In the film, Hammond is dismissive of Major Houlihan and her negative report about Blake, while in the TV series Houlihan is a sometime lover whom he remembers fondly. She is called “Lt. Nakahara” in the season 10 episode “The Birthday Girls”, and in the last regular episode of season 11, the final episode filmed, “As Time Goes By”, Major Houlihan calls Kellye “Lt. Nakahara”. The character grew steadily from a background (often non-speaking) character in the first season to a speaking character with a character arc of her own, culminating in the season 11 episode “Hey, Look Me Over” which was primarily about the character. In a season 3 episode, when asked what happened to “that surgeon you had from Georgia”, Trapper answers, “He got sent stateside!”episode needed In the final episodes of the series, Klinger gets engaged to Soon Lee Han (Rosalind Chao), a Korean refugee; when proposing to her, he suggests she wear the wedding dress he had himself worn in one of his attempted Section Eight escapades and explains to her what white means in his culture.
Staff Sergeant Luther Rizzo
A nurse at the 4077th, who at times casually dates both Hawkeye and Trapper. A nurse at the 4077th, and Henry Blake’s paramour during much of the first season, and is at his side through much of the pilot. In the same episode, Trapper agrees to participate in a boxing match with a fighter from another outfit in exchange for a promise by Henry Blake that Cutler will be kept at the 4077th. A nurse introduced as a new transfer in the episode “Requiem for a Lightweight”. However, she continued to be featured in the opening credit montage sequence (wherein the MASH staff runs toward approaching helicopters) for most of the show’s run. After being prominently featured as Hawkeye’s love interest in the pilot, she appeared in only one further episode (Episode 1/11) before leaving the show entirely.
- The JAG colonel investigating the incident to determine if a court-martial is warranted concluded there were no grounds for a court-martial, and indicated that according to Burns’ record, “If you hadn’t been drafted as a doctor, I think you’d have been assigned as a pastry chef.”
- Seasons 1–5 utilized a more invasive laugh track; a more subdued audience was employed for Seasons 6–11 when the series shifted from sitcom to comedy drama with the departure of Gelbart and Reynolds.
- Wood, making him one of two actors to reprise his film role in the TV show.
- Private Igor Straminsky was generally portrayed by actor Jeff Maxwell, although Peter Riegert played him in two sixth-season episodes.
- The series, produced by 20th Century-Fox Television, follows a team of doctors and support staff stationed at the “4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital” in Uijeongbu, South Korea, during the Korean War (1950–1953).
Characters
She appeared in 86 episodes of the series, more episodes than some main characters, such as Henry Blake and Trapper John. After season five, doing the series had become a strain on the actor’s family life, and he had his contract changed to limit his appearances to 13 episodes per season out of the usual 24. Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) Franklin Delano Marion “Frank” Burns is the executive officer and main antagonist in the film (played by Robert Duvall) and the first five seasons of the television series (Larry Linville).
- Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) Franklin Delano Marion “Frank” Burns is the executive officer and main antagonist in the film (played by Robert Duvall) and the first five seasons of the television series (Larry Linville).
- Duke later comes to appreciate Spearchucker’s skill as both a surgeon and a former professional football player.
- Formally salute Potter as he leaves the camp, one of the few times either is shown doing so.
- In the film, when it is proposed that Oliver Harmon “Spearchucker” Jones will bunk with the other surgeons in the Swamp, Duke treats him with disrespect (implied to be because of his Southern heritage), until Hawkeye and Trapper rebuke him.
- As an indication of their respect for him, in the final episode Hawkeye and B.
Staff Sergeant Zelmo Zale
In the television series, he becomes the Chief Surgeon of the unit early in the first season. Captain Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce (Jr. in the novel) was played by Donald Sutherland in the film, and by Alan Alda in the television series. As of July 1, 2015, all 11 seasons were available; syndicated versions of hour-long episodes were utilized for streaming, splitting these shows into two parts. The Korean War lasted 1,128 days, meaning each episode of the series would have averaged almost four and a half days of real time. Several episodes (“O.R.”, “The Bus”, “Quo Vadis, Captain Chandler?”, “The Interview”, “Point of View”, and “Dreams” among them) omitted the laugh track altogether; as did almost all of Season 11, including the 135-minute series finale, “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen”.
In one episode, “Officer of the Day”, he appears with another soldier and his last name is said to be Carter or Willis (it is unclear who is being referred to). He is sometimes seen together with Roy, and sometimes he is a jeep driver. He rarely has more than one or two lines, though in the episode “The Red/White Blues”, his reaction to a medication is an important plot point and he speaks quite a bit more. Goldman appears off and on throughout the run of the series, usually when a soldier is needed for a random line or reaction.
Dish’s role in the finished film was limited, as a large portion of her role did not make the final cut. However, Ugly John was still a recurring character, and may have been one of the “three other doctors”. He began as a significant supporting member of the cast, often engaged in poker games with Hawkeye and Trapper, but by the end of the season, he was rarely seen outside brief O.R. In the film, he is an American (as he can be seen wearing the insignia of a US Army Captain), but his background is not discussed. Captain “Ugly” John Black was portrayed by Carl Gottlieb in the movie, and John Orchard in the TV series.
Season ratings
Private Igor Straminsky was generally portrayed by actor Jeff Maxwell, although Peter Riegert played him in two sixth-season episodes. The character is seen and heard only once, in the first-season episode “Tuttle”. She also appeared in three other episodes portraying other characters.
