One-Season Wonders

Talk about all things M*A*S*H -- the novel, the film, the television series, even the play. Not to mention the spin-offs, merchandise, cast, crew and anything else you can think of to talk about.
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Big Daddy O'Reilly
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One-Season Wonders

Post by Big Daddy O'Reilly »

You guys know about "One-Hit Wonders", right? Where a band or musical group only records one song, that becomes very popular? Or when an obscure band only has one song from their roster than stands out among the rest of their relatively unknown work (like Baha Men with "Who Let the Dogs Out")?

Well, one thing I've recently took notice of is that M*A*S*H was actually known for One-Season Wonders, as far as characters go; and I don't mean just the number of recurring characters that got the ax after Season One like Spearchucker, Ho-Jon, Ugly John, Kaplan, Cutler, Generals Hammond and Barker, etc.

Take Season Three for example, we were given Captain Spaulding, the camp minstrel. We knew the character was experimental, according to Larry Gelbart, but he obviously didn't test very well with audiences, because he disappeared afterwards.

Then of course, there's Soon-Lee from Season Eleven, who in the end, became the new Mrs. Max Klinger.
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TrapperJoe
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Re: One-Season Wonders

Post by TrapperJoe »

My favorite one season wonder is Pat Morita as Captain Pak. I wish he was in more episodes, he had some funny lines and I thought he fit in perfect with the poker playing crew.

I also liked Captain Spaulding, it would have been cool to keep his character around for several random episodes. They could have used his character every now and then, when the guitar playing would fit in well with certain episodes.

Another character I would have liked to seen again was Roy Dupree. He was only in "Temporary Duty", but I would have loved an episode with him and Hawkeye meeting. Hawkeyes reactions and responses to Dupree would have been perfect.
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