Plot hole: In a tape home, Winchester implores his father to get him out of the MASH and suggests that Senator Griswold should help as his father "paid good money for him". As the length of time the show ran so exceeds the length of the war itself, inconsistencies for dates are perhaps unavoidable, and it might not be fair to call them mistakes. In this case however, the writers/producers have carelessly picked a senator who only served from November 1952, making dating inescapable. As Charles, in the same episode, complains how hot it is and everyone is in shirtsleeves, it must be very late spring, perhaps May, at best, just a month before the end of the war. To emphasize the mistake, by the next episode it is late fall/early winter. (00:12:45)
M*A*S*H (1972)
1 plot hole in The Winchester Tapes
Visible crew/equipment: After Charles confronts Choi Sung Ho about the candy, Ho explains that he sold it on the black market to buy real food, and when Ho reenters the mess tent through the side door, we can see that outside there's a director's chair, which actors also use, with something printed on its back.
Sometimes You Hear the Bullet - S1-E17
Henry Blake: All I know is what they taught me at command school. There are certain rules about a war, and rule number one is that young men die. And rule number two is that doctors can't change rule number one.
Trivia: Gary Burghoff's left hand was slightly deformed, and he often hid it behind his clipboard during filming.
Question: A number of times it is mentioned that the outfit is unarmed, yet several times, Frank has a rifle, or a pistol, and once Klinger had a grenade, and the guards and Klinger, while on sentry duty, has a rifle. Was this standard, or is this a mistake?
Answer: The Geneva Convention allows even doctors to carry a sidearm to be used in their self defense or the defense of their patients, however it is rare to do so.
Answer: As an old medical unit staffer, my experience is that med units have combat units assigned to defend them. Usually it was marines.
Answer: My old doctor (now deceased) served in Korea during the War. He was required to carry a sidearm anytime he was not in the hospital.
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Answer: Even an Army field hospital would have SOME weapons for self-defense if the enemy attacked. What's meant is that it's not a combat outfit, and therefore wouldn't have enough weapons to actually attack anyone. (It's also mentioned a few times that the Officer of the Watch is supposed to carry a pistol at all times, but Hawkeye refuses to do it when he's in charge and Colonels Blake and Potter don't enforce the rule).
Captain Defenestrator