TGI – MAS*H 810 “The Yalu Brick Road”

Transcript

00:00:20 Speaker 1: Do you remember when we did try to do a show together called Ady d TV? 00:00:25 Speaker 2: Do I remember? It was a seminal moment in my life. It was really when I really fell in love with my wife, right, that was a big part of it. But yeah, it was years, dude, We were on that for years. 00:00:37 Speaker 1: We had so much so for everybody out there, we were, I think, way ahead of the game because now it's kind of what everybody's looking for. 00:00:44 Speaker 3: But we thought that Saturday Night Live. 00:00:47 Speaker 1: As good and funny as it was, was antiquated in its format. So the acting was funny, the sketches were funny, but we thought the sketches were too long. The musical guest should only come on once and at the most should be an hour. But then we thought that's even too much, and we wanted to do a thing where it's like you're flipping through the channels. 00:01:05 Speaker 3: And remember the longest skit was what a minute? 00:01:08 Speaker 2: Yeah, our goal was to keep everything under ninety seconds and yeah, just like an overwhelming amount of joke content and to not develop any of it. Well well, actually at some point we did break, like we broke some skits up into like six parts. 00:01:25 Speaker 1: Well, remember there would be there would be one main skit throughout the episodes that we would break up three times, and then individual skits in which we work. 00:01:32 Speaker 2: But add went through many phases. But the first phase was let's just get together and shoot what we think is funny, and so we wrote some great skits. We got Jeff Sherman involved as one of the writers from Boy Meets World. We got Steve Hibbert involved, Yeah, the legendary John DiMaggio. My brother was there. You and I were in every skit. 00:01:51 Speaker 3: Ef. 00:01:51 Speaker 2: We're doing a lot. 00:01:52 Speaker 3: Of different characters. 00:01:53 Speaker 2: Your wife, I had just worked with her on Pepper Dennis and we had an actress drop out the like three days before we started filming, and we were shooting mostly at your house, and then we had a stage that we got access to and we shot a whole bunch of content over the course of I think two weekends and had the greatest time. 00:02:14 Speaker 1: We not only had the greatest time, but it's still some of my favorite skits I've ever done. I mean, we at one point we got fully dressed up as the founding fathers and we did the DVD commentary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, so outdated. 00:02:33 Speaker 2: Now I mean even the name add is outdated because now it would be ADHD TV right, Oh my god. The signing, and then we did the Bible Writer's room. 00:02:42 Speaker 3: The Bible writers are amazing for everybody. 00:02:46 Speaker 2: Was like, we had so much money, yeah, and I really what happened is Alex came and saved us because we had this actors drop out. 00:02:52 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:02:52 Speaker 2: And I just remember being like, you're gonna play We're doing a cookie show. You got to play like a really pick off Rachel Ray. And then like five minutes later, Okay, now you gotta be a kling on. And then like five minutes later, could you could we put on this strap on bildo. It's really gonna be funny, do you remember? And she was like okay, and she played all these characters and I was just like I am so in awe of your talent and your your willingness to be game. And we had Yes. 00:03:21 Speaker 1: The first skit we shot, No, the first skit we shot was MythBusters, and the myth we were breaking was the myth of the female orgasm. 00:03:31 Speaker 2: I just some of the most fun to because I remember I was at first, I was like, well, I'm not going to be in many of these, I'll just help write them and produce them and put them together. And then I remember you had this. Then you were like, we just just keep doing like random phobias, and you were like, we should just do sketches that just expose a certain phobia. And you were like, somehow the phobia of someone with an English accent? 00:03:52 Speaker 3: Do you remember? 00:03:53 Speaker 2: And I just had to be and it was just me improvising with like a horrible English accent, and yeah, I just could not get through it. Would you like to see my boot? We were doing so many. 00:04:07 Speaker 1: We had one it was the Shiloh was you and Shiloh were little kids running around with the new toy mister Pointy thing, which was just the giant like spike that would Yeah, it just goes. 00:04:17 Speaker 2: To show like when. So we shot a bunch of it. We had a lot more ideas. Eventually, the pitch that we actually did take around was that we would go to colleges. Do you remember? Yeah, So the idea was that, and that we had John Landis attached to direct. 00:04:31 Speaker 1: For us was going to direct, and then Second was it. Second City was going to produce like we had it. 00:04:36 Speaker 2: And we're going to go to colleges and do basically like a mini Saturday Night Live, but at a different college every week or every month or whatever. The idea was that you and I would host, we'd bring a band, and we do a college live show and also shoot all these sketches to be in between. That's a great idea. 00:04:51 Speaker 3: It's a great idea. It's still a great idea. 00:04:54 Speaker 1: But I was thinking about it the other day because we could do so many ad D skits now that are so conducive to the phone. 00:05:02 Speaker 3: I mean, that's what it is now. 00:05:03 Speaker 1: Essentially, what we were doing is what people are looking for, quick funny content. I mean we had so much. I bet I wonder if I could even find all that footage somewhere. I don't even know where the hell it is. 00:05:12 Speaker 2: We don't want to find it, no, nope, no, no. I remember. 00:05:16 Speaker 3: One of them is just we were switch switching around titles. One of them was just ride My Pimp instead of Pimp My Ride. 00:05:22 Speaker 1: Really remember it was just Alex riding John Demaggio down the streets. 00:05:27 Speaker 2: I don't remember that at all. Puppets Gone Wild. 00:05:31 Speaker 3: Puppets Gone Wild was great, Oh my god. 00:05:34 Speaker 1: I mean we had some that were just so, and then we did an entire cling on. 00:05:39 Speaker 3: Telenovela. It was a soap opera, but everybody was. 00:05:43 Speaker 2: Just staying translating cling on. 00:05:45 Speaker 1: It was literally yes, yes, we had so many good skits. 00:05:51 Speaker 3: Oh, it was great. 00:05:53 Speaker 2: What are we doing today? What are we talking about? 00:05:57 Speaker 1: We're talking about something I've wanted to talk about for Well, I guess now I have to do this. Welcome to Pod Meats World. I'm not Danielle Fischel, neither are you. I'm Willfordell. 00:06:06 Speaker 2: I'm right or strong, and that's Will fordll. 00:06:09 Speaker 4: Yes, we will be taping a live episode of Pod Meets World at Disney California Adventure Park on December fourth, twenty twenty five. 00:06:23 Speaker 1: If you live in the Southern California area or if you can be in the Southern California area on December fourth, we have an opportunity for you to join us. 00:06:31 Speaker 4: Between now and November twenty fourth of twenty twenty five, you can enter for your chance to win tickets to attend the Coast one oh three point five private holiday Party at Disney California Adventure Park on December fourth, twenty twenty five, including an overnight stay at the Disneyland Resort Hotel for a family of four and two day, one park per day tickets to Disneyland Park or Disney California Adventure Park. 00:06:59 Speaker 2: Plus you'll have the checks to meet us while we're taping an episode of Pod Meets World inside Disney California Adventure Park. 00:07:05 Speaker 1: Visit Coast one O three five dot com forward slash Pod Meets World Now to enter for your chance to win. 00:07:19 Speaker 3: Believe it or not, I don't know if any of you aware of this, but are our third co host? 00:07:24 Speaker 1: Are our sister in love, Danielle Fischel is a little busy, and so we have been kind of covering for her because she's lazy and doing ninety two different things and. 00:07:39 Speaker 3: We're we're we're plugging along without her. 00:07:42 Speaker 1: And frankly, what we're doing this week is something I've wanted to do for quite a while. 00:07:45 Speaker 3: Though this might not be the exact episode I was. 00:07:47 Speaker 2: Gonna say, why are we doing this the right way? Because no, we're doing this based on the holiday. 00:07:52 Speaker 3: Correct. 00:07:52 Speaker 1: Okay, we're not doing this the right way at all, but you know, we've had a lot of fun doing our well what started with some TGIF holidayisodes. 00:08:00 Speaker 3: So we started with certain very famous Halloween. 00:08:02 Speaker 1: Episodes and then of course when we got into Fresh Prince of bel Air, we kind of went off the TGIF track, but we stuck with the Halloween theme and what comes after Halloween Flag Day yep, so we're doing all the most fit now of course Thanksgiving, and so we're going to do some of the most famous Thanksgiving episodes of all time, or at least Thanksgiving episodes from some of the most famous shows of all time. That might be the best way of putting it, because this show is famous, hugely important in my life. But I never would have started with season eight, episode ten, but it is a Thanksgiving episode. Yes, of course we were talking about the wonderful Mash and as they say, when the cat's away, the Daniyettes will play. It's a real make a wish situation for me here on Podmeets World. As we continue our holiday tour through family sitcoms now cruising into Thanksgiving and with Danielle off on her whimsical dancing side mission, I was asked if there are any holiday TV themed episodes that I want to explore, and the answer was simple. I wanted to do Mash, but there's not really super famous holiday episodes from MASH, but there was one, And so we're actually gonna bring an episode of Mash to Pod meets World? 