Use of the term "Red" for Mulcahy

[KlausMan]

I had read somewhere that William Christopher was never referred to as "Red" but it was the man who played the Mulchahy character in the first episode, George Morgan. In the first season episode, Dear Dad, when Mulcahy is stringing up the Christmas tree, Pierce says, "Its lookin' good Red." Has anyone else ever heard this claim or am I just experiencing an aging problem?

[Big Daddy O'Reilly]

No, you're right, Hawkeye does refer to him as "Red" in "Dear Dad" (1x12).

In the novel and the movie, Mulcahy earns the nickname "Dago Red", because that's what he ends up getting drunk on, but as it turns out, "Dago" is something of a derogatory term for Italians, so I THINK when they started working on the series, they tried to change the nickname to just "Red", and instead of it being because of booze, it's because of his red hair. I think are the only two times from the series he's refered to as "Red".

[RJ]

The Dago Red/Red nickname for Mulcahy, like Hawkeye's whistle and use of the phrase "finest kind," is one of those little things from the novel/movie that made one or two appearances during the first season but never gained any traction and soon disappeared.

[Grove17]

I think also it was because he is Irish. My family is mostly all of Irish decedents and theirs definitely our share of red heads.