Intro:
There can be few series made for television that have had such an impact in countries all around the world as MASH.
This submission arrived as an obituary but wasn't best suited to being front page story. It was submitted anonymously and we could not therefore suggest to the submitter that he/she put it in a journal - if indeed they have one.
Nevertheless, the fact that somebody created a comedy about a war that had ended many years before, and in which every character would be memorable years later was a concept that few today would back financially as a sure-fire winner. But it was.
It can still be found being repeated on various channels, and the humour remains as sharp as it ever was - along with its anti-war message. It is perhaps a pity that more people don't remember that aspect of it. As well as much laughter there were also moments of intense sadness - but both caused the viewer to think more deeply about the subject of war, and of the doctors, nurses, medics (and clerks!) who never lifted a weapon in anger but who could still hold their heads up high when they finally returned home. Those who served in such roles were changed people as a result of the experience.
What do you remember of the characters that starred in MASH, and which scenes in particular spring to mind whenever a discussion such as this is started? Are there other TV series that have had such an impact on you, and would you recommend them to our community?
And the obituary? It is repeated in full after the break. It is well worth a read...[JR]
The American actor Loretta Swit, who has died aged 87, achieved worldwide fame as Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan, head nurse with a mobile army hospital during the Korean war, in the TV sitcom M*A*S*H. She appeared in all 11 series, from 1972 to 1983 – longer than the conflict that inspired it – taking over the role played by Sally Kellerman in the 1970 film.
Misogyny ran throughout the big-screen version of M*A*S*H in a way that was not present in the 1968 novel by Richard Hooker on which it was based.In the TV version, too, Major Houlihan, a strict disciplinarian, was the butt of sexist jokes from the surgeons and other men in the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital unit, particularly "Hawkeye" Pierce (played by Alan Alda). Swit – who had the only leading female role in the show – took a stand before the fifth series began. She was then allowed to contribute to her character's development, making Houlihan more three-dimensional, warm and brave. "I am a feminist, from the top of my head to the bottom of my toenail, and I favour playing strong women," she told the American magazine Closer Weekly in 2022.
From then on, Swit's character was referred to mainly by her real name rather than as "Hot Lips" and a more human side emerged when Houlihan broke down in front of her nurses, confessing she was hurt by the disdain they held for her because of her stern manner. The character's long-running relationship with Major Frank Burns (Larry Linville) ended and she married Lieutenant Colonel Donald Penobscott (first played by Beeson Carroll and then Mike Henry), whom she later divorced when he cheated on her. Swit's performance won her two Emmy awards as outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series, in 1980 and 1982.
She might have had global recognition for a second TV role, in a programme that was groundbreaking for its portrayal of women, if the M*A*S*H producers had not refused to let her out of her contract. Swit played the police detective Christine Cagney, alongside Tyne Daly as Mary Beth Lacey, in the feature-length 1981 pilot of Cagney & Lacey. It was the first American police drama to feature women in the two lead roles. In Cagney & Lacey, there was gritty realism and the authenticity of women balancing their work and home lives but, as Swit was unavailable, Meg Foster took over as Cagney when the series began, replaced after six episodes by Sharon Gless.
Swit never had another starring vehicle. "Actors are always identified with certain parts," she said. "To some, Marlon Brando will always be the Godfather. That's just how it is."
Perhaps her best film role was as the first female American president – succeeding a former circus clown, a parody of Ronald Reagan – in Whoops Apocalypse (1986), the writers Andrew Marshall and David Renwick's variation on their British sitcom.
Loretta was born in Passaic, New Jersey, to parents of Polish descent, Nellie (nee Kassack) and Lester Szwed, an upholsterer, who anglicised the family name to Swit. She attended Pope Pius XII high school, Passaic, where she appeared in school plays, and Gibbs College, Montclair, New Jersey, then had various secretarial jobs. Moving to New York, she trained in acting with Gene Frankel at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, graduating in 1959. Her break in New York theatre came off-Broadway, at the Circle in the Square in 1961 when she joined the cast of the long-running Actors' Playhouse production of The Balcony, by Jean Genet.