00:09:13 Speaker 3: Are you excited about this? Had you seen Mash? 00:09:15 Speaker 2: Ever? I didn't. I yes, I had tried to. Like, I just remember going to my grandmother's house and Mash being right at times and being very confused. Okay, he was like it's a war show, and the opening credits always made it seem like like important things were gonna be happening, like it was a drama show. Like I was like, yo, is this kind of like Chips or other shows where they have like, you know, people in helicopters and motorcycles. And then I just remember being like, oh there's a laugh track. Yeah, but there's is clearly not shot in a studio. It is actually some of it, I guess, right. I am just I was always confused and I but I watching this, I was like, oh, actually I know some of these faces and these voices, like these people do. I mean, I always knew who Alan Aldo was because I've seen him in other things obviously, so I always knew who he was. But yeah, I realized while I was watching this and I must have watched more than you know, probably five episodes in my early childhood. But I just I've absorbed these people. I've absorbed some of these characters. They're like deep in me and like the name sound familiar. But no, I don't think I've consciously watched an episode of MASH until this one. And I must say no, less confused. 00:10:32 Speaker 1: Yeah, well, yeah, of course, still very baffled by this show. You're also missing some of the most famous characters in all of MASH. So starting starting this late, Radars not on the show, Clingers no longer cross dressing, Frank Burns isn't on the show, Trappers not on the show. 00:10:52 Speaker 3: Colonel Blake isn't on the show. I mean the later episodes. 00:10:54 Speaker 1: It's a essentially an entirely different The only cast members that started and ended the SHO show are and again some of them became more famous as they went on, but became more popular in the show as they went on. But Alan Alda obviously as Hawkeye, was there from beginning to end. Loretta Switt as hot lipschoola hand was there from beginning to end. Father Mokahey was there but really was barely in the episodes and it was a different actor who played the part in the pilot. 00:11:23 Speaker 3: Oh interesting, and Clinger was the tipanga of the show. 00:11:26 Speaker 1: Clinger was supposed to be a one off in one episode and ended up on all eleven seasons of the show, but not in every episode at. 00:11:32 Speaker 3: Least till the eleven seasons. 00:11:34 Speaker 1: Eleven seasons of the show, And so that's what we can get into for those of you who don't know. Mash was one of the most popular TV shows of all time, premiering in nineteen seventy two on CBS and airing for yes eleven seasons, closing with a final episode that drew over one hundred million viewers. It's the highest rated television episode of all time at first in nineteen seventy a film by Robert Altman came out of the same name, but that was based on a book called Mash by Richard T. Hooker, and it follows the doc and staff of the four to ozh Double seven Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War. It weaved in between sharp comedy and emotional drama as they dealt with the horrors of war through humor, compassion, and camaraderie. And by the way, you can all watch all the episodes of mash on Hulu. You should, including the one that we'll be watching today. As I said, season eight, episode ten, they Yallow Brick Road, chosen by producer Tara for the holiday. I will blame her if you don't like the show. I would have picked something different, but again, it wouldn't have been on theme, So I get where we're going. It first aired November nineteenth, nineteen seventy nine, just in time for Thanksgiving, and it scored a rating of twenty two million viewers. 00:12:36 Speaker 3: Wow, could you imagine that? Now? 00:12:37 Speaker 1: Dancing with the Stars arguably the biggest pop show of the year, pop culture show that we've had non TV at all seven million viewers, and they're ecstatic with seven million viewers. So first, let's get into the synopsis of the episode. Hawkeye and Bjay get lost in enemy territory while Clinger's Thanksgiving turkey sickens most of the camp with salmonella. It was directed by Charles M. Dubin, a wildly prolific director who, by the way, I just want to couch this by saying, unfortunately, ninety percent of the cast I'm going to talk about and the directors everybody else. Most of these people are gone now because we're doing the show from nineteen seventy two. So if I keep saying they passed in, they passed in, it's because it's an old show. So he was a wildly prolific director who has every show from the sixties and seventies on his resume. He did forty four episodes of Mash and is also known for his work on Kojak, Hawaii, f I O, and Sanford and Son, and most interestingly, Dubin was subpoened and appeared before the House Committee on Unamerican Activities in nineteen fifty eight. He vehemently denied being a communist, but refused to say if he had ever been one, getting him blacklisted twice in the nineteen fifties by McCarthy and his committee. 00:13:44 Speaker 3: He passed away in twenty eleven. 00:13:45 Speaker 1: At the age of ninety two. It was written by Mike Farrell, who is best known as one of the actors on the show. He played Captain B. J. Honeycutt, and this is one of four scripts that bear his name. One was nominated for an Emmy. He was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor for the show as well. Also appeared on Desperate Housewives. 00:14:01 Speaker 2: Matt Locke and his honeycut in this episode, Yeah. 00:14:04 Speaker 3: He's the one. It's sitting next to Alan Aldo the whole time. That's bj. Yeah. 00:14:09 Speaker 1: So originally, for a little backstory, when the show started, which was based on the book it is Hawkeye and Trapper John McIntyre are the two guys that are best friends. Colonel Blake is the commanding officer and in the same episode which is arguably one of the most famous episodes of television of all time, called ABC and Ya Henry, which was the last episode of season three, McClean Stevenson, who played Henry Blake was getting it's now become public knowledge as the. 00:14:38 Speaker 3: Show is getting more popular. 00:14:39 Speaker 1: He was getting eleven hundred dollars an episode to play the role. He was then offered a million dollars by NBC in the seventies to come over and take over like it was like a Tonight Show with Johnny Carson type of thing. He was a huge comedian at the time, a huge writer at the time, and he was going through a very bad divorce. 00:15:00 Speaker 3: So he's like, I have to go. He went to Matt. 00:15:03 Speaker 1: The people at MASH were pissed that he was leaving, and without his knowledge, they wrote the entire episode where he leaves and they see him go away in a chopper. As they see him go away in a chopper, they then call the rest of the cast together and hand them another scene. And the other scene they hand them is they walk in and say his plane was shot down and he died on the way home. Oh my god, So they kill off the character. It was one of the most famous things in television history. 00:15:27 Speaker 2: If they could never bring him back. 00:15:29 Speaker 1: Correct, they were mad at him. He was then mad about that. It was a big famous thing in telegon history. 00:15:36 Speaker 2: Show didn't it did not? 00:15:37 Speaker 1: And he has had did interviews afterwards saying, you know, had we known what was going to happen with Mash, obviously I would have stayed. 00:15:43 Speaker 3: But He's like, I flat out needed the money. I mean I just I needed the money. 00:15:46 Speaker 1: But what some people that One of the things that that overshadowed is that Wayne Rodgers, who played Trapper John left in the same episode. He got into a contract dispute with Mash. He was famous for making a ridiculous amount of money, so not on the show, but he would all he asked for in his contract was I want a telephone in my dressing room. I want a telephone on the set. And he would sit there and buy and sell real estate all day long on the set of Mash made a ton of money and then what he did is he turned it into this giant business where he then helped actors invest money in Hollywood. And I think when he finally passed away, it passed away a very very wealthy man. But people forget that these two main characters of the show both left the same episode. So yeah, so Mike Ferrell comes in in season four, he does season four through season eleven. They then switch Wayne Rodgers' character for bj Honeycutt, and actually Mash did that better than almost anybody is switching out characters. So Colonel Blake becomes Colonel Potter, who's played by Henry Morgan, Wayne Rodgers, Leaves and Honeycutt comes in, and then season five Frank Burns, Leaves and Winchester come in. So they're constantly adding new characters and they pretty much do it seamlessly. It's pretty amazing. 00:17:05 Speaker 2: And they didn't replace actors except for. 00:17:07 Speaker 1: The priest in just what in the first episode a different priest played played Moultation. 00:17:13 Speaker 2: Meets World with the Morgan as a completely different act. 00:17:16 Speaker 3: They did not, thankfully. But let's get into the cast. 00:17:20 Speaker 1: So, as writers said, Alan Alda plays Captain Benjamin Franklin Hawkeye Pierce. Alda is one of TV's greatest actors of all time. He won two Emmys for this role and starred in movies like Crimes and Misdemeters, Flirting with Disaster, and The Aviator, which scored him his first Oscar nomination. And you might also recognize him from The West Wing and Ray Donovan. Harry Morgan, as I said, played Colonel Sherman T. Potter, a movie regular of the forties, fifties, and sixties. Morgan was in Inherit, The Wind, State Fair, and High Noon and also played Officer Bill Gannon on Dragnet. He had a reoccurring role on Third Rock from the Sun and passed away in twenty eleven. Fun little easter egg is that Harry Morgan was in State. There's an entire episode of Mash where they're trying to get this movie that they hear was banned in Boston for sexual content, and they finally threw a weird series of events. Think they get it, but somebody switched to print and when they put it on State Fair, pops on the screen. 00:18:15 Speaker 3: So a fun little thing for Harry Morgan. 00:18:18 Speaker 2: I've seen High Noon and all the things you've mentioned. I've seen henun fantastic film. 00:18:23 Speaker 1: Highly it's great you you never watched the original Dragnet with ever seen. 00:18:27 Speaker 3: Episodes of that? Yeah, he was great. 00:18:29 Speaker 1: He was also reprised the role in a funny way in the Tom Hanks version of Dragnet with Tom Hanks and Dan Aykroyd. 00:18:36 Speaker 3: Which was actually very funny as well. 00:18:38 Speaker 1: Loretta Switt as Major Margaret hot Lips Hulahan. She was nominated for an Emmy in each season of Mash and won two. 00:18:45 Speaker 3: Yeah, she was nominated eleven times. 