Believe it or not, I’ve had a 1984 Spring/Summer Sears catalog kicking around my basement for years. Not quite since 1984 but the better part of a decade. I looked through it a few months ago — the amount of carpeting Sears saw fit to put in bathrooms was ludicrous — and came across a set of M*A*S*H boys’ pajamas on page 322, next to similar Knight Rider and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi pajamas. Here’s a scan:

1984 Sears M*A*S*H Pajamas
Copyright © Sears, Roebuck and Co., 1984

Are there any M*A*S*H fans out there who happily wore these faux scrubs pajamas to bed back in 1984?

I’ve been going through some of my archived M*A*S*H content and came across the following two page excerpt from an unidentified magazine that features photographs of the cast (from later seasons) as children. Someone sold the two pages on eBay in 2004 and I saved the images but failed to write down any information about the magazine itself. The article is about Alan Alda and was written by David S. Reiss, author of M*A*S*H: The Exclusive, Inside Story of TV’s Most Popular Show; only a portion of the article is included here, it continued later in the magazine. I don’t know when it was published; the only legible date is May 1980, connected to a brief paragraph written by Alan Alda.

M*A*S*H Cast as Children

M*A*S*H Cast as Children

One of the more unusual pieces of M*A*S*H memorabilia is the Bachmann HO scale train set. I’m not a model train person so read this Wikipedia page for some information about the “HO scale.” I’m not exactly sure when this set was released but according to Tony Cook’s HO-Scale Trains Resource was featured in Bachmann’s 1983 catalog, meaning it was likely available in 1983-1984. It features a 45″ x 36″ oval track and 89 pieces, including five train cars, a plastic jeep, a plastic helicopter, a water tower, 10 cardboard buildings, 48 plastic figurines and paper to be used as a mountain backdrop. According to Toy Soldier HQ Inc, the figurines were not special army people but the regular Bachmann train figurine set made up of 24 men, women and children, in both white and green.

Bachmann M*A*S*H Train Set

One of these sets sold on eBay a few weeks ago for $296.01. It seems that the train cars themselves were released separately and can often be found for sale on eBay. If there are any model train enthusiasts reading this know anything about the Bachmann HO scale train set for M*A*S*H, please add your thoughts in the comments.

Peter Kurch, who volunteered back in 2008 to write about the 1982 line of action figures, vehicles and a playset from Tristar International, has finally been able to get his hands on the 4077th Medical Unit Helicopter, the one vehicle he needed to complete his collection. He has rewritten his article, adding new details about the articulation of the figures, and has also taken brand new photographs of his incredible collection. You can find the article here; a gallery of his photographs can be found here. A huge thank you to Peter for taking the time to put this all together.

(For the record, this was originally a feature but I decided it fit better as an article.)

People.com makes almost 50,000 stories dating back to its 1974 debut available in its online archive. You can even download some issues in their entirety. M*A*S*H cast members or the show itself have graced the cover of People several times over the past 36 years. The earliest cover I am aware of is the March 17th, 1975 issue, which featured Alan Alda on the cover, while the most recent was the October 24th, 1983 issue, which featured the cast of AfterMASH. Some of these issues are available online, as are articles from issues that didn’t have M*A*S*H on the cover. Here’s an incomplete list of People covers and articles with links to the online version when available:

March 17th, 1975 – Cover, Alan Alda
March 13th, 1979 – Cover, Loretta Swit (Unavailable)
April 9th, 1979 – Article, Mike Farrell
November 17th, 1980 – Article, Filming 200th episode (Unavailable)
June 15th, 1981 – Cover, Alan Alda
August 21st, 1981 – Article, David Ogden Stiers
March 7th, 1983 – Article, End of M*A*S*H (Unavailable)
May 16th, 1983 – Article, Jamie Farr
October 24th, 1983 – Cover, Cast of AfterMASH
August 9th, 1999 – Article, Gary Burghoff
April 24th, 2000 – Obituary, Larry Linville