Every Monday, I spotlight a random episode of M*A*S*H, providing a brief review and asking readers to offer their thoughts.
NOTE: This is my 225th Episode Spotlight, which means there are just 26 episodes left to review.
“Bulletin Board” (#64, 3×16)
Originally Broadcast: Tuesday, January 14th, 1975
Written by Larry Gelbart & Simon Muntner
Directed by Alan Alda
Capsule Summary: The 4077th enjoys a lecture, a Shirley Temple movie, and a picnic and barbecue.
A very loosely structured episodes, “Bulletin Board” features Henry’s third and final camp lecture, on the topic of birth control. His first lecture, about marital sex, took place in “Dear Dad” during Season 1; he delivered his second, on venereal disease, in “As You Were” during Season 2. Personally, I think the first lecture is the must amusing while the one in this episode is the weakest.
Posted to the camp bulletin board during the episode are the following: Henry’s lecture, payroll savings bonds, the movie in the Mess Tent at 1900 hours, and the the first annual Polly Adler Birthday Cookout Picnic and Barbecue. Curiously, there’s a PA announcement about the morale benefits of writing home rather than a notice on the bulletin board.
The savings bond plot point gives Margaret her only involvement in the episode. She wants to borrow money from Frank to give to her younger sister as a wedding present. Frank isn’t interested but, after Margaret gives him the cold shoulder, he relents and agrees to lend her the money if she’ll sign an IOU and pay interest. That’s Frank.
For the first time, someone other than Hawkeye writes home. In a letter to his seven-year-old daughter Becky, Trapper describse the Swamp, his roommates, and how he helped save the life of a wounded soldier who survived only because he suffered from severe hypothermia. Wayne Rogers does a fine job with his facial expressions while sitting in the Officers’ Club finishing the letter. “You know, I’d like to be able to tell you when I’m coming home. But for a while now, all I can do is stay here, and make the best of it.”
The picnic and barbecue looks like a lot of fun. There’s music, food, (hot dogs, fudge, lemonade, cup cakes), a hula dancer, a Punch and Judy show, a kissing booth, balloons, and games (a water transfer relay, a foot race, and tug of war). Frank winning the foot race and a lacy black bra is hilarious.
It looks like the cast had a blast filming the tug of war scene. Goldman and Igor won or at least were the only participants not to end up in the mud. Rumor has it you can hear members of the cast talking while in the mud. I’ve watched and rewatched the scene several times and I think someone says “Can you believe this?” Also, it’s obvious Alan Alda is saying something in the mud but I can’t quite understand what it is.
During the tag, various bits of news are delivered over the PA. However, the timeline doesn’t work. Clark Gable’s divorce from Lady Sylvia Ashley was finalized in April 1952 but it may have been announced much earlier. Dwight D. Eisenhower, campaigning for President, delivered his “I shall go to Korea” speech on October 24th, 1952.
In April 2000, Larry Gelbart was asked at the alt.tv.mash newsgroup if he had any behind-the-scenes stories about filming the barbecue scene and if any of the extras were family members of the cast or crew. Here’s his response:
Most of the shows I participated were done in a pleasant, constructive atmosphere. I don’t remember this one as being memorable in any way. Who knows? Maybe something *did* happen that bouyed [sic] us all on that particular filming, but time has the final cut and that memory seems not to have survived.
I’m pretty sure there were family relatives involved. Not to [sic] professional, that kind of thing. And we liked to give working actors work.
Watch closely and you’ll see Igor taking part in the jam session at the picnic. Jeff Maxwell revealed in a June 2007 alt.tv.mash post that he was rubbing two pieces of toast together:
For some reason there was a plate of toast sitting close by. I would “play” a pair of toasts down to crumbs and grab two more until it all disappeared. Too bad I wasn’t closer to the camera. It was pretty funny.
(For the record, the rest of the “band” consists of Radar drumming on an empty fuel barrel, Zale drumming on a jerrycan, and another soldier banging a spoon against a metal container.)
Margaret’s younger sister, the captain about to get married, is never mentioned again. There’s also a reference to her dead father who shows up alive and well “Father’s Day” during Season 9.
Loretta Swit was also injured while they were filming this episode: when she felt into the mud, she did so while her legs were in an unnatural position, then Alan Alda and Wayne Rogers fall on top of her while she’s still in that position – what looks like her squealing in delight is actually her screaming in pain. Notice how Alan starts hugging on her a little as they both sit up in the mud; in the original version of the episode, you could actually hear Alan say something to the effect of, “It’s okay Loretta,” but it supposedly had since been dubbed out.
One of my favorite exchanges from this episode is this:
FRANK: You’ve been avoiding me, Margaret.
MARGARET: Actually, I’ve been ignoring you, Frank. I’ll get around to avoiding you later.
There’s another subplot about this episode you forgot to mention, RJ: Henry’s troubled patient. This actually got Henry in a sour mood, because it didn’t look like his patient was going to pull through, and in fact, he was initially against the idea of the party, because he knew it would only be a temporary source of joy, then things would go right back to terrible afterwards. In fact, notice how up until the tug-of-war, Henry pretty much spends the entire party walking around sulking.
Henry’s sulking may also be due in part to McLean’s impending departure from the series. From what I’ve read, this was his 2nd-to-last episode, filmed just prior to his final episode, “Abyssinia, Henry”, so he may have been down about leaving the show and/or his treatment on-set.
Based on what I’ve read about how all outdoor scenes had to be filmed prior to the short, standard-time days of late fall, maybe the picnic was filmed weeks before the rest of the show, or there was an exceptionally early production schedule that season that was wrapped up by early November.