00:18:47 Speaker 1: She also appeared on Cagne and Lacey, Gunsmoke, and all the game shows of that era. She just passed away unfortunately this past May, at the age of eighty seven. Another fun fact, she went on Cagney and Lacey as a guest star, but they wanted her to play one of the roles and MASH would not let her out of her contract. David Ogden Stiers as Major Charles Winchester, a recipient of two Emmy nominations for the show. David also appeared on Perry Mason and voiced a bunch of Disney characters, including Cogsworth and Beauty and the Beast and Doctor Juma, jukeabal In Lelo and Stitch. David also passed away in twenty eighteen. And I think we talked about this on the pod, but if Bill Daniels did leave Boy Mets World after the pilot, David Ogden Stiers was set to step in to play mister Feenie. 00:19:28 Speaker 3: Wow, yep, Jamie Farr. Isn't that amazing, isn't it? 00:19:31 Speaker 1: Jamie Farr is Corporal Maxwell Q. Klinger, another legendary TV actor who was unknown when first cast on mash He became very synonymous with this role and was also Emmy nominated. 00:19:42 Speaker 3: Then we get into our guest stars. 00:19:43 Speaker 1: Sun tech O, who was a very famous actor back in the day, played Ralph. He's best known as the voice of Fazou in Disney's Mulan and was a veteran actor from shows like Airwolf, Charlie's Angels, and mcgeiver. He also passed away in twenty eighteen. Look gona have a lot of people gone. It's going to be a very small reunion. 00:19:59 Speaker 3: For this episode. GW. Bailey as Sergeant Luther Rizzo. 00:20:03 Speaker 1: Bailey will always be known as Lieutenant Harris and the Police Academy movies and another a whole cop in the movie Mannequin. And then we've got Byron Chung as North Korean Patrol Leader. Our listeners may recognize him as sons father and Jin's father in law Slash Boss on Lost Awesome role. And then you've got Bob Okazaki as Farmer Fred the Sushi Master and Blade Runner, and Roy Goldman as the Corman. He was a stand in on the show Who Got Credit Here. You see that a lot on Boy Me's World as well. He was also the stand in for mel Brooks on movies like Spaceballs and To Be or Not to Be, And almost to a person, everybody on the cast of Mash said he was the funniest person they'd ever met in his life. The problem was he had horrible stage fright, so when they kept giving him roles, he would panic, and so everyone said, when the cameras are off, the funniest guy you'd ever meet, you'd call. 00:20:53 Speaker 3: Action, and unfortunately he would. 00:20:54 Speaker 2: You don't know anything about that. 00:20:56 Speaker 3: I don't no idea what that's. 00:20:58 Speaker 2: Right concept for you? 00:21:00 Speaker 3: Strained right? 00:21:03 Speaker 2: Well, okay, so here's my question. Yeah, because it sounds like there's like all these contract disputes and like when the show was such a huge hit. Yeah, was there a lot of behind the scenes drama? Like it sounds like besides Alan Alda and Hot Lips Hulah and I can like her name least, what's her name? 00:21:18 Speaker 3: Hot Lips? Are you talking Loretta sweat. 00:21:20 Speaker 2: Loretta like despies the two of them. It seems like there's a lot of shuffling going on, a lot of like it's it sounds like it's one of those things like you have a hit show and then everybody kind of uses that as a launching pad to do something else. I don't know, it just was there a lot of drama behind the scenes? 00:21:35 Speaker 3: Yeah? 00:21:35 Speaker 1: I mean, yes, there's there's rumor. Let's put it this way, rumors abound. So there's some people that say, for instance, uh uh uh, Gary Berghoff who played Radar and Radar was there for eight, like he left halfway through this season, halfway through season eight. Uh, there was If you go back and you watch his last four episodes of the show. He's on R and R in Tokyo, so he's shooting in a hotel room or what's supposed to be a hotel room by himself and then calling in to Clinger and. 00:22:06 Speaker 2: Because of set drama he did, and. 00:22:07 Speaker 1: So there's rumors that that was because people didn't want to work with him or he was difficult to work with. He's also done interviews since saying he was going through some personal stuff at the time, really felt it was time to leave the show, and that's why he left after eight and a half seasons. All of the actors also, almost to a person, say that he was the most talented actor on the show. 00:22:27 Speaker 2: Okay, so this episode involves a lot of like stunts and single camera stuff. You have like, yeah, car crash, you have motorcycle rides? Is that typical? Like with that a single Okay? Because I was gonna say, this seems like a harder job than your average sitcom. Based on this episode alone, I was like, oh, this is not as much fun or an easy schedule. Oh no, So there. 00:22:47 Speaker 1: Wasn't the producers, by the way, the thing that I knew you were going to hate. The producers hated as well, there was a fight. They fought constantly with the network because they did not want to laugh track. 00:22:57 Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't like. 00:22:58 Speaker 1: They absolutely and the concess the only concession that the network was able to make, and you can watch this throughout the series, is there's no laugh track in any scene in ther interesting every other scene they throw. 00:23:09 Speaker 3: In a laugh track, but there's no laughing. 00:23:11 Speaker 2: It was audience. 00:23:13 Speaker 3: No. The lafter shot at. 00:23:14 Speaker 1: The ranch right near my house out here in California, part the outdoor stuff, and then I think they were on the Paramount lot where they you know, the inside of the swamp and the oar and some of those places. So they had their practical sets and then they had I think two sets. I believe it was Paramount. I could be wrong about that, but I'm pretty sure it was. So No, this was a very in depth show, a lot going on, and obviously, like our show, as the show progressed, you saw more and more things, you know, more choppers landing and more things that cost money. But this was at the time a not a popular show. In the first season, it was almost canceled several times. And so what you'll notice is the pilot episode they essentially. 00:23:57 Speaker 3: Which is just called the pilot. 00:23:59 Speaker 1: The season two episode one is then called Divided We Stand, and they redid the pilot. They literally just reintroduced all the characters again because the show wasn't doing well, so they were burning off episodes during the summer, and then there was nothing else on during the summer, so people were starting to find it. And then the president of CBS's wife became a big fan. He was going to cancel it. She said, you can't cancel this. They retooled the show, brought it back, and then it exploded and became what it did. So that's what's missing in television nowadays is nothing's allowed to grow anymore. 00:24:33 Speaker 3: And so Mash. 00:24:34 Speaker 1: Cheers the Office, all the shows you love, Seinfeld, these were all shows that were almost canceled and then had a champion at the network and were brought back. 00:24:41 Speaker 3: So we saw a champion. 00:24:44 Speaker 1: Yes, well, let me ask you a question again other than confusion, what did you think about the episode? 00:24:52 Speaker 2: It's weird, like yeah, I just I can't wrap my head, or like it doesn't feel like a sitcom. It feels like kind of its own thing. So I guess the hardest part for me to wrap my head around was just that I didn't laugh. It's like, and I don't know if that's typical. It's what I appreciated wit, I appreciated language and writing. I appreciated like, but I wasn't like my biggest reaction would be hmm okay, it's never like you know, it was always everything is so understated. Everybody is so smart, Like all the characters are so smart. Everybody's sort of like, I don't know, it's just a very different mode than I'm used to. You know, I'm used to like sitcom being sort of a character driven thing where people are a little absurd and just bigger and sort of you know, and especially like having a laugh track on this doesn't make any sense because it's lower energy. It's more like banter, you know, it's more bantery and witty and clever. But it's not that's not the same thing as like, uh, crazy misunderstanding with like hijinks. 00:26:02 Speaker 3: You know. 00:26:02 Speaker 2: So it was just a different mode, and like that, I think that's what was confusing to me. It was hard for me to understand, like what how to get into the zone of watching this, you know, like I want to I want to watch more because I did I appreciate its intelligence. But here's the thing I started to realize, like you kind of have to bring everything. You have to bring everything to a level of irony and understatement when the stakes are this high, like you're dealing with life or death, you're dealing with a war situation, and in order to make that okay to be funny, you have to always sort of the characters have to always be a little above the dialogue. They have to always be a little like, you know, like when they're when they're insulting each other or like, you know whatever, there's always a level of irony or distance to it that I don't know. It was just it's an interesting tone, Like it's a really interesting tone. But I was like, yeah, but I wouldn't want them to be like real worried about getting captured by the North, by the Koreans, you know what I mean? Like I need a level of like, oh, this has to be a joke about surrendering and like making little comments to each other like do we put our arms down? You put your arm like there's a gun pointed at them? Like whether sitcoms have guns pointed at each other? Like seriously, I was like, yeah, I don't know how to make this funny. Like I would be sitting there as a writer going like, well, there's no way, and I would my instinct, because I'm a very earnest person, I would be like, well, we got to play the reality, we got to be freakd the f out the whole time, and you can't, you know. So I'm just not sure that this show is for me in that way, because, like I the second a gun enters the frame, or you're like literally lost in enemy territory, or there's somebody dying on the oar, whatever I'm sure happens week to week. I'm like, we have to play this for what it really is, and of course you can't, because then it's not funny. Then it's you know, but you can't. 00:27:48 Speaker 1: So that's why this is why this episode is a strange one to start with. 00:27:51 Speaker 3: So there's a number of different mashes. 