She spent the rest of the decade exclusively on stage until travelling to Hollywood in 1969. Then, she began to get small roles on television, including three in Hawaii Five-O (between 1969 and 1972) and two in Gunsmoke (both in 1970).
Later, she starred on Broadway as Doris in Bernard Slade's "annual adultery" play Same Time, Next Year (Brooks Atkinson theatre, 1975-76), taking over the role originated by Ellen Burstyn. The New York Times observed that she gave a "stylish impersonation" of Burstyn, who had won a Tony award for her performance.
Swit was on Broadway again in Rupert Holmes's musical version of Charles Dickens's unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Imperial theatre, 1985-86), replacing Cleo Laine in the dual roles of the Princess Puffer and Miss Angela Prysock. One stage part that seemed made for Swit was the title character in the British playwright Willy Russell's one-woman show Shirley Valentine, which she took first in Chicago (Wellington and Wisdom Bridge theatres, 1990), then on an American tour (1995) and Canadian stages (1997 and 2010). The role of the bored Liverpool housewife escaping her humdrum life and uncaring husband had been played in the West End of London and the film version by Pauline Collins, who also took it to Broadway. Swit said of the character: "A lot of her experiences are universal – her ambition and desire, her lust for life and feelings of frustration at not fulfilling certain aspects of her own potential. I had kinship with her the moment I read the script."
Eve Ensler's comic and at times seriously political play The Vagina Monologues had Swit as one of the three women taking multiple roles, first at the Westside theatre in New York (1999), then in the West End (Arts theatre, 2001-02) and on an American tour (2002-03).
The actor was a passionate animal activist and supported many charities, as well as setting up her own, SwitHeart Animal Alliance. Her book SwitHeart: The Watercolour Artistry & Animal Activism of Loretta Swit was published in 2017.
Swit's 1983 marriage to the actor and lawyer Dennis Holahan ended in divorce 12 years later.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by turgid on Saturday July 05, @09:22PM (12 children)
We used to sit down quietly as a family and watch it once a week. I thought Hawkeye was great. I got that he was serious about the things that really mattered and frivolous about the ludicrous things in life. I could also see that he was a flawed character.
It was only when Loretta Swit died that I realised she was not Loretta Swift. I then had a look at something else and realised that Godber (and not Godper), Richard Beckinsale, was not Richard Beckinsdale. And the dude in The Hobbit is not Biblo Baggins.
I wish eye could reed.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Insightful) by anubi on Sunday July 06, @12:48AM (10 children)
MASH is going on strong in the Los Angeles, California, USA area. One of our local Over-The -Air TV broadcasters (METV OTA UHF ch56.3 where I am ) runs four episodes a day ( weekdays ).
https://www.metv.com/schedule/2025-07-07 [metv.com]
They almost seem like family. I hope Alda is not different IRL as his on-screen persona. It looks like that sitcom has influenced the entire world.
I wonder, as we inexorably slide into history, which TV series had any appreciable impact on us? For me it is Star Trek , Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, MASH, with honorable mention to Alfred Hitchcock and Twilight Zone. Those did far more than entertain, they taught me ethics, human nature, and common sense.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 06, @01:34AM (2 children)
For most Americans, it appears to be professional wrestling and UFC fights. Ethics and humanity are out the window
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 06, @11:20AM (1 child)
I have to agree. I am trying to be the change I want to see.
This is nothing new. When I was a kid, grandpa was showing me how the farm machinery worked. I was fully absorbed. And in that day, the first TV's were showing up on farms. Grandpa had one. I thought that thing was amazing. Grandpa took the back off so I could see all those tubes glowing and grandpa would tweak rows of little spindles in the back and the picture would tear every which-a-way, roll, pinch up, get real fuzzy, sharp, dim, bright, you name it, and finally something recognizable as a picture of something! I was simply spellbound with curiosity of what made that thing work.