Henry the character was sulking because Henry the character’s patient was in trouble . . . it had nothing to do with McLean. It’s called acting.
Just watched this episode. When Radar stands up to yell “choppers!!”, his mouth doesn’t move. It looks like the same when he first falls in and asks “who turned out the lights?”, but it’s hard to be sure. Not sure if that would be considered a goof or production mishap.
Thanks for the Ep. spotlight!
The syndicated version cuts out Henry’s sex lecture. Bummer!
So glad to find this website while I’m getting my first M*A*S*H fix in 3 years (thanks, Hulu!). This time I’m doing it methodically, all episodes in order, and not skipping the first 3 seasons like I’ve done in the past.
I don’t remember this episode well, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’m a big fan of slice-of-life stories, just seeing characters go about their business. I liked how this episode showed both the unit’s monotony, and some bright spots. The 4077 folks were such good hosts to the orphans. It was heartwarming but not cloying. Even Frank was decent, at least relatively so.
Why would one ever skip first three seasons? They were the only ones worth watching IMHO… It became tortured VietNam guilt after that.
Chris …
Your post above was almost 3 years ago
And no idea if you’re still around, find this
But if so …
Would you please elaborate/define/etc … “tortured VietNam guilt”
… thanks, bc
faepideqkcafofrqhqnmowmhimtqmt
anyone know the name of the hawaiian dancer?
Cameron …
Interesting Question … got me ‘shaking internet trees’ in case ‘something fall out’ (etc)
However (grrrr) … not find anything ‘fersure’ … maybe you can here (?) …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_M*A*S*H_cast_members
But don’t hold your breath, long list and nuttin’ specific (GRRRRR)
However … did watch that segment, and noticed this …
Her Cheeks/Eyes … kinda ‘up’ so she probably Hawaiian/Oriental (etc)
Least to my ‘eyes’ (wink)
And she sure does Hulu that Grassy Skirt like a Pro (WINK)
… mahalo, bc
I laugh every time I see the Shirley Temple movie!
Hi all, a couple of curios about this episode, which whilst OK is not quite as good as it should be.
Trapper saves the life of a soldier with hypothermia from staying out overnight in a mine field in winter, almost freezing to death, yet this event appears to be in close proximity to a barbecue with persons wearing shorts and acting as if it is summer (long dead grass everywhere).
How does MASH put on such good barbecues with party food yet the rest of the time the mess tent always serves up inedible rubbish? Where do they get the party food from? … and it would have been a continuity coup if the barbecue including a hefty serve of Adams Ribs!!
Why is Henry so despondent about the death of that patient? I can understand why, the patient died, but more particularly, in part it is a problem because:
(a) we don’t see the initial surgery in the O.R. but …
the main reason I have a problem with this is that
(b) Henry appears to have forgotten about what was taught to him at command school, in that there are two rules in war and rule 1 is that young men die and rule 2 is that doctors can’t change rule 1.
Whatever happened to the sage Henry as evidenced in “Sometimes You Hear The Bullet”? Perhaps Henry should have offered to give Hawkeye a picnic after SYHTB, given that this is what the tag of BB implies cheers up doctors after a death.
The whole episode just is a bit out of character to me.
With regards to Henry’s behaviour, I would point out that virtually no one practices what they preach all the time. We all occasionally engage in harmful behaviours even though we know they’re harmful, or say things we know will hurt someone else if we’re angry enough, or even just think things we know we shouldn’t, and it’s a LOT easier to provide words of comfort to someone else than it is to comfort yourself, especially with regards to something like death. Rationally, yes Henry knows that he can’t save everyone and sometimes he (or any of the other doctors) can do all that’s possible for them to do and it won’t guarantee a patient’s long-term survival, and that sucks but there’s nothing to be done about it. Just as in ‘SYHTB’, Hawkeye knows and acknowledges that rationally there’s no real reason for him to be any more emotional about his friend’s death than anyone else’s he’s witnessed, especially when he’s in an environment where he’s surrounded by death on an almost daily basis. But people simply can’t (and I’d argue shouldn’t) be expected to always be 100% rational, especially not in such a generally high-stress environment. Henry can be the fairly stoic shoulder for Hawkeye to cry on in ‘SYHTB’; that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s never once going to be affected by the death of one of his own patients. Humans just don’t work that way.
It’s somewhat difficult to truly explain this if you don’t know first-hand exactly how it feels, but it’s like how people with depression will often go out of their way to keep everyone else happy – the joy they try and bring others doesn’t mean they themselves won’t ever again spiral downwards, it’s simply that it’s ultimately easier to be a rock for everyone else than it is to sustain that level of even superficial happiness just for your own sake. And it’s likely the same principle with Henry here. Maybe this patient was like the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, just one too many in an environment of sustained stress and he couldn’t act like he was okay with it anymore; and the picnic provided some measure of release from it, a way for Henry to finally get out of his own head, so to speak. It’s notable that it still takes him almost the entirety of the picnic we see to even begin relaxing.
Brian L, a couple comments on your post,
While writing to his daughter Trapper tells her a story about “last December”; giving us a flashback scene of Frank’s poor call on the frozen soldier, Trapper figuring out it’s hypothermia, and how it saved him from bleeding to death.
The following do not happen in the flashback to December:
Henry’s patient dying, his lecture, Margaret borrowing money, bulletin board posts, the movie, or the barbecue picnic and games … the episode takes place in the summer (maybe late spring).
In regards to Henry’s behavior: Ditto to O.R. Chatter’s thoughts.
Thanks for the feedback, Hooch-mobile and OR Chatter. I must have missed the time reference to last December, and of course that makes sense now!