00:27:54 Speaker 1: Yeah, the episode I would start with, which is I'm gonna insist we all watch now because you're gonna be like, oh my god, it's a different television show. 00:27:59 Speaker 3: I mean, it's a completely different television show. 00:28:01 Speaker 1: Is a season one episode called Sometimes You Hear the Bullet and it's the perfect balance of wacky, funny, wow our I mean there's literally in that season two episode one, there's a voiceover that comes on that goes like, join our wacky surgeons every week as they I mean they literally say that, and so it's the perfect combo of it's really funny and it also rips your heart out. 00:28:25 Speaker 2: So they did lean into farce sometimes they it's like over the top. 00:28:29 Speaker 3: Oh my god. That the first three seasons of this show, that's all it is interesting, and then it comes totally completely changes. 00:28:35 Speaker 2: Right because then the other one I've I've heard of that I've never seen is Hogan's Heroes, which was also that's like a World War two detention camp comedy. Yes see, like this kind of stuff. I just I have such a hard time because I just my brain doesn't go there, Like I'm not that type of person, like I so I'm fascinated by it. But yeah, in general, I just felt a little like low energy sort of like I can appreciate a sophistication to this, but I'm. 00:29:00 Speaker 1: Not laughing, right, and you'll be laughing hysterically at the first three seasons. 00:29:05 Speaker 3: Yeah, Okay, I mean really it was. 00:29:07 Speaker 1: Way more sitcom and That's what some of the actors had a problem with. They're like, we're in the middle of a war, we've got a you know, Hawkeye was a total womanizer, but in real life Alan also was very much part of the feminist movement. So when he started to get more creative control, the episode started to be more about women's empowerment. 00:29:22 Speaker 3: Like the show just changed. 00:29:24 Speaker 1: So everybody talks about the different mashes, and people that are big Mash enthusiasts will be like, I'm a season one through three purist, which is what I am. I love seasons one through three, four and five. The transition seasons are great, and Winchester, who comes in is a phenomenal actor. 00:29:37 Speaker 3: But I preferred the early mash. It got very by eleven. 00:29:42 Speaker 1: It's like it's so soapy that it's really heavy interesting. 00:29:46 Speaker 3: The final episode is. 00:29:48 Speaker 2: I like the way that the bast story did deal with sort of feminist themes. In this one. I thought it was clever because it's like the character driven makes sense, funny, the guy gets his come up and so he's you know, not the a story. I'm just not sure what the tension was like between the two of them, other than him being like a bad driver who gets them lost. 00:30:05 Speaker 3: Right, they're just best friends. 00:30:06 Speaker 2: They're just best friends. Right. So again, like, even though you have these incredibly high stakes, I wasn't sure, like what's what's the point of Like what are we learning about? I don't know, Like I was just kind of like, all right, we're just going from one situation to another to another. It wasn't as character driven right to the same extent. I was like, Eh, but you know, I'm I'm being you know, you know me, I'm. 00:30:25 Speaker 3: No, But that's what that's what it should be. 00:30:26 Speaker 1: And again, this is absolutely the wrong episode to start with, but we're doing it because it's a Thanksgiving episode go back and why, And we're gonna do this for Podmets World. We're gonna have to. We're gonna do a season one episode and you're gonna be like the it's the equal It's not even the equivalent of season one Boy Meets World and season seven Boy Meets World. It's the equivalent of season one Boy Meets World and season three step by step, like it's a different show. It's just it's season one Boy Meets World and season four er right, Like it's just it's too completely different. 00:30:54 Speaker 2: Stright, So where do you put this in the in the pantheon of. 00:30:58 Speaker 1: These are not my favorite episod the later series. The later episodes are not my favorite episodes. I usually get to about season seven and I start over tapping out, yeah, yeah, I start, I go back, I go back and start out. I know them all from I didn't you know I'm watching this again. I was like eleven thirty last time. I'm like, why am I watching this? I know every line of this. I don't need to see this again. But let's get into the recap of the show for the people who haven't seen it, who are now like, please stop talking about mashup. Well, we still got a lot more to go. So the opening credits. Everyone's aware of the song, right, it's iconic. There is a full version of the song with pretty shocking lyrics. 00:31:44 Speaker 3: Honestly, have you heard the full version? 00:31:45 Speaker 1: Writer? 00:31:45 Speaker 3: Now? 00:31:46 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's called Suicide is Painless is the name of the song, and the suicide is Painless. It brings on many changes and I can take it or leave it if I please. Also a funny thing to know it was a kid of I think one of the producers or one of the network executives who wrote this song. He apparently wrote it in like a day or two and has made more money on mash than anyone else involved with the show. Wow is not crazy. He was like seventeen when he wrote it, or if he was even that old when he wrote the song. So we start in the medical tent. Another ill soldiers carried in to see the doctor. It's Sergeant Rizzo, hunched over and moaning. He asked Colonel Potter if he knows the feeling of a weekend where you. 00:32:23 Speaker 3: Just drink cheap booze and eat chili dogs. I wish I felt that good. 00:32:29 Speaker 1: And this is when the laugh track kicks in, cause again we're in the post stop. We're not in oar you can laugh and postop you can't laugh at nor. Potter assures him he'll help with his stomach pains, but Rizzo wants the truth. 00:32:39 Speaker 3: Is it Raby's was a bit by a rat? 00:32:41 Speaker 1: Potter shakes his head. No, we just received the lab reports. It looks like salmonilla. And then you get your first real sitcom joke, salmonella. 00:32:49 Speaker 3: Who are they? The colonel realizes he's sicker than he thought. 00:32:53 Speaker 1: Then Father mul kay, he walks in to see an overwhelming amount of ill soldiers filling out the tent. He can't believe Thanksgiving filled with so many casualties, but the colonel explains that these are their own soldiers, and Potter has figured out the issue. 00:33:05 Speaker 3: He asked the. 00:33:05 Speaker 1: Soldiers, is there anyone here who did not have some of the turkey last night? All the soldiers grown in pain, but Mulkayhey, looking fresh as a daisy, raises his hand. Potter announces that the men were bitten by the bird that fed him. Rizzo ask Clinger poisoned us with his Thanksgiving I'm sorry, I'll stop doing my Blake Clark impression his Thanksgiving surprise. The colonel nods and Rizzos starts to fume. Now I hope I live just so I can kill Clinger. Fatherm okay. He admits, this is the first time I'm giving thanks for missing Thanksgiving. The father offers his help and Potter tells him to go pick a patient, any patient then, none other than Corporal Klinger himself. And this is again this is Clinger in military uniform, which has only been a season and a half. Because Clinger was dressing to get out of the army. 00:33:47 Speaker 2: So he's a dress troublemaker, he's an outsider, he's the sort of mischief maker of the show. 00:33:52 Speaker 1: Yes, but it was really just he's he's vying for he hates war, he doesn't want to. He has this great speech one time, which is funny though back in the day, where he's like, I don't want to get killed, obviously, but I also don't want to kill anybody. 00:34:03 Speaker 3: Nobody's gonna tell me I have to. 00:34:04 Speaker 1: I'm getting out, So he just wants to section eight and it gets you know, he's just in dresses the whole time, just trying to get out, and it's parts of it are very funny. Again, I am I'm not gonna couch any of this by saying all of this age as well, some of it doesn't. It's a show from the seventies. You gotta just know that it's a show from the seventies. Can't apologize for everything. 00:34:24 Speaker 2: But I feel like a lot of this storyline is just all that Clinger. This is like he's kind of the one who instigates situations that then screws everybody. 00:34:32 Speaker 1: Yes, Okay, Clinger was in the first few seasons. He'd pop up every once in a while. He wasn't in every episode, so it wasn't until later that he started to really get into the episodes and became again like Topanga, same same kind of vibe. So none other than Corporal Clinger comes bounding in with a smile, but is greeted with a handful of angry groans. One of them yells out Assassin. Clinger has no idea what he did wrong, So Rizzo and Potter break the news your turkeys gave everybody. The trots swears that this is the first class birds from Sergeant Thermopolis at i Coore quarter Master, but Rizzo calls them war surplus Cleaner doesn't budge it couldn't have been as birds because he and Potter ate them too. The colonel asked if he's reached out to the doctors yet. Klinger says he's missed Major's Hulahan and Winchester, but they should be here in an hour or so, and he contacted Captain's Pearson Honeycutt at the a can Song, Mettalion aid, and it'll. 00:35:23 Speaker 3: Be three or four hours before they get there. 00:35:25 Speaker 1: Potter begins to walk away, then decides he has one more thing to say to Clinger for Christmas. 00:35:29 Speaker 2: We eat out. 00:35:31 Speaker 1: Then we're in the middle of nowhere, which is actually I think Woodland Hills in Calabasas in California Malibu State Park like that. 00:35:38 Speaker 2: Whole areaverything that was so distracting from me is like, I have hiked these trails. I literally have. I've camped in Korea now where they shoot the opening helicopter sequence. Yeah, is a famous little valley in Malibu where you can still camp. It's a group campsite that's amazing, and I've been there a bunch, so I was like, oh, yeah, and I've hiked these trails. Geez, I've been on yeah, so I could never there's no suspension of disbelief, like, oh yeah, I've literally sat there. Yeah. 00:36:02 Speaker 1: Well it was until I think not even the last fire. I think the fire before it there was a still a mash setup. Yeah, so you could hike there and there's tents and all that kind of stuff, and I think I think most of. 00:36:12 Speaker 3: It was wiped out unfortunately. So we're in the middle of nowhere. 