many lesser crimes he could’ve committed. Even just going AWOL would’ve radically changed his situation and made him much less likely to be shot or confined for years than taking a hostage and asking for a helicopter. Oh, and he should probably know, given his position, that helicopters of that era weren’t flying at night. But then, he already said he was bad at his job. If there really was a question and none of this covers it, please let me know.

   Oh, and his college major (art history) would be irrelevant to whether he went to officer training, but BJ’s line about only the Marines having an art history division was funny — doubly funny since Mike Farrell is a Marine.

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5. It’s another great episode of M*A*S*H*, a.k.a. Max*And*Sherman*Hijinx*! I love the almost childlike delight that Col. Potter takes from Klinger’s more outlandish attempts to scam his way out of the Army, and on the flipside, I share his disappointment when Klinger only makes a half-hearted effort, as he does here with the offspring scheme. These two bond together wonderfully as the series progresses, until Klinger becomes the Colonel’s surrogate son, and Potter is Max’s father figure. And with the obvious acting chemistry between Jamie Farr and Harry Morgan, it’s simply a delight to watch them share scenes together.

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6. This episode is a winner. The podcast and comments covered it amply, but I will agree that Margaret saying “So am I” was pitch perfect delivery of a woman who’s not ready to be a mother right now, but still would like to. Love it.

   I apologize if this has already been discussed on the show, but I do want to tackle a comment from this season about Winchester being a better surgeon than the other doctors, and maybe the other medical professionals listening can set me straight if I’m offbase. Clearly, Winchester has excellent techniques that save patients and would give better recovery outcomes. Now we say that he’s slower, but also, doing those techniques takes more time. Could Hawkeye or BJ learn and perform those techniques? I would say yes, they just haven’t had the opportunity in their careers before going to Korea, and a war is no time for the in-depth training and study. So I would bet they could become just as good as Charles. However, they’re being the better surgeons because they’re doing what needed to save the most patients. Charles is deliberately putting his own surgical record ahead of helping patients, giving his stats of successes a boost, but his overall number of surgeries is low. Volume matters in war. You even could see Charles being the kind of doctor who would say “The surgery was a success, but the patient died.” This will continue to put him behind the other surgeons until or if he changes. It’ll be fascinating to see if this evolves during the podcast.

   Always a pleasure to have Amanda back!

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7. So actually in the US army the Rank of General goes up to 5 stars the rank being General of the Army it was created during WWII. There’s also the rank of General of the Armies which has only been held by a handful of people.

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8. Klinger would have a head protector on to cover the curlers as the safe quick hot electric hair curlers were not invented until 1963 by Niels C. Jørgensen in Denmark.

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9. I recently got Hulu so now I can watch before listening to the podcast.

   I had always heard the joke about “the rabbit died” when someone was pregnant but never knew what it meant until I saw this episode. Even being 12/13 when I saw this I still wasn’t that familiar with the terminology of female parts and exactly what was happening. But even though I’m not really an animal lover, I thought it was kind of rude they expected Radar to hand over his pet.

   It was kind of strange they dropped the storyline about the art history lieutenant after he passed out. Never said what happened next. Likely the stockade but he certainly merited a visit from Sydney. Maybe a scene discussing his fate instead of Klinger and his “children”.

   On ages, Charles said he graduated from Harvard in 1943. So if he was 22 then that would make him 30 in 1951. And if he finishes medical school in 1947, how did he become such a high ranking surgeon so quickly? Even if he meant medical school in 1943, that’s still a rapid progression.

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