Corrected entry: Unless the regulations for the time period were different, the belt buckles seen with the regular fatigues is incorrect. They should be the same color as the belt and/or uniform. The brass buckles seen were used with the dress uniforms only. Also, any rank insignia worn by officers would have been dull in color so that they would be less of a target to snipers.
Movie Nut
11th Mar 2015
M*A*S*H (1972)
21st Sep 2020
M*A*S*H (1972)
Corrected entry: Klinger has a rash from his uniform. However, in earlier and later episodes, he wears uniforms without a problem.
Correction: As mentioned, Klinger's rash is psychosomatic. It wasn't necessarily the uniform that caused it. It was being forced into it by Colonel Potter. Hawkeye says women's clothes are Klinger's personal defense against the Army and lack of that defense is causing him to break out.
I stand corrected, I had forgotten that angle.
9th Jun 2015
M*A*S*H (1972)
Corrected entry: As Hawkeye calls the names over the P.A., the people were already on the way and entering the tent.
Correction: They were simply overlaying the PA announcement with the video of the people arriving to create dramatic effect and/or save time. It isn't a mistake.
18th Dec 2018
M*A*S*H (1972)
Good-Bye Radar: Part 2 - S8-E5
Corrected entry: Radar tells Klinger that "nobody helped me when I took the job." However, when Potter complains about Klinger's performance, Mulcahy tells him about Blake taking Radar under his wing and helping him grow into the job.
Correction: It is made clear that Colonel Blake was inept and had very little understanding of Radar's job. While Blake may have been supportive of Radar, Radar still had to learn the job on his own.
If he had little understanding of the clerk's job, then Mulcahy's statement that "Henry took Radar under his wing and helped him grow into the job" is moot.
Not necessarily as such. Both "taking under one's wing" and "growing into the job" are rather generic statements after all. Blake may very well have just kept his back while he learned the job, even though he may not have been such a great source of topical information on company-clerking in particular. For the question at hand however one should keep in mind that neither Radar nor Mulcahy are laying down historic facts when they make their respective statements, but try to make their points, which are, to wit: Radar thinks Klinger should stop bitching and try to find his feet, and Mulcahy thinks Potter needs to be supportive of Klinger.
1st Apr 2018
M*A*S*H (1972)
Dear Sigmund - S5-E7
Corrected entry: In this episode, Sidney Freedman writes a letter to Sigmund Freud, detailing his experiences at the 4077. Freud died September 23, 1939. M*A*S*H is set during the Korean War, June 25, 1950 to July 27, 1953.
Correction: Yes, Sidney's addressing Sigmund Freud in his "letter" but it's not an actual letter he's writing, it's Sidney's therapeutic way of expressing and venting his own private thoughts and feelings regarding coping mechanisms to the founder of psychoanalysis, whom he greatly respected. Sidney knows that Sigmund Freud has been dead for over a decade, and BJ even commented to Sidney that writing a letter to Sigmund Freud is a little crazy, but Sidney's reply says it all, "who better than he would understand."
23rd Mar 2017
M*A*S*H (1972)
Corrected entry: Radar is talking with Henry. In this episode, Radar is smoking a cigar, and drinking alcohol, something he did in "Chief Surgeon Who?" But in a later episode, he has trouble when Potter is trying to teach how to smoke a cigar.
Correction: Dr Freedman explains this as the war causing Radar to regress to a more childlike state, helped along by Potter as more of a father figure.
16th Aug 2016
M*A*S*H (1972)
Corrected entry: In this episode, Potter and company are being introduced to white phosphorous that is starting to be used. But in Season 2, Episode 1, "Divided We Stand", as Henry and Hawkeye come out of the O.R. a wounded soldier is brought in on a Jeep with white phosphorous burns, and they knew what to do.
Correction: Even if they knew how to deal with it at the time, the information might not have been common knowledge. As WP came to be used more frequently, the Army would send instructors to field hospitals to make certain everyone was up on the latest technique for dealing with it. (Col. Potter was also not in the earlier episode you mention, and he wants to hear the information).
Understood, but Potter was there in Season 4, Episode 24 "Deluge" when a WP case was brought in.
Remember that the main plot of this episode is that Col. Potter made a rookie mistake that almost cost a kid's life, and is fearing that he's too old to hack it as a doctor anymore. If the Army's learned something he doesn't know, he wants to know it.
Correction: "New" to the doctors on the front lines and "new" to the doctors back at HQ could be two different things.
It might be old news to the 4077th but new to the Army in general. Without asking a real Army doctor, Instructional briefings like this aren't optional. They don't ask if you already know it. The point of the scene is NOT "How many times has the 4077th already done this?" The point is "Potter thinks he's too old and can't hack it anymore, so IF the Army has learned something new, HE wants to hear it." And also shows us "Potter is on edge about something. Maybe we should call Sidney Green."
You could be the world's top expert in White Phosphorus, but if you're in the Army, and they tell you "You're going to attend a lecture on White Phosphorus," That's called an order and you do it, Mr. White Phosphorus, whether you like it or not.