00:36:15 Speaker 1: Honeycut and Hawkeye come flying down the road in an army jeep. Hawkeye begs Honeycut to slow down, but he can't. Clinger told them to hurry. Hawkeye reminds him that it's only seventy four miles away, but Honeycut admits it maybe more than that. They're lost. Hawkeye wonders lost, like, where the hell are we? Honeycut shrugs, well, we're not totally lost. We're still in Asia. Hawk I thought that this was a shortcut, Honeycut says it was. Look how fast we got lost. Hawkeye calls him a nerd and demands they go back. But then out of nowhere there's an abandoned jeep that was crushed by a tree in the middle of the road. Honeycut knew was. 00:36:45 Speaker 2: The nerd term at this point. 00:36:47 Speaker 3: It pretty newage, also. 00:36:50 Speaker 2: Weirdly used because like, if you're a nerd, you don't get. 00:36:54 Speaker 1: Lost, like we're there nerds. I guess there were nerds in the fifties. 00:36:58 Speaker 2: I can't. Yeah, but isn't a nerd supposed to be somebody who's like nerdy, like they are pocket protector wearing like mathematical like. 00:37:06 Speaker 1: That was in the eighties. That became a nerd I think in the fifties and that was geeche. 00:37:10 Speaker 2: Okay, So when you're thinking it was just like an outsider, what does it mean, Like you're just a nerd. 00:37:14 Speaker 1: Like you're like, I think kind of like a like a see it's a bob, like a bubblehead. I guess like you're a nerd. 00:37:20 Speaker 2: So I don't used to mean that your brain doesn't work that well, because I think of a nerd now as somebody who's like brain is hyper good, right, and their social skills are really bad. And in this case, he's using it the exact opposite. 00:37:32 Speaker 1: Maybe yeah, because I look at a nerd like I'm a nerd, like I just want to play d in exactly. 00:37:36 Speaker 2: But you're like really into something and you're really good at like certain things, but you're nerd like social skills you're not like quite aware of. 00:37:42 Speaker 3: Right right. 00:37:43 Speaker 2: I don't know like that it was such a weird use. I was like this was still maybe this was still kind of a newish term like it must have been. 00:37:49 Speaker 3: I don't know, but I get it. 00:37:50 Speaker 1: It's also the show' supposed to This is supposed to be nineteen fifty one, so it's like, I guess it was used. 00:37:54 Speaker 3: I don't know. Uh. 00:37:56 Speaker 1: That's one thing I will say about the show is I've done a lot of research and watch producers interviews and stuff like that. They were very important with historical accuracy, to the point where. 00:38:06 Speaker 3: There was one off arguably. 00:38:09 Speaker 1: The worst named character in the history of television, a black surgeon in the first season called spear Chucker. Oh my god, that was the character's name. 00:38:19 Speaker 3: Awful, just awful. 00:38:21 Speaker 1: But they got rid of the character, not because the actor was bad or because they didn't like them, but because with the more research they did, there were no black surgeons in Korea. 00:38:28 Speaker 3: Wow. 00:38:29 Speaker 1: So they unfortunately fired this actor. But God, that we could say goodbye to that name forever was awful. What did you think, so, honeycut spins out of control and the car tips over, sending them men flying into the dirt with all their supplies. Now, what did you think of the crash with the camera move and like throwing the helmets? 00:38:46 Speaker 3: Did the crash work for you? 00:38:47 Speaker 2: Totally? I actually after it happened, I was like, whoa did they show the crash? And I had to go back and I was like, no, they didn't. They cheated, but it was a good cheat, right. I was impressed all the like, That's what I was like. God. Credit to the director for like basically taking a really basic sitcom situation and having to shoot a single camera style for a lot of it. 00:39:07 Speaker 3: Like, ye, yeah, it's yeah. 00:39:09 Speaker 1: I thought the same thing when I saw it again, I'm like, Okay, they captured the violence of the accident by with just the camera move And you can see if you watch it again, Mike Farrell clearly like they have him sit up really fast and throw his helmet. Yeah, so it looks like his helmet is rolling away, but you can see him like actually throwing it. So yeah, you gotta go frame by frame, but it's pretty funny. Yeah, And so they compose themselves. Hawkeye mentions he may want to put a sign on his car caution student maniac. Honeycut insists they can roll the vehicle back over all by themselves, but Hawkeye isn't so sure. Regardless, the two try pushing it over and fail toppling the car onto its roof. Hawkeye says, all right, what are you waiting for? Get in, which is I think my favorite moment of the entire episode. Yeah, because you can just see that it's not going to work. We're back in the medical tent. Father Mulkayhee is helping Rizzo limp back to his cot. When Clinger shows up to ask Rizzo how he's doing, Rizzo turns his attention to the priest instead, asking to make a confession. 00:40:04 Speaker 3: I murdered someone tomorrow. He stares at Clinger with pure hatred. 00:40:09 Speaker 1: Clinger insists he's just trying to help, so Rizzo suggests, then go die on your own, and then, almost on command, a dizzy Clinger turns to Potter and says, you may want to lie down, sir, you're getting blurry. Potter grabs on a Clinger, who now has a hand over his mouth to prevent himself from barfing. 00:40:23 Speaker 3: Potter admits that this is some poetic justice. 00:40:25 Speaker 1: Potter manages to place Clinger under the cot, right next to Rizzo, who ceremoniously grows to the room clingers. 00:40:30 Speaker 3: Got it. 00:40:31 Speaker 1: They all break out into a weak round of applause at the good news. Colonel Potter is about to celebrate it's just him and the priest left, but before he can even finish the sentence, he gags and runs out of the door himself in a panic. 00:40:42 Speaker 2: We're back in the middle of nowhere without that same personally, Yeah, nothing happens. Nothing happens in that storyline. 00:40:48 Speaker 3: The whole idea of other than Clinger gets it too. That's it. Just like, yeah, but you could have just come back with cut back and he's in bed. 00:40:54 Speaker 2: I just wanted to. I once I was like, where is this going? And then once the you know, hot lips and are Yeah, once they entered, I was like cool. But up until then, I was like, there's no conflict here except just hate and Clinger. 00:41:06 Speaker 3: Yeahs again, he's the wacky Carroll. 00:41:09 Speaker 2: Don't love watching people be sick, Like, don't love like people just to throw up and you hear it all the groans. I was like, yeah, it's uncomfortable. 00:41:18 Speaker 3: Yeah, uh again, I'm gonna be picking a different episode fore you'd watch. 00:41:22 Speaker 1: Yeah, we're back in the middle of nowhere with Hawkeye and Honeycut that are walking through deep brush with supplies in hand. Honeycut suggests they keep their eyes out and their earls peeled, right before they spot a North Korean soldier. Both sides are startled, but the Korean soldier manages to point his gun at Hawkeye and Honeycut, but then the man smiles and excitedly says something in Korean. 00:41:41 Speaker 3: Honeycut yells not to shoot. 00:41:43 Speaker 1: In response to the Korean soldier quickly drops his gun, then raises his arms in the air, just as Hawkeye and Honeycut do the same. Now all three men have their arms in the air. It's the opposite of a standoff. The Korean soldier says something else they can't obviously understand him. Hawkeye whispers to his partner, what's going on here, Beach, but he doesn't know either. Hawkeye suggests they lower their arms since the North Korean soldiers seems to be surrendering. They argue over who should put their arms down first, until Honeycut suggests, if you put your arms down and he doesn't shoot, I'll do the same. 00:42:09 Speaker 3: If he does shoot you, I'll put your arms back up again. 00:42:12 Speaker 1: They eventually put their arms down simultaneously, and once they do, the North Korean soldier does the same with a. 00:42:17 Speaker 3: Smile on his face. 00:42:18 Speaker 1: Honeycut jokes that this is a great moment in military history. They've all captured each other. Hawkeye tells their new friend that they're not in the capturing department that's on the third floor by the linens. As the two Americans try to leave with their supplies, the Korean soldier runs over to kneel in front of him, arms behind his head in total surrender. Hawkeye and Honeycutt continue to walk past him, wishing him the best as the man doesn't stop trying to surrender. By the way, this is also a perfect place to point out this same actor has played forty two different characters on mash Are you serious? Yeah, they had a very small at the time selection of Asian actor. 00:42:50 Speaker 3: Oh, it wasn't even Korean. 00:42:51 Speaker 1: It was just Asian, So Chinese, Chinese, American, Japanese, American, Korean American. 00:42:59 Speaker 3: You were just a Korean. So is there. 00:43:01 Speaker 2: Anywhere where somebody's translated what he says throughout this episode? 00:43:04 Speaker 3: I'm sure I would love. 00:43:06 Speaker 2: To see the subtitles, because I was like the whole time, I was like, why don't they just tell us what he's saying? It'd be so cool. 00:43:11 Speaker 3: Yeah, it would be interesting to see what he's actually saying. 00:43:14 Speaker 2: Yeah, And I actually think this episode would have been so much better if the audience was able to see his subtitles, right, Like, if there was a whole nother layer to this storyline, Because the storyline is so clearly from the point of view of the Americans, and it's just like, oh, we have no idea what the crazy foreigner is saying, right, And it's like, well, from his point of view, it's the same thing, right, Like, what are these crazy I'm trying to surrender and they're not listening to me and they're not realizing that I want to desert my army. Like that's a great point of view too, And I would love if, like, you know, the show had leaned into that, because I feel like nowadays, that's what you would do, right, if you had this storyline, you would have equivalent perspectives, and you would give him that and the audience access to that with some subt and it would be great. As it is. He's a caricature, you know, he. 00:44:03 Speaker 1: Was just yeah, I mean, and again, that was very common back in the day. Obviously, they do do one episode. I want to say, it's in season seven. 