The Christmas episodes
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — MASH*
crockett_john — 9 years ago(December 10, 2016 06:43 PM)
I typically dislike Christmas episodes. I'm glad Mash only had a few of them, but of the ones that do exist, I really like them. I like the one where Charles donates to the orphanage, how Klinger gets Charles' mother to send his toboggan, and even how Hawkeye, BJ, Margaret, and Father Mulcahey try to keep a man alive until December 26.
I blame autocorrect.
You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas. -
randbanks — 9 years ago(December 10, 2016 08:08 PM)
I loved seeing the way that Charles was very humbled when he found he assumed something about the leader of the orphanage when he was told that the candy, on the black market, gave them enough rice and cabbage to last a long time.
His reaction to the toboggan winter cap was awesome. "it's probably a gag gift from one of these cretinous yahoos." Radar, giving nothing away, hands him the box.
Destroying an empire to win a war is no victory and ending a battle to save an empire is no defeat -
indy_go_blue44 — 9 years ago(December 11, 2016 01:21 AM)
One of my favorite Charles scenes is when Klinger brings some of the food from the Christmas party to a very depressed Charles and tells him it's an anonymous gift. Charles looks up at him like a drowning man tossed a life preserver and gives a simple but heartfelt "thank you, Max."
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trist962 — 9 years ago(December 19, 2016 09:39 PM)
Great moment! I appreciate the sentimentality & warmth of it, but I also like how it was tempered with the fun of Klinger's mentioning "seconds" available of Rizzo's nasty hog jowls & pigs' feetas if Winchester would even touch those! haha!
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wordsatplaytoday — 9 years ago(December 11, 2016 01:53 AM)
So the real Korean war went from June 1950 - July 1953.
Which means that Christmas was celebrated three times over there for any American service men and women.
How many times did they celebrate it on MASH for comparison?
If it's more than three, well, we have to suspend our disbelief yet again that the TV war lasted longer than the actual one.
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Thanx! -
crockett_john — 9 years ago(December 11, 2016 11:23 AM)
I think it's kind of inconclusive. The last time I looked at this, I don't think you could tell if the Boxing Day episode was supposed to follow one of the Christmas episodes or not.
I blame autocorrect.
You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas. -
wordsatplaytoday — 9 years ago(December 11, 2016 09:54 PM)
Shouldn't it have?
Otherwise we are supposed to think that everything we see doesn't follow some sort of chronological order?
Then Henry and Trapper should have been in a few more episodes following their departure.
As it is, now it looks like the Korean war seen through MASH had 4 Christmases.
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Thanx! -
crockett_john — 9 years ago(December 12, 2016 05:15 AM)
I always thought the episodes were generally in chronological order, except that in the first season, they already had events take place out of order. Ho-John (whatever kind of Korean name that might be) went to the states in the first episode, but then he's in several of the remaining episodes of the first season.
I think the arrival of new characters and the departure of old characters is supposed to follow a chronology, except that there's one episode that covers an entire year. Also, the writers had to back-track on the timeline during Potter's tenure as CO. Then, there are things that happen in entirely the wrong order, and the 4077th seems to spend the entire war in Uijonbu, which would have been impossible the way the front lines moved back and forth, so I'm not sure about the intent of the four Christmases or just three.
I blame autocorrect.
You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas. -
dawnbaxter34 — 9 years ago(December 12, 2016 02:20 PM)
MASH would have spent most of the war in Uijonbu when the front line stabilized in 1951.
It didn't quite make sense that there was a Christmas episode with Henry and Trapper and then the 'A War for All Seasons' ep. where Colonel Potter and the gang are celebrating the end of 1950. -
crockett_john — 9 years ago(December 12, 2016 05:15 PM)
Yeah, that's part of them back-tracking on the timeline. I would blame the writers for this, but I don't know how else they could have handled the timeline at that point.
Also, about 10 years after the show went off the air, I was stationed near Uijongbu, so that was kind of fun, being a Mash fan.
I blame autocorrect.
You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas. -
brad_filippone — 9 years ago(December 13, 2016 07:56 PM)
They backtracked on the timeline in "A War For All Seasons" because they needed the year to be 1951. That's when Bobby Thomson's home run happened, which was the climax of the Klinger/Winchester baseball betting story.
Brad -
indy_go_blue44 — 9 years ago(December 12, 2016 07:13 PM)
I never looked for any kind of chronology from MASH. Time's out of whack from 0:01 of S1E1 when it opens with "Korea 1950: A Hundred Years Ago" and the guys are driving golf balls. Summer 1950 the American-UN/SK forces were in retreat and fighting for their lives down in the Pusan Perimeter, no where near Uijonbu.
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wordsatplaytoday — 9 years ago(December 14, 2016 08:15 AM)
I never looked for any kind of chronology from MASH. Time's out of whack from 0:01 of S1E1 when it opens with "Korea 1950: A Hundred Years Ago" and the guys are driving golf balls. Summer 1950 the American-UN/SK forces were in retreat and fighting for their lives down in the Pusan Perimeter, no where near Uijonbu.
So we just take it that MASH is historical fiction with a really big emphasis on the fiction part.
They just base the show on a real war and then throw any accuracy of the war out the window as well as any linear timeline to go with it.
What makes it even more odd is that they get rid of Spearchucker because there were no black doctors in a MASH unit and yet they will go ahead and give them more christmases than the real troops went through at the time.
And based on your example, does that mean that a MASH unit in the area would have been Mobile, also in retreat?
Let me know if I'm on your ignore list.
Thanx! -
Doug-Oh — 9 years ago(December 16, 2016 04:51 PM)
What makes it even more odd is that they get rid of Spearchucker because there were no black doctors in a MASH unit and yet they will go ahead and give them more christmases than the real troops went through at the time.
Yeah, the Spearchucker removal was unwarranted, as they broke all the other rules of reality.
People would disappear all the time.