"M*A*S*H" didjaknows

[AKA]

It was decided that "Trapper John, M.D." was a spinoff of the movie, not the series.

Gary Burghoff's left hand is slightly deformed. He did a pretty good job of hiding it in the film and series.

Alan Alda played the recurring character, Dr. Gabriel Lawrence, on ER in 1999. Dr. Lawrence once reminisced about serving in the war as a doctor.

Klinger's attempt to be thrown out of the army by wearing women's clothing was inspired by the comedian Lenny Bruce, who similarly attempted to win his way home from active service by dressing up as a WAVE (female officer).

Alan Alda took over two roles from Donald Sutherland: Dr. Hawkeye Pierce on the M*A*S*H TV series, and Flan in "Six Degrees Of Separation," which he played in an audio books recording.

21 years later, "Goodbye, Farewell And Amen" is still the highest-rated episode of any network series.

The laugh track was added to the series upon the insistence of CBS. The producers were against it, which is why no pauses were inserted after the funnier lines to add the laugh track.

Upon its original airing in the UK, the BBC showed the series sans laugh track.

Alan Alda is the only actor to appear in every episode of the series.

Jamie Farr actually served in the Army in Korea, but after the Korean war was over.

Roger Bowen, who played Lt. Col. Henry Blake in the film died the day after McLean Stevenson, who played Lt. Col. Henry Blake in the series. Both men died of a heart attack. McLean died on February 15, 1996 at the age of 66, and Bowen died on February 16, 1996 at the age of 63.

Anyone got anymore didjaknows?

[Sterling Holobyte]

Originally posted by AKA
Gary Burghoff's left hand is slightly deformed. He did a pretty good job of hiding it in the film and series.

That's the only one I knew!
...and here I thought I was pretty knowledgeable when it came to MASH!

[TJL]

Great! AKA is amassing "M*A*S*H" trivia!

We have a convert!

Let me see what I can add:

Loretta Switt disliked wearing the heavy Army boots and in later years wore sneakers when her feet wouldn't show in a take.

Jamie Farr was originally going to be portray Klinger as a very "flamboyant" soldier who liked to dress in women's clothes, but when they saw how Farr, a very hairy tough sounding guy looked in a dress, the producers thought it would be funnier if he played Klinger as a regular Joe who wore dresses.

[AKA]

A few people who appeared on M*A*S*H before they became bigshots: Andrew Dice Clay, Laurence Fishburne, Teri Garr, Shelley Long, Pat Morita, Joe Pantoliano, John Ritter, Patrick Swayze, George Wendt, Rita Wilson, and Burt "Pauly" Young. Ron Howard appeared in the first season, but he was already a little bigshot.

Alan Alda's father, Robert, and half-brother, Antony, both appear in the episode "Lend A Hand."

Timothy Brown, who played Spearchucker Jones, made his film debut in the film as Cpl. Judson. Fred Williamson played Spearchucker in the movie.

Alan Alda's real name: Alphonso D'Abruzzo.

Gary Burghoff holds several patents on fishing lures.

Gary Burghoff and G. Wood (General Hammond) are the only two actors to reprise their roles from the film in the series.

Loretta Swit wanted to leave M*A*S*H after the ninth season to star in the series Cagney And Lacey (Swit played Cagney in the original TV movie), but Fox wouldn't let her out of her contract. The role went to Sharon Gless.

[TJL]

Originally posted by AKA

Loretta Swit wanted to leave M*A*S*H after the ninth season to star in the series Cagney And Lacey (Swit played Cagney in the original TV movie), but Fox wouldn't let her out of her contract.

And she was mighty pissed about that.

[Screenwriter]

There was a discarded plot idea. The plot was that Hawkeye was dating two girls, each one on a different shift... the girls find out about his duplicity... and fake a pregnancy.... when CBS denied the idea Larry Gelbart had told them... "and what are Frank and Hot Lips doing? Chewing on each other's epaulets?"

[treky]

Hawkeye was orriginally supposed to be married like in the book and movie, and have a girlfriend at the unit, but CBS nixed the idea since Frank, Trapper and Col. Blake were married and dating others. "After all" they said "it's a show about doctors, not adultery".

In one episode, the script called for Radar to say someone's a virgin, but the censors nixed it. But, the producers got back at them later, somewhat, by having a soldier say he's from the Virgin Islands.

Richard Thornberger, who wrote the book under the name Richard Hooker, wrote the sequels to it, as sort of a, I guess you could say, "attack" on the show, which he hated.

[ficlopri]

Originally posted by AKA
A few people who appeared on M*A*S*H before they became bigshots: Andrew Dice Clay, Laurence Fishburne, Teri Garr, Shelley Long, Pat Morita, Joe Pantoliano, John Ritter, Patrick Swayze, George Wendt, Rita Wilson, and Burt "Pauly" Young. Ron Howard appeared in the first season, but he was already a little bigshot.

Alan Alda's father, Robert, and half-brother, Antony, both appear in the episode "Lend A Hand."

Timothy Brown, who played Spearchucker Jones, made his film debut in the film as Cpl. Judson. Fred Williamson played Spearchucker in the movie.

Alan Alda's real name: Alphonso D'Abruzzo.

Gary Burghoff holds several patents on fishing lures.

Gary Burghoff and G. Wood (General Hammond) are the only two actors to reprise their roles from the film in the series.

Loretta Swit wanted to leave M*A*S*H after the ninth season to star in the series Cagney And Lacey (Swit played Cagney in the original TV movie), but Fox wouldn't let her out of her contract. The role went to Sharon Gless.

Actually the replaced role first went to Meg Foster. Meg herself was replaced by Gless.

[treky]

the show was almost cannceled after the first season. From what I hear, the only reason it came back was because Bill Paleys wife liked it, and asked her husband to renew it. (Bill Paley was the president of CBS in the 70s)