00:44:12 Speaker 3: Call So. 00:44:13 Speaker 1: One of the tropes that they use on the show all the time is dear Blank is the name of. 00:44:17 Speaker 3: The episode, So dear Dad. 00:44:19 Speaker 1: We're big ones in the first season where it's you hear Hawkeye's voiceover and he's kind of explaining things and he's writing a letter to his dad, and then they expand on that where they do you know, Dear Mildred where colonel the colonel's writing his wife, and one of them they do is called Dear Comrade, and it's actually a spy comes into the camp and is pretending to be the houseboy for Winchester and cleaning up the thing. But it's all from his point of view, and he's doing the voiceover writing back to the communist leaders in China talking about what's going on at the four oh seven seven in so it's an interesting one that's done all from his point of view. By the way, they do some things in these television shows, especially the later ones in this season as well, that you as a filmmaker and as a television mostly as a filmmaker, but as somebody who loves breaking ground and things that have never been done before are really amazing, Like they do one episode called point of View, where the entire episode is just the camera walking around and it's a point of view of an injured soldier being brought to the four oh seven seven, So you just see the arm and he's on the chopper and then they land and then it's all the characters coming and talking to him. They do another one that was written by Alan Alda and the medical advisor from the show, Walter Dishell, together where a soldier comes in with a very specific injury to his heart and they have a certain amount of time to fix him or he's going to be paralyzed, and a clock actually appears on the bottom of the screen and you're like following the clock to see if they get this. 00:45:54 Speaker 3: Aorda put back in in time. 00:45:56 Speaker 1: So they're doing things to break ground for TV that are actually pretty amazing. 00:46:01 Speaker 3: But okay, we're now back at base camp. 00:46:04 Speaker 1: Major hot Lips Hulahan and Major Winchester arrived back at the camp. 00:46:07 Speaker 2: Woman has entered the show. 00:46:08 Speaker 3: There you go. 00:46:09 Speaker 2: I was like, what a crazy set. 00:46:11 Speaker 3: All dudes all the time. Dude, it's war in the fifties. 00:46:16 Speaker 2: How I just could not believe. I was like, wow, I mean, so she must have been the only female on the set on a pretty regular basis. Is she the only female regular? 00:46:25 Speaker 3: No female regular? 00:46:27 Speaker 1: Yes, but they have there's nurses in every episode, and and they do a lot of especially in these later episodes, they do a lot of episodes based on the nurses. 00:46:34 Speaker 3: And I think the year she won her Emmy. 00:46:37 Speaker 1: There's an episode just called The Nurses where she gives a speech and breaks down crying, which is still people still talk about it for one of the best television moments of all time. She does this gas being like racking, sob that is just it's phenomenal. So yeah, she's but yes, only female regular on the show. And again they had to work you in because they would often in the wars, you know, the second they'd get wind that the the he's advancing, the women were shipped out. 00:47:01 Speaker 3: The nurses were there, but they were shipped out immediately. So yeah, but she's here, She's here, Hula hand and are possible, mister Feenie. 00:47:10 Speaker 1: Major Winchester arrived back at the camp to help, and Colonel Potter's obviously very happy to see him, but Major Winchester can't help notice how awful the camp looks, and Potter looks. 00:47:19 Speaker 3: He quips, I'm glad you noticed. 00:47:21 Speaker 1: I'd hate to feel this rotten, and have to hate to feel this rotten and have it just be my little secret. He reveals that the entire camp has salmonila thanks to Klinger's turkeys. He can hardly say a word without puking. 00:47:32 Speaker 3: Rider's favorite. 00:47:33 Speaker 1: Major Hulahan commands the colonel to get some rest, and he responds, don't get your irish up with me, but Major Winchester backs her up. However, he'd like to freshen up a bit before he attends to the ill soldiers. Potter moxham, I'll have room service send over a nice again, burping turkey sandwich, close to barfing again, he asks, you want to move it now or you want to move it later. 00:47:52 Speaker 3: With that, Winchester and Hulahan move quickly into the medical tent. 00:47:55 Speaker 1: And yes, even by this point, I was like, I don't need them all about constantly on the verge of throwing up. 00:48:02 Speaker 3: Yeah, it gets much, It gets much, as I would like to say. But we're back in the medical tent. Father okay. He is still running around trying to attend the soldiers. 00:48:10 Speaker 1: Clinger appears at the door with a bucket in his hand, ready to help, but immediately a bedpan is thrown and just merely misses his face. 00:48:17 Speaker 3: Father m'kay. 00:48:18 Speaker 1: He takes that as a no, but Clinger insists if he's needed, he'll just be under his bed. 00:48:22 Speaker 3: Then Major Hulhan and Winchester enter the room. The priest is relieved the Marines have landed. 00:48:26 Speaker 1: Hulahan realizes there's a lot in his played here, but the father doesn't mind. He admits he's never felt more useful or needed, which was another trope they went to A lot was a priest in wartime. They do a lot of episodes based around him later, where he's like, all I do is walk around watching people break commandments all the time, and nobody's coming to my I just am not useful at all, and it's very, very interesting. He exits the room with some dirty sheets. As Winchester surveys the room himself. He announces that all the patients really need at this point is rest and attention, in other words, nursing. So he's just going to take a quick shower and nap. But Major Hulahan and shouts one step more out that door buster, and you'll. 00:49:03 Speaker 3: Need a doctor. 00:49:04 Speaker 1: She commands him to start with cleaning the linens, but Winchester thinks she must be kidding. She counters, Okay, then start with the bedpans and work your way up. He's offended washing clean. I'm a doctor, not a woman. Show That takes place show shot in the seventies that takes place in the fifties. 00:49:19 Speaker 2: And isn't that like a reframing of the classic Star Trek line. Damn it, Jim, I'm a. 00:49:24 Speaker 3: Doctor and I'm a doctor now. I didn't even think about that. I'm a doctor here right, yeah. 00:49:29 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, sixteen I wonder because I was I was like, oh, that's a call back to that in some ways. And this is where I was like, there's a story all right, conflict, Like that's what I mean, Like the previous scene with Clinger, Like they could have folded into this, like they could have just had Clinger getting sick and everybody being happy about it. But now we finally have like two characters with conflict. And I was like, oh cool, I'm going to get to see these two go at it and you know, it's great and it gets better. 00:49:54 Speaker 1: Uh but yeah, we oh god, get wait for you to see the earlier episodes. 00:49:58 Speaker 3: We're now in the middle of Nowhere again. 00:49:59 Speaker 1: Hawkeye and Honeycut are still trudging through a dirt pass and the North Korean soldiers following close behind them. Hawkeye calls the soldier Ralph, and Honeycut questions the name. Hawkeye explains Kathy Harris's kid brother. Whenever we wanted to go for a walk or the movies, there was little Ralphie tagging along. Honeycutt wonders if they give him a quarter, will he go home, and then Hawkeye remembers, though I still owe that little band at three hundred dollars and twenty five cents. Honeycut spots a small area with brush coverage and decides they could use a little break. Hawkeye sarcastically notes, we're gonna sit now, beach. Try not to get lost on the way down. Honeycut assures him he'll get them out. Once the men sit, the North Korean soldier follows suit. Hawkeye decides it's time to try out his roadmap. He uses a stick to draw their location in the dirt and explains that they'd like to go from here to the mash four oh seven seventh. The soldier appears to know how. He gets up proudly holding his gun, but the guys quickly realize he has no idea where they are. But then the soldier aggressively points their guns in their faces and shouts to them. The guys are obviously startled. Hawkeye tells Honeycutt to give him a quarter. The soldier forces them to stand up, but the gun still pointed at them. Then we see four other armed North Korean soldiers walking their way. Hawkeye whispers to Honeycut, remember only your name, rank and serial number, and if they ask nicely, MacArthur's home address. Ralph angrily shushes them before speaking to his fellow soldiers. The guys joke nice day, huh, how about those dodgers, which prompts the Koreans to point their loaded guns at the two Americans actually cocking the guns. They are literally now standing in front of a fiery line, but Ralph jumps in and stops them. The other soldiers reluctantly lower their guns as Ralph quietly speaks to them, ending with a smile on his face. Honeycut and Hawkeye watch their fates unravel right before them. Finally, Ralph makes the other soldiers laugh and they decide to leave him with the Americans. Ralph watches his fellow soldiers leave, then points his gun back at Hawkeye and Honeycut, threatening them in Korean, but once he notices his buddies are gone, he gives them one of the funniest double winks in television history. Ralph just saved their butts. Once Hawkey announces that the Bowery boys are out of sight, Ralph surrenders again and they both run over and completely embrace him, which was a great turn. We're now back at base camp. Father m'kay. He is gleefully singing to himself as he washes the soldier's linens with Major Winchester. Winchester is, of course less than pleased with the chore, sweat coating his face while ringing a sheet dry. The priest exclaims there's nothing better than feeling needed. Then hot Lip storms in criticizing Major Winchester for his battleship gray sheets. 