Frank Burns

[MrMatt]

When the writers took Hot Lips and turned her into Margaret, and thus away from Frank, it has always felt mean-spirited. Hot Lips was the balance to Hawkeye-Trapper/BJ to Frank Burns.

I have always felt empathy toward the Frank Burns character as he found himself increasingly isolated through season 5.

[Marvo301]

I think this is at least part of the reason Larry Linville decided to leave M*A*S*H.

[MrMatt]

I'm sure you're right. The Winchester character works because he never had an allegiance to anyone in camp prior.

With Frank, he was betrayed, essentially, by Margaret (as her character evolved) and he was left isolated and targeted. I wonder if Linville felt this internally as the season 5 production schedule wore on?

[steevo]

Originally Posted by MrMatt

When the writers took Hot Lips and turned her into Margaret, and thus away from Frank, it has always felt mean-spirited. Hot Lips was the balance to Hawkeye-Trapper/BJ to Frank Burns.

I have always felt empathy toward the Frank Burns character as he found himself increasingly isolated through season 5.

I agree. After Margaret got engaged to Donald, Frank seemed to have less to do. BY the end of season 5, the character seemed to have nowhere left to go, and I am not surprised Larry Linville left after this season. With the show becoming more serious in the following seasons, Frank probably would not have fit in with the themes.

[Retro4Life]

Originally Posted by steevo

I agree. After Margaret got engaged to Donald, Frank seemed to have less to do. BY the end of season 5, the character seemed to have nowhere left to go, and I am not surprised Larry Linville left after this season. With the show becoming more serious in the following seasons, Frank probably would not have fit in with the themes.

Also, not to take anything away from Linville's great portrayal of Frank, but that character wasn't exactly a well rounded one. Not many shades there. I will always think of Winchester as the better "foil" because he had layers, and therefore there was more for the writers to work with.

[Marvo301]

Originally Posted by Retro4Life

Also, not to take anything away from Linville's great portrayal of Frank, but that character wasn't exactly a well rounded one. Not many shades there. I will always think of Winchester as the better "foil" because he had layers, and therefore there was more for the writers to work with.

I agree Winchester was a much more well rounded character than Frank Burns and therefore a better foil for Hawkeye and B.J.. And I also love how the writers used David Ogden Stiers love of classical music to round out the character of Charles.

[Yong Fang]

Linville's Frank was priceless and I have appreciated him more now as an adult who has watched this show countless times the last almost 40 years.

I would of written Frank as someone who WAS a good surgeon who did intellectual capability, instead of just being the fool to Alda's character.

[TMC]

Originally Posted by Retro4Life

Also, not to take anything away from Linville's great portrayal of Frank, but that character wasn't exactly a well rounded one. Not many shades there. I will always think of Winchester as the better "foil" because he had layers, and therefore there was more for the writers to work with.

More M*A*S*H-Bashing

Not a lot of posting time today, so I'll do what I did last time I didn't have anything to post about and bash M*A*S*H and Larry Gelbart. One of the things I was thinking of when I talked about Gelbart's "one-note characterization" was the way Frank Burns actually regressed as a character. In the first season of M*A*S*H*, we were occasionally given a hint that Burns might develop into an interesting character, a three-dimensional antagonist. Nothing major (no pun intended), but an occasional glimmer of complexity. In an early episode, "Henry, Please Come Home," Colonel Blake mentions that Burns is hard to get along with "but he's a good surgeon and we need him." In another first-season episode, "Sticky Wicket," Hawkeye is tormented by his inability to diagnose what's wrong with a patient -- and Frank, pleased that Hawkeye is the loser for once, taunts him for it. But at the end of the episode, when Hawkeye finally figures out what's wrong, Frank has a moment of unexpected graciousness, saying: "Anyone could have missed that," to which Hawkeye replies, "Thanks, Frank."