The character appeared in all but three of the subsequent episodes. When McLean Stevenson decided to leave the show at the end of the third season, his character was scripted to be discharged and sent home as a way to write him out of the series. The character returned to television in 1979 in the medical drama series Trapper John, M.D. Now played by Pernell Roberts, the character is depicted in the then-present day as the middle-aged Chief of Surgery at a San Francisco hospital. In the film, Hawkeye and Trapper are given roughly equal focus, but in the TV series, the character devolved to become more of a sidekick to the character of Hawkeye.
Although Burns was Hawkeye’s archenemy and Blake was Hawkeye’s friend, one trait shared by Colonel Blake and Major Burns was a hypocritical attitude toward their marriage vows. Hawkeye taught the Korean ward boys to say, “You tell ’em, Ferret Face!” on cue. Remarked that Hawkeye claimed Burns became a surgeon after washing out of embalming school, and told Frank to his face that his sanity had sprung a leak. In one episode, one of Burns’s patients had to have emergency surgery because Burns was too lazy to exteriorize a patient’s colon during an operation. Burns further asserts that the other surgeons could not keep up with him and complained that he was pushing them too hard.
Finally, in the season seven episode “Peace on Us”, Margaret announces she’s getting a divorce due to Donald arranging a transfer to San Francisco without telling her. Penobscott is not seen until the season-ending episode “Margaret’s Marriage”, wherein Donald (played by Carroll) arrives to marry Margaret at the 4077th. Flagg resurfaces a few years after the war, in a Hannibal, Missouri courtroom (as seen in the AfterMASH episode “Trials”).
Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan
In the first-season episode “Major Fred C. Dobbs”, Ginger is working with Frank in the O.R. She is frequently seen fraternizing with Trapper and Spearchucker, even playing a game of “strip dominoes” with the latter in the first-season episode, “Chief Surgeon Who?”. Played by Odessa Cleveland on the TV series, Ginger is one of few nurses to have a recurring, speaking role in the series as the same character. John Orchard later returned to the show for the Season 8 episode “Captains Outrageous”, this time playing a drunken and corrupt Australian Military Policeman “Sgt. Muldoon”. In the episode “Sometimes You Hear the Bullet”, Hawkeye says that he shares a tent with three other doctors. The character on the television show was an anesthesiologist from Australia, often depicted wearing an Australian slouch hat.
Benjamin “Hawkeye” Pierce
After completing his medical residency (possibly in Chicago; he has a familiarity with the city that implies extended time spent there, e.g., “Adam’s Ribs”); he had a common law marriage with a nurse, Carlye Breslin, but they broke up after a year. Pierce was born and raised in New England, most often mentioning Crabapple Cove, Maine, as a place that his family had a summer home and with a few references (primarily in the early seasons) to Vermont. Linville himself knew this was a career ending role, and that the character of Burns was ridiculous.It did make for… The 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital is stuck in the middle of the Korean war.
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In one early episode, Houlihan herself was a hard drinker who drank a quart of brandy a day. She once told Frank that half of her salary went to support her mother; half of that money went towards drying her out, the other half for bail money (her mother was a kleptomaniac). She confesses to Klinger that she envies him for having a hometown – as an army brat she has moved around so much she could never make any friends. She is an experienced surgical nurse, so although she thoroughly disapproves of the surgeons’ off-duty tomfoolery, she can set her personal feelings aside to appreciate their skills, such as when she came down with appendicitis and asked that Hawkeye, not Burns, perform the surgery if needed. Early on in the TV series, she is a stern “by-the-book” head nurse but willingly goes against regulations for personal gain. In the film, the nickname originates from a scene in which she has a tryst with Burns.
Actor
Margaret is an army brat, born in an Army base hospital in 1920, the daughter of career artillery (or cavalry) officer Alvin “Howitzer Al” Houlihan (played by Andrew Duggan in the TV series). Later in the series, particularly after the departure of Burns, she becomes a more sympathetic character, softening her attitude while still serving as a foil for their antics. Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan appears in the novel, the film (played by Sally Kellerman), and the TV series (Loretta Swit). Burns’s departure from the series stemmed from the expiration of Linville’s original five-year contract for the series, which he opted not to renew, concluding that there was simply no room for further development in the character. Nothing further is known about the character’s fate post-show from the TV series.
Trapper spends difference between alcohol use and alcoholism much of his time on the series engaging in mischief with Hawkeye Pierce, with the two playing practical jokes on Majors Frank Burns and Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan, heavy drinking, and trying to seduce women. In the book and the film, Trapper John is a graduate of Dartmouth College, having played quarterback on the school’s football team, and serves as thoracic surgeon of the 4077th. In an episode earlier in the series, Hawkeye is mistakenly reported dead.
The actor himself not only served as an extra and the “Roy Goldman” character, but was primarily on-set for the duration of the series as the stand in for Gary Burghoff, as they had similar stature and skin tone. Ho-Jon was portrayed by Kim Atwood in the film, and Patrick Adiarte in the series. Despite Trapper’s efforts, however, she becomes romantically linked with Hawkeye in a few episodes.
Before playing Flagg, Winter played a similar character named Captain Halloran in the episode “Deal Me Out”. In both the film and the series, Hammond has a cordial relationship with Col. Blake. In the series pilot, it is clear that he is a surgeon as well as an administrator, and his first name is Hamilton. Originally from Honolulu, she described herself as “part Chinese, part Hawaiian” in episode 11 of season 8 “Life Time”, and speaks Japanese, as revealed in “Communication Breakdown”, season 10 episode.