00:52:21 Speaker 3: They need to be stark white. The Major absolutely loses it. 00:52:25 Speaker 1: His hands are prune from slaving over the cesspool all day. 00:52:28 Speaker 3: Father m'kay he is displeased talking about prunes at a time like this. 00:52:31 Speaker 1: The Major declares that he abdicates his tub and washboard. Major Hulihan points out a stack of bedpans with his name on him instead. 00:52:39 Speaker 3: Winchester, let's laugh. This is great, Winchester, let's out a laugh. 00:52:42 Speaker 1: I'd sooner do the Lindy with Eleanor Roosevelt Hulahan counts him in oh one and two. Father, m'kay. He tries to play peacekeeper, but they're not having it. Instead, Winchester declares, I'm trying to remember that you're a woman and a fellow officer. 00:52:55 Speaker 3: She screams back, don't patronize me, skinhead. 00:52:58 Speaker 1: He responds with eurn not in charge here, bimbo, and it's just crazy. Before things even get more heated, father and okay, he finally intervenes, we just can't afford to act like nincompoops. 00:53:11 Speaker 3: Great use in nincompoop. We need to bring that back. 00:53:13 Speaker 1: There are sick people here, and the three of us are all that they have. The majors pull it together and manage to apologize to one another, who hand earnestly asks what'll it be? 00:53:22 Speaker 3: Sheets are bedpans. 00:53:23 Speaker 1: Winchester pauses for a moment, then sings, father, okayes. 00:53:26 Speaker 3: Whereabout to wash her sheets? Wash her sheets? 00:53:29 Speaker 2: Wash her sheets? 00:53:30 Speaker 3: What did you think? What do you think of that scene? 00:53:32 Speaker 2: It's good because there's conflict, character based conflict. I wish that they had set up like the priest a little bit more as like, you know, an easy fix for me would have been like if in the earlier scenes he had tried to intervene to like make people get along in the with a Clinger situation and couldn't, But in this instance, he was you know, because it was I just wanted everybody to sort of there's a rewrite in there. But yeah, but no, this is where I was like, great, there's fireworks because even in the other storyline, like I am, I'm having a hard time seeing the difference in character between Hawkeye and BJ I'm like, yeah, but these are both kind of similar dudes, white dudes with similar like ironic vibes, and like, I don't know, I just wanted, like, I want to know. 00:54:12 Speaker 1: That's literally one of the reasons that the network asked Mike Ferrell to. 00:54:16 Speaker 2: Grow a mustache, just so they could tell them apart. 00:54:18 Speaker 3: So they can tell them apart. 00:54:19 Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's a you know, I just you could tell that they were just into like a vibe of a certain type. But it's like, but you know, this is a great opportunity, like and they're trying to make it like you got us lost, But I was like, but they're kind of the same guy. Like, and so anytime that there's like this where I see different types of people going at it, I'm like, great, that's that's conflict. 00:54:36 Speaker 1: And earlier the characters were very different when when BJ first got there, because he's supposed to be fresh out of residency. He's he's married with a new baby, and he's like very he still likes to drink and have fun. But where Hawkeye is the lothario and is out there womanizing all the time, BJ is very you know, he's also very loyal to his wife, so that was a different character thing. But they the network came to them after a season or two and just said, you guys even look too much alike it. 00:55:04 Speaker 3: Can you grow mustag But that's what I mean. 00:55:05 Speaker 2: I think that like when I said banter, you know, like the banter is the priority. It's sort of like, you know, it's the wit of the dialogue that's more important than the actual like revelation of character. Yeah, everybody's sort of above it. 00:55:19 Speaker 1: And you know, yeah, I'm gonna be when we watch the next episode, which I'm gonna pick, You're literally gonna start by going, it's a completely different television, Joe. 00:55:29 Speaker 3: It's a completely different television, Joe. So we're back in the middle of nowhere. 00:55:46 Speaker 1: Hawkeye Honeycutt and now Ralph have continued their quest towards the mash four or seven seventh when they stumble upon a Korean man in trouble. He's buried beneath a hay cart. They run to his aid and managed to lift it off of him. Honeycut attends to the man's wounds. Hawkeye complains, just our luck, foreigner. Honeycut offers a new rule from now on, no invading the country if you don't speak the language. The injured man tries to tell them something, but they obviously can't understand them. Instead, Hawkeye introduces the trio to the pedestrian, joking that he probably knows honeycut from driving school. Honeycutt asks the man's name, and he and Ralph both respond in Korean. 00:56:17 Speaker 3: Hawkeye admits, that's a lot to remember. How about we just call you Fred for short. 00:56:21 Speaker 1: Honeycutt finishes wrapping the man's foot, and when he tries to stand up, he shrieks in pain. They realize they have to get him home, which shouldn't be too far right. Honeycutt wonders how they'll get him there, and Hawkeye decides he'll be carried by all of those. 00:56:31 Speaker 3: Who got us lost and walking. Honeycut bends down to piggyback the man, admitting his mother always told him never to pick up strangers. And we're now back at base camp. 00:56:39 Speaker 1: Major Hulhan is continuing with her chores when she walks by Major Winchester's room his tent and notices that he's sleeping. She tears down the screen and screams his name at the top for lung. Startled, he falls off the bed in terror. She continues, did you just see what I did to that tent? 00:56:54 Speaker 3: Next? It's gonna happen to you. 00:56:56 Speaker 1: He tries to reason with her, but she insists if you're not hard at it in three second so you're gonna drown in rice gruel. He swears it was just a mistake. He was making the bed with nice clean sheets and then slipped. She starts to count three two. He shouts, I'm working. I'm looking for sick people. He peers under the bed. Anyone under here need a doctor? She loses it again. How dare you sleep while this whole camp is in bed? She storms out of his room, buckets of rice gruel in hand. We are now back in the middle of nowhere. The men finally arrive at fred Shack and are greeted by a woman who they assume is Missus Fred. They move chickens and set the man down in a shed. Missus Fred and Ralph reveal a dusty motorcycle for the men to use. Honeycut boasts that he led them straight to honest Fred's use motorcycle a lot, but Hawkeye doesn't understand how they're going to drive that thing. Well, Honeycutt has another trick up his sleeve. Apparently he's Mill Valley's finest surviving motorcycle rider. He assures them that they've got no problem. Then he checks the motorcycle. We've got one problem. But his fate would have it well, Fred hans Hawkeye a big old Canna gasoline. 00:57:56 Speaker 3: By the way, Mike Farrell must actually be a. 00:58:00 Speaker 1: Motorcycle rider in real life, or was at the time, because there's three separate storylines where he finds a motorcycle. There's this one, there's another one where he gets one and then it's trashed by a visiting journalist, and then the last episode he literally rides off on a motorcycle with his San Francisco placard on the front. 00:58:18 Speaker 2: So Mill Valley is Mill Valley, California. 00:58:20 Speaker 3: That's where he's from. Milboury. 00:58:22 Speaker 1: He in one episode he is able for two hundred dollars to put a down payment on a big plot of land on Stinson Beach. Oh my god, and he's running around trying to raise the two hundred bucks. 00:58:35 Speaker 2: I'll be worth like ten million dollars exactly. 00:58:38 Speaker 3: So yeah, so yes, he is from He's from California, which is a big part of his storyline. 00:58:43 Speaker 2: Actually, is he supposed to be kind of like a beatnick California. 00:58:47 Speaker 3: No, but he's no, not at all. 00:58:49 Speaker 1: But he's like what Winchester who went to Harvard always looks down at him. He's like, you're a billion surgeon even though you were bowl and raised and trained in California. 00:58:58 Speaker 3: Interest like it's a it's a whole thing. 00:59:00 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but yes he is a he's a San Francisco boy. So Hawkeye smells the gasoline it has a visceral reaction to liquid, before handing it over and suggesting a swig. Hawkeye takes his seat in the ancient looking sidecar and Honeycutt loads up the gas tank. But just as the men are about to leave. Ralph blocks their path. He wants to come along with them. Hawkeye asks would Bob Hope and Bing Crosby leave without Dorothy Lamore. Honeycutt agrees they can't break up the set and tells Ralph to climb aboard. 00:59:25 Speaker 3: They sput her off all smiles. The medical tent. 00:59:29 Speaker 2: Do you know who Dorothy Lamour is? 00:59:31 Speaker 3: She was a She was a film actress, wasn't she. 00:59:34 Speaker 2: I don't know. Oh yeah, no, this cowboy, this is like Michael Jacob's reference. I'm like, oh boy, I'm supposed to. I mean, I've heard the name bing Crosby. That's about it, pretty sure. 00:59:44 Speaker 1: But they yeah, they talk about a lot of fifty stars, Gene Tierney and all the kind of people like that. It's yeah, this is this might have been one of the places that made me go back and find out who they all were. Was all the mash that I watch, It's all definitely possible. We're back at the medical tent now. Colonel Potter walks in and follow them. Okay, he greets him, more chipper than ever. The Colonel just shakes his head. He's indomitable. Next he runs into Major Hulahan. She reminds him he really should be in bed, but he promises he wouldn't be here if he couldn't handle it. He asks if there's been any signs of septoicemia or complications among the other soldiers, and since everything has calmed down, he suggests she'd take a break while he watches over the place. Before she goes, though, he wonders where Major Winchester is. Hulahn says he finished his rounds and now he's supposed to be putting clean sheets on all the bunks. 