Then the fight. Grandpa found no interest in it. To me it was like watching men trying to damage the TV . Yes I occasionally got hurt on the farm, but it certainly wasn't on purpose. I mean it really *hurt a lot* when something slipped and then something sprung loose and hit me or someone else. Sometimes it hurt for weeks! You mean to tell me people hurt themselves or someone else - on purpose -? And other people stand around and cheer? Grandpa tried to explain it to me that some folks were wired that way and he couldn't explain it either. Something about being a man and being a fool. Grandpa pointed at his corn - most of that is for the animals. Then he points to the animals - those are for the community. Then he points to the tractor - someone else made that for me. Same with everything else...fuel, electricity, tools lumber, books, everything was made by somebody, and being a man was to have something you had made to bring to the table to exchange for things other people made.
If you had nothing to give, all you did was take, well, you just aren't much of a man - you are just a parasite, about as useful as a varmint in the henhouse.
After hearing grandpa speak of all the things he had made, the dinners he provided, the things others provided, I saw the pride of being a man.
These people on TV were lower than a varmint. Taking a perfectly functional human body and hurting it just for show. No farmer would attack his own tractor for show. I never could figure out why anyone would take an interest in this. Go design something. Go build something. Or just help someone else do something so if you help someone else you also see how he does it.
Grandpa planted seeds in me that made me what I am...some call it "Asperger's" because I can't seem to fit in with what I think is lunacy. It's almost impossible to entertain me - just leave me alone and I will entertain myself designing things.
Gramps was the same way. Him and grandma out in the middle of nowhere in their own world, raising crops and animals, and planting seeds in grandkids. Probably selective breeding - same thing Grandpa did with his crops and animals.
It takes a special breed to be a farmer. It took everything I could do to get one part down pat...understanding what makes the machines go.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday July 06, @11:30AM
Pretty similar story here too. My grandpa and my dad taught me well in all kinds of useful things and when I was a small boy I was up there on the tractor, fixing engines, catching fish, collecting peats, repairing boats, planting potatoes, painting, cutting wood, doing sums, programming computers, learning about the world.
I never liked violence. I never wanted to take any part in it. I have a low pain threshold, apart from anything else and it seemed and still seems pointless and counterproductive.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2, Informative) by visiblink on Sunday July 06, @02:55PM (3 children)
Definitiely. One of my earliest memories is of the theme song drifting out from the house as I played outside in the twilight hours.
I know that the show helped to shape my outlook and politics. If I think about it, Michael Landon on Little House on the Prairie was also very influential as a role model -- kind of the epitome of what a good person should be.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday July 06, @05:05PM (2 children)
Positive, successful, humble, monogamous adult male role models have been expunged from media for political reasons since the 80s or so. Coincidentally around the time ratings started imploding. I guess they figure its worth the ratings loss.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday July 06, @05:52PM
Bring back Knight Rider and the A-Team.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Tuesday July 08, @03:31AM
People watch fiction on TV for drama -- for exciting stuff that's different from their everyday boring lives. I don't think it's political reasons that have deprecated "Positive, successful, humble, monogamous adult male role models". I think it's just easier to find the opposite interestingly scandalous, so said opposite keeps more viewers.
And it may be easier to write, too. Easier to create on-screen conflict/
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday July 06, @03:49PM
That's a small time nation-wide network. A "middle of the country" station owner eventually purchased two dozen or so TV stations and wanted to save money by pushing the same content to all the stations; what sells in Chicago will probably sell in Columbus, etc. The little mini-network was so successful that stations not owned by the guy wanted to join in on the fun... I think pretty much every state in the country now has an affiliate.
My only real complaint is they "seem" "subjectively" (possibly inaccurately) to have only purchased the rights to certain episodes they repeat seemingly often. They don't seem to televise all 79 Trek TOS episodes they "seem" to only televise the top 10 or so. I am not sure if this is accurate and I don't know if this problem extends to MASH.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday July 06, @04:42PM
I appreciate the backwards look and its interesting to think about; I'll suggest the closely related topic of what do the new TV shows tell us about the people watching, and point out that something like 90% of legacy network media is currently "procedural drama", which seems like a weird set of cultural values to me. Which might be why on a percentage basis nobody watches anymore.