That's the kind of moment that helps humanize the antagonist, remind you that not even a creep is a creep 100% of the time, just as the hero isn't always heroic. But as the series went on, Burns became less and less human and more and more of a cartoon antagonist, even more of a one-dimensional cartoon character than in the movie (which is saying something). He became such an incompetent surgeon that you wondered how he ever could have practiced back home without being thrown out of the profession; he was never allowed to be right or to be unambiguously friendly or nice. But think of what another showrunner than Gelbart could have done with a character like this; he's a hypocrite, sure, but there's also some potential sympathy for someone wants to think of himself as a conventionally good person but winds up giving in to his "sinful" desires. Just because a character is a jerk doesn't mean there can't be some sympathy for him; think of the great humanized jerks of sitcom history, like Ted Baxter, Herb Tarlek, Alan Brady, Louie DePalma, and of course, Archie Bunker. Characters who are basically horrible but very human and real. Gelbart didn't do this with Frank Burns; he made him not a person, but a function -- the designated Always Wrong guy. There were other examples of bad characterization in the Gelbart years of M*A*S*H, like the generally poor writing for Trapper John (could anyone blame Wayne Rogers for not knowing what his function on the show was supposed to be?), but that was the worst.

The question that now arises is, do I prefer the later, post-Gelbart seasons of M*A*S*H? I definitely think that some of the writing on the later M*A*S*H episodes, with the addition of writers like Ken Levine and David Isaacs and further contributions from Gelbart-era writers like Laurence Marks and Everett Greenbaum and Jim Fritzell, was better overall than in most of Gelbart's scripts (Gelbart's writing has always struck me as a bunch of platitudes overlaid with soulless Bob Hope-style one-liners). And Major Winchester, as an antagonist, was everything Burns wasn't: a humanized, interesting, but flawed character. But those seasons had their own problems, notably the legendary insufferability of Alan Alda and the descent into unfunniness of almost every character and performer. On the whole, I just feel like I've watched more episodes of M*A*S*H than I probably should have, and I'll stick to my "Hogan's Heroes was better" mantra.

[Alan Brady's Hair]

Ted Baxter, Herb Tarlek, Alan Brady, Louie DePalma, and of course, Archie Bunker.

This is a good point: if Ted Baxter was eventually humanized, then any character can be. The more I see of MASH, the more I see that a lot of ego was involved with the bashing of Frank. They even took a shot at him in the last scene of the last regular episode. That's not an accident.

[gettoknowsomeone]

I don't remember the episode or the context but I recall one scene where Frank on the phone with his mother having a heartfelt conversation and it was revealed that he was bullied as a child - "They don't like me here either, mother". It was the only time that I am aware where Frank Burns was given human depth - that he acts like an ass as an reaction to how he was treated - but unfortunately it was never expanded upon.

I never understood why Margaret was allowed to grow while Frank remained the one-dimensional cartoon villain throughout his tenure on the show.

[Chocolate Moose]

agreed, they didn't do enough with his character.

[Doug-oh]

Originally Posted by gettoknowsomeone

I don't remember the episode or the context but I recall one scene where Frank on the phone with his mother having a heartfelt conversation and it was revealed that he was bullied as a child - "They don't like me here either, mother". It was the only time that I am aware where Frank Burns was given human depth - that he acts like an ass as an reaction to how he was treated - but unfortunately it was never expanded upon.

I never understood why Margaret was allowed to grow while Frank remained the one-dimensional cartoon villain throughout his tenure on the show.

The writers certainly could have done much more with Burns' character.

Think of it this way: if there hadn't been a Frank Burns character, whoever played it, there wouldn't have been a MASH.

Or, if the Hawkeye and Trap were joined by a Chas.-type character in the first seasons, it wouldn't have worked.

[Rich3]

He was too one sided. It just couldn't work for long as a main character.

[Edward216]

Originally Posted by gettoknowsomeone

I don't remember the episode or the context but I recall one scene where Frank on the phone with his mother having a heartfelt conversation and it was revealed that he was bullied as a child - "They don't like me here either, mother". It was the only time that I am aware where Frank Burns was given human depth - that he acts like an ass as an reaction to how he was treated - but unfortunately it was never expanded upon.

I never understood why Margaret was allowed to grow while Frank remained the one-dimensional cartoon villain throughout his tenure on the show.

Well, I'll never understand why on earth Margaret was ever attracted to Frank to begin with! Frank wasn't a likable man, and he was never going to be likable.

Ed.