01:00:25 Speaker 3: Even the colonel laughs, he'd like to see that. 01:00:27 Speaker 1: Hulahan heads out, and Colonel Potter takes a seat next to one of the ill soldiers. He gives him a word of advice. The best way to beat this thing is to just put it out of your mind. He wishes he could, but it's kind of like being on the ocean. 01:00:38 Speaker 3: Up and down, up and down. 01:00:41 Speaker 1: And then it gets into his head, and then it gets into my head and starts spinning around and around. The colonel starts looking a little queasy as he follows the man's description. Then both of them start to gag, and the colonel bends over to move him over. This is another reoccurring character named Igor who his name's Igor Straminsky is the name of the character who's. 01:01:03 Speaker 3: An actor named Jeff Maxwell. 01:01:05 Speaker 1: And I know Jeff because he hosts he co hosts with Ryan Patrick the Mash podcast that I went on, and so he was started as a background actor, and then as they go on, he's in more and more episodes, he gets more and more lines. That's one thing Mash did really well is a bunch of the characters for the final episode, you actually stand up and give speeches like here's what I'm doing. After the war were background actors that had been there for ten or eleven years that they literally started giving storylines too. It's like you've been here forever, We're going to write an entire episode about your character, which I thought was is really cool for an actor. 01:01:41 Speaker 3: Yeah, and Jeff's a great guy. Shout out Jeff Maxwell and Ryan Patrick. By the way. Yeah, go watch Mash Matters or listen to Mash Matters. 01:01:48 Speaker 2: Great podcast. 01:01:49 Speaker 3: We're now back at base camp. 01:01:51 Speaker 1: Honeycutt, Hawkeye and Ralph come speeding in on the motorcycle right where Winchester is hanging the linens to dry. He realizes are head to write for him, and honeycutt can't stop it. They end up tearing right through the clean linens and crashing into some metal cases. 01:02:03 Speaker 3: Winchester screams with them. 01:02:04 Speaker 1: You brainless twits, Look what you've done to my laundry, and then he notices the Korean man who's joined them on the bike, now waving his arms in the air again. Honeycut responds, shame on, you don't you recognize the international signal for touchdown. The Major points out the obvious, the man's a North Korean soldier. Hawkeye quips, right, he's here to pick up his laundry. Good thing it was ready, or he'd have to shoot you. And then everyone else comes to greet them. Major Hulhan retrieves the antibiotics well. Colonel Potter asked what. 01:02:29 Speaker 3: Took them so long? Did they stop at the beach? 01:02:31 Speaker 1: Ralph motions to surrender once again, and the colonel simply asks who's this. They say it's Ralph and go back to life as normal. Hawkeye begins his spiel, neither rain nor sleep, nor snow nor broken jeep. Honeycut continues, nor kidnap, nor surrender, nor dark of lost, and the colonel cuts them off. The jabbering lamp is out on their way to post stop. Hawkeye tells Winchester to come along in case any of the patients need fluff and fold. Ralph continues to surrender, and Honeycut calmly tells him to come along too. They've come this far. There's no need to be strangers. Hawkeye adds, there's a whole ward of people you haven't surrendered to you yet. Ralph jumps up and down with excitement. Then we're in our tag, which is in Clinger's room. Clinger desperately fumbls around for a phone, finally grabbing one to connect to Sparky. Sparky is the guy who's always on the other end when the other end of that phone when they call, has been for eleven years. One time you see Sparky and one time only. He tells them, hook me through to HQ supply and hurry. It looks like clingers in rough shape. Just as he's about to speak with sergeants Themopolis, but he's finally connected. He angrily tells the sergeant, you know that turkey you sold me stuff it now. 01:03:36 Speaker 3: It ends on his face in a gasp. What did you think that. 01:03:39 Speaker 2: Meant, oh, I have no idea what. I just was like, it's just clinger, I have no ied it. I was literally like at this point, what. 01:03:48 Speaker 1: Why No, because there's some people that think I've had conversations about some people that think themopolis said something that makes and go, whereas I think he himself and that's why he's like, hurry up, hurry up, and then he says stuff it. 01:04:02 Speaker 3: And then that men. Then he's like, because. 01:04:05 Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, that makes sense. I was literally like, what's the joke. I don't understand what's happening? Didn't always end on a freeze frame? 01:04:10 Speaker 1: Yeah, and then the music kicks in and then funny, oh that you could also you would tell they would dictate the tone of the show by the way the show ended. So either it ends like this and a laugh and it's frozen then then then or it would freeze and it was a somber note and it would go they'd slow it down, or it would freeze and there'd be silence, and that's when you knew it was a big tough episode. 01:04:40 Speaker 2: So the only characters who changed or grew at all, Well, Winchester cares about laundry. Yeah, cares about laundry. By the end, I like storyline, right, Okay, anybody else Ralph, Ralph surrenders gets his goal, which is to surrender and join the Americans. 01:05:00 Speaker 3: It's a romprid, It's a Korean War romp. 01:05:03 Speaker 2: What changed? 01:05:04 Speaker 3: Nothing? Oh god, nothing, I can't. Oh my god. 01:05:08 Speaker 1: When you see sometimes you hear the bullet which again, first season show, you're going to call me and be like, this show is brilliant. 01:05:15 Speaker 3: Why wasn't this like this the whole time? 01:05:17 Speaker 2: Sure? 01:05:18 Speaker 1: But one of the reasons is one of the reasons is because. 01:05:21 Speaker 3: Think about how few shows in history, literally in television history, got better the longer they went on. And I used to argue. 01:05:33 Speaker 2: Seasons six seasons, I feel like is where you start max and out. 01:05:36 Speaker 3: That's the thing. 01:05:36 Speaker 1: I used to think Boy Meets World was getting better as we went on, And now that we're rewatching it, I don't think that's true. 01:05:43 Speaker 2: No, you just got better. 01:05:45 Speaker 3: No, I just got bigger. That doesn't necessarily mean. 01:05:47 Speaker 2: It's definitely you were getting better progressively as the show went on. 01:05:51 Speaker 1: But the show itself, think of all the best shows in history, I mean, Cheers, The. 01:05:58 Speaker 2: Office, Friends, Get stayed pretty good all the way through the end and Seinfeld, Yeah. 01:06:02 Speaker 1: But again by the time on Friends, when now Rachel and Joey are dating, You're like, wait, they're together now. I mean, there's there's some times in the later episodes of every show I can think of it, and I would love for our fans to write into Danielle Fischel to tell her, uh no, seriously, can you to say, what are some shows that you really believe got better the longer. 01:06:25 Speaker 3: They were on? Now I could argue we got but then dropped off. 01:06:29 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think the smartest shows are the ones that that say, we have an end point in mind, and we're going to pull the plug at a certain point. Get your so much, yes, exactly, But there's always so much money on the line, you know. It's like that's the problem with something like Friends. All those people wanted to move on in their careers, but it's like, no, there's just too much to be made here, so they keep going to the deck. 01:06:49 Speaker 3: They've giveing them a million dollars an episode. 01:06:52 Speaker 1: As much as you hated Boy Mets World, if they came back to you for a season eight said we'll give you a million dollars an episode. 01:06:56 Speaker 3: You would have stayed. 01:06:57 Speaker 1: Probably, Yeah, yeah, of course, it's just it's life changing money. 01:07:01 Speaker 3: I mean, you have to take them. 01:07:03 Speaker 1: No, God, no, you're kidding them. I still owe Disney money for being on that show. 01:07:10 Speaker 2: Every time they air an episode of I got to send them ID. 01:07:13 Speaker 1: So, for everybody out there who has never seen an episode of MASH, if this is your first episode of MASH, don't judge Mash by this episode is what I would definitely say. It's a Thanksgiving episode of MASH, which is why we did it. But don't judge this. 01:07:26 Speaker 3: Bye bye. 01:07:27 Speaker 1: Go back and start with the pilot and watch it forward. That's the way to do MASH. And I promise you it's going to be a different show than it is here, much like Dancing with the Stars, which apparently this first season is very different than the seasons that we have now, but we wouldn't know because we never saw it. See how, I brought it right back to Danielle since she's not here and we're the dan Yettes and it's always got to end on a Danielle thing. 01:07:46 Speaker 3: So that's what we're doing. 01:07:48 Speaker 1: Thank you everybody so much for joining us for this episode of Podmeats World. As always you could follow us on what is it? Instagram? I've never done this once. You can yes follow you follow us on Instagram. 01:08:00 Speaker 3: Which Poppy's World Show. 01:08:01 Speaker 1: That's right at Poppys World Show, and you can email email us at Poppys Worldshow dot com at no Poppys. 01:08:07 Speaker 3: World Show at gmail dot com. That's what it is. And also we've got merch. We don't merch. This is where Danield laughingly goes. 01:08:24 Speaker 1: Podmeetsworldshow dot com writer send us out, we love you all. 01:08:29 Speaker 2: Pod dismissed. Podmeets World is an iHeart podcast producer hosted by Danielle Fischel, Wilfredell and Ryder Strong executive producers Jensen Carp and Amy Sugarman, Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo, producer and editor, Tarasubach, producer, Maddie Moore engineer and boy Meets World superman Easton Allen. Our theme song is by Kyle Morton of Typhoon. Follow us on Instagram at Podmeats World Show or email us at Podmeats World Show at gmail dot com.

TGI – MAS*H 810 “The Yalu Brick Road”

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TGI – M*A*S*H 810 “The Yalu Brick Road”

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TGI – MAS*H 810 “The Yalu Brick Road”