Something like 90% of characters on TV today are cops, firemen, lawyers, or doctors, its just weird.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday July 06, @05:39PM
You can check out if/how much he's changed [apple.com] on his podcast, which was personally recommended to me. He also had an episode with a bunch of the M*A*S*H* cast a while back.
(Score: 3, Touché) by driverless on Sunday July 06, @09:47AM
Admittedly the way Ronnie Barker pronounced it it could have been anything from Gopper to Gobber.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 06, @12:53AM (11 children)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 06, @01:04AM (2 children)
The laugh track became ubiquitous. It was expected. I don't remember exact names, but a few producers tried shows without it and they bombed immediately. I'm not saying you're wrong- you're entitled to your opinion, and I'm quite sure many share it. There were many other "military" (pseudo anyway) shows ("Hogan's Heros", "Gomer Pyle", others...) at the time
(Score: 2, Funny) by anubi on Sunday July 06, @09:23AM
Most of those shows *had* to use laugh tracks.
Without being clued in, how else would I know when I was supposed to laugh?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday July 06, @04:01PM
It's a boomer-era peaked in the 70s thing. Essentially, all TV shows had to have a laugh track.
Historically, I guess TV comedy came from live stage standup comedy shows, its expected to have drunk people howling away at every comment, so when that genre left the live stage and moved to TV the laugh track was demanded, and it continues to this day.
I don't think comedy is nearly as popular today on TV. The last episode in 1983 of MASH had 126 million out of 233 million americans watching it live, about 54% of the nation's adult population watched that episode. In comparison, the most popular comedy in 2025 AFAIK gets maybe 8M viewers out of 343M figure 2% of the population at most. I don't know how stories in legacy media about MASH will sell to a population utterly disinterested in televised network broadcast comedy. This story likely fascinates the retired folks.
Comedy was the dominant TV format in the 70s and 80s for boomers, but in the 2020s, 98% of the USA population will not watch comedy on TV, not even for free.
It's kind of wild to think about; other genres like pro major league baseball are going thru a similar contraction.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 06, @01:50AM (1 child)
MASH DVD has option for audio w/ canned laughter.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Sunday July 06, @08:58AM
Can you give details of the DVD (boxed set of the series I hope). I would dearly like to get a copy, preferably PAL, although I'm not sure if it makes a difference, these days.
The information available at the various online vendors is unreliable at best, and often missing.
Away from SN, I deal with sight-impaired people, and finding which DVDs actually have audio-description is 'difficult'. I doubt that the ability to disable laugh-tracks would be prominently advertized.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by srobert on Sunday July 06, @03:15AM
The anti-war message was a product of the Vietnam war, which was still going on when MASH started. You'd have been hard pressed in the late 70's and early 80's to find many movies or TV shows that made heroes out of participants in war, unless that war took place in outer space. I was a kid a the time and remember dreading the possibility that when I turned 18 I'd be in the middle of a shooting gallery.
Interesting thing regarding MASH's laugh track. CBS wanted to keep it in. They were accustomed to it and had used it on other shows for decades. MASH's creators wanted to get rid of it. There was a compromise. The laugh track was generally left in, but it was omitted in scenes that took place in the Operating Room.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by damnbunni on Sunday July 06, @06:23AM (1 child)
MASH had an interesting relationship with the laugh track. The businessmen wanted it, the creatives didn't.
The compromise was that each episode aired without a laugh track the first time, but had it in reruns/syndication.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Sunday July 06, @09:30AM
I think the businessmen wanted the laugh tracks because they couldn't figure out where the funny happens either.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday July 06, @10:01AM (2 children)
I think when the BBC showed it, they did so without the canned laughter.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday July 06, @11:19AM (1 child)
I agree. I don't recall ever seeing it with canned laughter.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday July 06, @11:25AM
They sometimes show it on the satellite channels with the laugh tracks. It's very different. Still worth watching, though.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Gaaark on Sunday July 06, @01:39AM (1 child)
I never thought about it until i heard it: the show lasted longer than the actual Korean War.
