What you wished they'd done

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Garbage Officer
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What you wished they'd done

Post by Garbage Officer »

Just wondering, M*A*S*H went for a long time and one of the reason's they stopped making the show was because they were running short on ideas.
So is there anthing you wished they'd done on the show but never got round to?
Or maybe a storyline that you think got finished too quickly?
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D_47
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Re: What you wished they'd done

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Great topic!

I think that the characters who had left should have received more mention than they did. Burns, Radar, Henry, and Trapper were mentioned a few times, but I think they should have been brought up a lot more, considering how close knit the characters were (well, except for Burns, but still).
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Re: What you wished they'd done

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Yeah, that's weird. Especially with Trapper as it's never said that he even wrote a letter once he got home, but really, why wouldn't he? It's like he left Korea and forgot about everyone. I think they could have made it just a small point in the story, not like it had to be the catalyst of the episode. Just during mail call Hawkeye gets a letter and hears how he's getting on as a civvie. At least Radar wrote a couple of time.
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Re: What you wished they'd done

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Exactly! It was totally out of character for Trapper. Like you said, Radar wrote a time or two as well. I can see Burns and obviously Henry not writing, but they should have been mentioned more.

Another thing that bothered me was the opening intro. I think during the later seasons (when M*A*S*H proved it's worth) they should have re-filmed the opening to include all the major cast in the intro. Maybe Hawk, BJ, and Charles all up on the pad checking the wounded on the choppers, Potter and Margaret checking on wounded on the jeeps and ambulances, and Klinger helping move the wounded. I guess Mulcahy could be up there watching or helping in some sort as well.
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Re: What you wished they'd done

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The only thing with the intro that bothered me was the early Hawkeye and the later BJ being there. They should have re-filmed that so it was the same era. They could have re-shot it to show Margaret and Klinger running up to help as well, although I understand why they didn't re-do it. It's one of those things they change it and it doesn't work. Like Scrubs intro they re-shot it to get the whole of the cast into it and it wasn't as good as the original and they went back to the old version.

I think they should have had more two parters. I think some episodes were too rushed and occasionally benefit from the extra time. Mostly when they did a two-parter, the suspense wasn't really there. Like Snappy Judgement. It's not like anyone thinks Klinger's going to be found guilty of theft.
I think that considering where they were, they suffered very few injuries to their staff as well. It would have been great to have had a nurse or part of the regular supporting cast to have been injured due to shelling or sniper fire, etc at camp to just make it seem more dangerous.
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Re: What you wished they'd done

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I'm really not so sure if it was out of character for Trapper to never write to the gang of the 4077th after he left... he seemed one of the more anxious to leave the place, and I'm sure he was in a similar mindset as everyone else: wanting to erase every memory of that place that he had, even if that meant erasing the people from his mind as well... because let's be honest, sometimes in life, we do try to erase things from our mind, including people we may have met and known. Because let's see... he got drunk and nearly went AWOL once, and when he thought he had an ulcer, he was anxious to leave, but when he learned he couldn't, he reluctantly stayed at the 4077th as opposed to being shipped to another unit.
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Re: What you wished they'd done

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TBH, Trapper's not my favourite character. I never felt like he & Hawkeye had the same sort of friendship that Hawk had with BJ. Maybe the fact he was unfaithful while he was away as well didn't help me to like him. Funny how both Trapper & Henry weren't faithful, but BJ & Potter were.
I'm not sure how long they were supposed to have in Korea at the time, but there's en epiosde in season 1 I think where stuff's being stolen & they find it in Hawkeye's footlocker and everyone thinks it was him that did it. I can't imagine that from season 4 onwards, if the same thing had happened they wouldn;t have been saying that there's no way he'd have done it. Except Margaret & Frank still. :P
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Re: What you wished they'd done

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That's what I've said before. To be fair, Alan had great chemistry with both Wayne and Mike, and I know that IRL they're still really good friends, but the chemistry is different with both. Hawkeye and Trapper's friendship was more-or-less a couple of frat boys with a common cause: to make Frank's life miserable, lol; whereas Hawkeye and B.J.'s friendship was opposites attract.

As for Trapper and Henry, I can't imagine Trapper turning over a new leaf with this cheating ways... Henry maybe if he had lived, considered Lorraine also cheated on him once, and that seemed to shock him to see what it was like to have the shoe on the other foot, but Trapper never seemed to show any remorse. It wouldn't surprise me if he had affairs with any stateside nurses or receptionists, etc.

While he wasn't my favorite either, there's one thing about Trapper that always cracked me up... anytime REAL food was in camp, he managed to eat it all under the noses of others... like when Henry had porkchops, or Hawkeye had a steak, lol.

HAWKEYE: *Sighs*
TRAPPER: What's the matter.
HAWKEYE: I got a stomach ache... I think you ate my meal too fast.
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Re: What you wished they'd done

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Yeah, they definately worked well together. And I don't blame Wayne in any way like saying he's a terrible actor or anything just that he wasn't given much to work with. And in some ways they made BJ much too nice when he first arrived, although his character did change throughout the show which I found sad that he sort of lost his own innocence. I actually feel like BJ and Hawkeye needed a deeper friendship more than Hawkeye & Trapper needed one another. Even in the later years of the show when Hawkeye & BJ would get on each others nerves a lot anytime one was in a situation where things could go bad, they other would be worried or helping them out somehow.
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Re: What you wished they'd done

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I like Trapper, probably mostly due to Wayne Roger's good looks, but I agree that he didn't really have anything that marked him out, no USP as they say. I used to watch the show as a kid and Trapper is the character I remember least from that time, I even remember Igor more.

So, I wish they had have done something to rectify that, for example ,in "Dear Dad", Hawkeye mentions that the locals always turned to Trapper for help I wish they had explored that a bit more, maybe Trap could have learned Korean and turned out to be a language whizz or something or perhaps it could have caused conflict with Hawkeye.

I also would have liked to have seen more patients like the blind teacher in Out of Sight, as most of the patients seemed to be either naive kids or gung ho generals and we didn't really know that much more about them, but Tom had a job and a family and seemed like quite a well rounded character. I hope he and Hawkeye kept in touch.
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Re: What you wished they'd done

Post by Mash4Ever »

I Wish They Had Keep Trapper For The Whole 11 Seasons!
From A Big Alan Alda Wayne Rogers Mash Fan Kirsten

RIP Harry Morgan 1915-2011

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Re: What you wished they'd done

Post by Grove17 »

I agree I wish Trapper would have written to Hawk a lot. That could have added a little more dimension. Trapper could have even been sending Hawk different things like "bathtub" type stuff that could have been used for laughs. Also I wish we could have seen more of what they did while on R&R. Seeing Hawk and or Trapper getting drunk and having fun in a city would have been great....same goes for when Frank went crazy looking for Hotlips and ending up in a hotub with a general.


Seeing the cooks making the meals more could have been funny like when Hawk was trying to teach the cook how to make French toast by pinching the bread. My grandfather was a head cook in WW2 and he always had good stories about what they went through to try to make food better or ways to get better food.
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Re: What you wished they'd done

Post by Grove17 »

Just thought of some more.....I wish Radar would have done some more impersonations, he was pretty good at that!! also I would have liked to see him play the drums more often.
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