Correction: Captain Simmons said the new weapon is "white phosphorus rounds." Phosphorus before then was likely used as part of artillery shells.
Correction: I know you can't worry about MASH's timeline or you'll go insane, but six seasons pass between this episode and that one. The Army medics could have learned some new things about treating the injuries in whatever time passed. And again, Col. Potter thinks he's slipping in this episode, so he wants to hear every word, and that's the main point of the scene.
25th Jan 2014
M*A*S*H (1972)
Corrected entry: The only ones who knew Dr. Borelli was in camp was Radar, Hawkeye, Trapper, and Henry. Since they were the only ones who knew him at all, how did Frank and Hotlips find out so quick?
Correction: Frank and Hotlips were always busy bodies around the camp and spying on the going ons of the camp. And as can be seen in other episodes, the swamp is near Hotlips' tent, so if her and Frank were in there, then it makes sense they would know pretty quick.
30th Sep 2015
M*A*S*H (1972)
Corrected entry: When she comes down the steps in BJ's dream, the backdrop behind where she's standing at the top of the stairs is white. When BJ goes back to work, the OR doors open, and the top of the stairs is now black.
Correction: What you're noting is BJ's dream (more a nightmare) with his wife Peg. She first appears at the top of a phantom stairway with a white backdrop, at the OR's outer doors - where stairs don't actually exist. When Peg leaves she walks up the phantom stairway with a black backdrop, which has moved and changed direction, and is now at the OR's inner doors - where stairs don't really exist either. During the dream BJ's dressed in a white tuxedo and they're dancing through the OR - where dancing never occurs. When Potter hands BJ the scalpel, BJ performs surgery in his tuxedo - which would never happen. This is a dream sequence involving a non-existent stairway with a non-existent backdrop, and formal attire and dancing in the OR. The significance of a stairway becomes clear in 9x14 "Oh, How We Danced" when BJ reveals to Hawkeye his dream of an evening with Peg. And even within this episode's dream we can infer that to BJ, seeing Peg with the white background at the top of the stairs of the outer room, is as if she's heaven-sent, and to him it represents life, joy, and being home with his wife, but later when they're in the OR Peg's forced to leave on the stairs which are now at the OR's doors, and within BJ's dream it's as if the OR is his personal hell and the black backdrop represents his reality of war, death, and BJ being away from his wife and family.
9th Oct 2015
M*A*S*H (1972)
Corrected entry: In the Swamp, Hawkeye, Trapper and Radar are playing with red backed cards, and Ugly John is holding blue back cards.
Correction: Being in the middle of nowhere and a mobile facility, it's not hard to imagine a situation where some cards from both decks got lost and they decided to combine two partial decks. (They might then choose to ignore the fact that they could tell which cards are from which deck out of sportsmanship).
Correction: Ugly John had been sleeping for two hours. The others grabbed a new deck to avoid waking him up.
7th Jul 2015
M*A*S*H (1972)
Corrected entry: As Potter realizes who is in the jeep, he quickly salutes and drops his hand. After the angle changes, the General salutes. By regulations, Potter, as the lower rank, should have held his salute until Gen. Prescott returned the salute.
Correction: By regulation he should have done that. However, a MASH unit is hardly a parade ground and "hash marks" Potter isn't very gung ho on military protocol in the first place. Also what is true for a first lieutenant thirty years junior years younger isn't necessarily true for a full colonel the same age. Regulations aside, customs differ greatly in this area. In some units insisting on a parade ground salute from a near-equal rank would be considered an insult. Also, a convincing case could be made that potter's "abbreviated" salute was a breach of regulations in the other direction, because salutes usually aren't permitted in the field. Long story short, Potter's salute is perfectly in character with him, and makes perfect sense in the context.
2nd Dec 2013
M*A*S*H (1972)
Good-Bye Radar: Part 1 - S8-E4
Corrected entry: When talking to Klinger, Radar tells him that "Nobody helped me when I took this job." Yet later on, when Potter is among those complaining about Klinger, Mulcahy tells him about "a real Bozo" that had trouble with the simplest of tasks. And that Col. Blake took the guy under his wing, and helped him grow into the job.
Correction: This error is taking the dialogue too literally. Radar isn't implying that nobody taught him, just that he had to work his way into the job himself, and without having anyone to fall back on if he dropped the ball. He is saying that Klinger should stop whining and make the effort, just like he had to back then.
11th Nov 2013
M*A*S*H (1972)
Corrected entry: When Hawkeye and Radar are talking to the recon men, an explosion goes off behind them, with no sound of the incoming shell.
12th Dec 2013
M*A*S*H (1972)
Corrected entry: To avoid being the last victim of the jokes, Hawkeye sets his bed up in the compound, surrounding it with barbed wire. Trouble is, the wire is wrapped in such a way as it would be impossible to him get over or through without getting cut to shreds.
Correction: He probably stepped into the circle of his cot then pulled the wire around him.
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Correction: There were no dull insignias in the Korean war.
If so, then I stand corrected.
Movie Nut