I liked Radar because he always seemed to be quietly in the background (i guess kinda like me) but was always in the know and ready.
And he knew what was going to happen before it happened, like that damn helicopter!
Good show. Good movie, in it's own way, with it's own actors.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Tuesday July 08, @03:35AM
Technically, has the actual Korean War ended yet?
Has either side surrendered?
Is there a peace treaty?
Are they still shooting across the border?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pTamok on Sunday July 06, @09:19AM (1 child)
The character of Hawkeye carried the show, but needed the foils of the characters Frank Burns and Major Charles Emerson Winchester III. I enjoyed the characters of Father John Mulcahy and Sherman T. Potter.
Two things I got from the character of Hawkeye were that he was intelligent and very skilled in certain areas, and used that intelligence to poke fun at unnecessary (in his view) procedure and pomp. Other people no doubt get other things - I claim no special insight.
And it's M*A*S*H [wikipedia.org], not MASH ( [stereophile.com]1-bit DAC [wikipedia.org])*
I shall have to read the book, much like I read Catch-22 after seeing the film.
*Yes, I did have a Technics CD-player.
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Sunday July 06, @02:00PM
"MASH ( [stereophile.com]1-bit DAC [wikipedia.org])*
Ah, yes. Those were the days. Lol
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Sunday July 06, @01:57PM (6 children)
"What do you remember of the characters that starred in MASH"
I remember the constant bitching and moaning of Alda's character, which seemed funny at the time. Unfortunately, he carried it over into so many of the other characters he played. It became a lot less a less funny as he got older and more crotchety, much like other "funny guys" of his day (Martin, Chase, Carlin, et al.)
Farr's Klinger would never ever be tolerated in today's world because homosexuality in the military is very, very serious now, and nothing to joke about - like so many other things we used to laugh at.
Burghoff's O'Reily was a favorite and his performance, along with Swit's, has best withstood the test of time.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jman on Sunday July 06, @03:27PM
Stellar cast, with Steven Wright as a barfly, Edi Falco as Horace's sister, SNL's Aidi Bryant as his daughter, Jessica Lange who was "involved" with Horace's father before he died, and yes, Alan Alda as Horace's "Uncle Pete", an unabashed, foul-mouthed racist, still behind the bar, yet somehow a good, standup guy.
Many cameos and small appearances (Bill de Blasio, David Blaine, George Wallace, Colin Quinn, Tom Noonan...), and of course he managed to get a theme song out of Paul Simon, who also appears at the bar in one episode.
I got it from his website when it first came out, but believe, as the ghost of Mickey appears to own everything now, it may be on the Hulu.
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Sunday July 06, @04:20PM (1 child)
"Farr's Klinger would never ever be tolerated in today's world because homosexuality in the military is very, very serious now, and nothing to joke about"
Apparently missed it by a mile, his character played a straight man dressed as woman transvestite in order to get out of the army on a mental defect case for that, nothing to do with homosexuality. It was one hell of a show that I watched every episode of live as aired and many years after ward when getting the DVDs. It still stands the test of time to this very day.
Those people are not attacking Tesla dealerships. They are tourists showing love. I learned that on Jan. 6, 2021.
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Monday July 07, @04:59PM
"his character played a straight man dressed as woman transvestite in order to get out of the army on a mental defect case for that, nothing to do with homosexuality."
In the early 1950s, transvestism would have been classified as homosexuality. Homosexuality was considered to be a disease and was listed as such in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders until 1987.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday July 06, @04:54PM
Another oddity can't stop seeing it once you notice it: Pre-1980s or so, about 20% of characters in legacy media had a pretty severe alcoholism problem. Yeah like 1 in 5 or so had the Dwarf Fortress "can't get thru the day without a drink or ... ten"
I don't know if "ha ha your surgeon is drunk ha ha" would have quite the laughs, post 1980s. I think it would have been hard for the show to make it into the 90s given the content of some of the older episodes, the guys having their homemade moonshine still in the hut, etc.
Aside from the obvious "everyone smoked", its kind of weird to tune in during the 2020s and see an episode of "yeah alcoholism is actually pretty cool" as a message.
Infinite legacy media scenes of office desks with a bottle of liquor conveniently located in them, next to the carbon paper forms and the mechanical typewriters of the era. Right about the time desktop PCs appeared on desks, the bottle of liquor disappeared; I for one blame Microsoft and Intel.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday July 06, @04:59PM (1 child)
Interesting note: I was in the Army, post-draft, and those guys were extremely unpopular. Constant bitching about everything all the time seemed to be a draft-era Army thing.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by janrinok on Sunday July 06, @06:34PM
Well, that was partly the point. They didn't ask to be there. They were not volunteers to go to Korea (or Vietnam). They had every right to complain about the waste of lives, the disruption to their own professional careers, the separation from loved ones, and the fact that they lived in pretty bad conditions.
If you were post-draft era then you presumably knew what you were getting into. So did I. I enjoyed most of my 37 years in uniform but that doesn't mean I also enjoyed the occasions when I had to live in a bomb damaged building for 6 months (Sarajevo) or in tented camps in Northern Iraq for 4 months. But that comes with the job. I DID enjoy over 6 years in Germany, 2 years in Moscow, 5 years in Gibraltar, many years as operational aircrew, and even 6 months in the Falkland Islands.
I can understand how somebody who was drafted might view the postings that I had, even the ones that I enjoyed, and find plenty to complain about. And being separated against one's will from family and friends for extended periods of time can also affect people differently.
The modern forces are better for being all-volunteers, but that doesn't mean that those who did not have a choice should have just accepted their lot without complaint.
However, one of the things that I realised from watching MASH was that, despite the conditions and their unwillingness to be there, they always did a professional job often in inadequate circumstances. That is worth some recognition I think.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jman on Sunday July 06, @02:47PM
Ah, Mash. The show was good. Really enjoyed the books.
The first one was actually written by two guys, under the pseodonym Richard Hooker; one a military surgeon in the Korean war, the other a WW II correspendent. It came out in '68, though the surgeon had been "jotting down" his experiences from the early 50's for some time.
As opposed to the TV show, in the book, Burns gets sent back to US soil after one too many dustups with his fellow Swampmen Hawkeye, Trapper John, and Duke; Stier's character Winchester wasn't even there. Burns leaving the Swamp was how Spearchucker Jones came to live with them.
The second book, "Mash Goes To Maine" was written by the surgeon, but still used the Hooker pseudonym. In it Hawkeye lures the three other Swampmen back to his childhood home of Crab Apple Cove, Maine, where they opened and operated the "Finest Kind Fishmarket and Clinic".
The remaining "Mash goes to..." books, while purported to be authored by Hooker and William Edmund Butterworth (actual name of mystery writer W.E.B. Griffin), were mostly written by Butterworth. While more light-hearted and fanciful, they still remained faithful to the tone of the characters.
Those books, like "Mash Goes To Maine", were about their lives after returing from Korea. Somehow the folks would meet up all over, and the old crew did quite well for themselves. Radar O'Reilly went on to supplying food for the major airlines, becoming quite wealthy. Colonel Blake stayed in the military and was promoted to General (Stevenson wanted to leave the TV show, which is why they had to have him get killed in a plane crash, giving us Dragnet's Harry Morgan as Colonel Potter). Father Mulcahey became a Bishop. Duke got rich by discovering oil on his hometown property in Georgia. Hot Lips Houlihan became the Reverend Mother of a gay church in San Francisco.
They were all fun reads back in the 70's, coming out as the TV show kept producing episodes. The last book, Mash Mania, came out in '77, written by Hooker.
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Tuesday July 08, @06:48AM
I refused to watch any more. I couldn't see anything but hatred of America limited only by the necessity to avoid courts martial.
It did cause me to go back and reconsider The Phil Silvers Show, and now I despise that too.