Special On The Making Mash - Part I

lives is about five times harder you risk failure but you also risk having the kind of success that is truly satisfying and then you don't have to something you want to be ashamed of even if you fail okay the way they do things in the Army is the stupidest thing I ever saw nothing going on they should let us go home the next step in making mash is the read-through it's the first time the actors have seen the script and the first time the writers can hear how the words they've written will sound favorite color Oh blue what kind of a question is that yes the general same kind by okay red I think I've been getting some very strange questions tonight what's my favorite color how bigger my feet to people ask me if I've ever owned a pet they're interested in you of course you have to realize these people are very poor I seem to be object to some kind of conspiracy so naturally I thought of you me come on I'm not in the mood what's the joke well I'm gonna go ahead oh please what about waiting the thing we're in the open we're in the offices on the beginning the studio didn't want us to rehearse that day and one of us to just shoot for three days and forget the rehearsal day and I went to complain about that and the a guy who is heading the television and wing of the studio at that time said we've had some very good shows here that were done in two days nanny and the professor was done in two days and I didn't quite see the connection between that and our show but we got our day seemed prepared and welcome back to the 407 gentlemen okay then the tag is to come ladies and gentlemen thank you that'll be a 10-minute break you know we'll meet on a rehearsal morning at 9:00 and read through from beginning to end and after a short break we'll reconvene and go page by page both writers and actors to say I don't think this quite works or I like what you've done here how about if we do some more of it in this scene and everybody will get a chance to suggest ideas that they may have as to how to improve the script that was the first reading of it while we're here why don't we just read the scene again this is just a body shop we have to send them down to Seoul for major tuners they've got the same old that she's cowboy outfit yeah why don't you just give me a chance okay we're way ahead of you well but there's a non-sequitur to run he says still got the same old did she scalpel and so I want to do a lot of surgery and I'm saying I don't want to see well so that was just a minute then it's misleading it should be you're still the same impatient Hawkeye Pierce the writers are receptive to this the actors are very skilled at it because they know their characters very well and then ultimately we will take all of the suggestions and incorporate those into a revised script now those suggestions can involve very little on a given script and sometimes it'll be much more extensive I guess on a number of shows the notes always go from the writers and producers to the actors but the idea of allowing it to work in the reverse it made this situation unique and naturally has helped I think tremendously in terms of the overall morale of the show and the attitude of all those involved and ultimately to the quality which is what we're all after with the change is suggested that the rehearsal day read-through the cast moves to camera blocking rehearsal on set and shooting what's your favorite color my favorite color okay wow that's the ticket huh uh how what well just testing a medical principle come on I'm not in the mood what's that what's the joke this particular script was shot pretty much as written these people depressed there were no significant changes made at the rehearsal day we even would be with the party perfect it doesn't suspect a thing but it's not always that way on occasion major rewriting is done as a result of suggestions from the cast one example of that was on a show called preventative medicine the story dealt essentially with a gung-ho officer who was over committed to taking ground resulting in too many casualties and we were we were angry about this he came into the camp and the idea was that we were going to team up and we were gonna get him give him a Mickey yeah get him sick tell him he had to have an appendectomy take out his appendix and recipient ship him back to Tokyo yeah that case the gastritis probably let you up a couple of days have you ever had your appendix out no appendix yeah cute appendicitis that could keep you out for a week or two to wait so go take me off the line I lose my battalion definitely your appendix it was against everything I stood for Vijay stood for as a doctor and against everything and I understood that then doctors artists and for her and wouldn't it make a good scene to be that passionate animated over that very point in the in the show you're a doctor of medicine you cut into a healthy body and you're gonna hate yourself for the rest of your life I hate myself right now I hate me and I hate you and I hate this whole life here and if I can keep that maniac off the line by a simple appendectomy I'll be able to hate myself with a clear conscience all right you want to fight god you're doing alone fine we gonna keep talking about it put a mask on I don't want to run the slightest risk of infecting this I agreed it was wrong but I felt that the characters were under such stress that my character would do it because he felt that it was the only way to save dozens or hundreds of lives so it was pink and perfect and I tossed it in the scrap bucket his team won't be sending us any customers for a while great I was just in here in about ten minutes or sending us a batch of wounded ten minutes time flies it's rated a symptom the disease goes merrily on let me point out that this didn't come out of whole cloth this is came out of the research we did and the interesting thing is the real doctors who really did take out the appendix never argued about it went in real life they just went ahead and did it but but it was important to take Mike's position and play out that that the pause play out that that that soul-searching in a heated way and it gave us one of the best scenes we had all season er because we used something real that happened among the real actors Frank what are you doing from the beginning the actors on mash have been able to develop their roles using the strength of their own personalities to guide the growth of their characters there was one exception however major Frank burns like a red gray revolutionaries frank robinson crusoe everybody runs around half-naked Norman Mailer it's got that word in it well I think the Larry Linville you had a very difficult job playing a character that is not blaring really we saddle Larry with with very narrow sort of point of view for a character I might be just saying that because I had you know four years of it and perhaps I was getting tired of of dealing with the character you don't I will to a very large degree Frank was a technical contrivance he was as protagonist had to create situations constantly whereby other characters would capitalize on his actions in resulting in a funny line or a funny bit you know play a joke on Frank gonna do a little cutting Frank well as long as I'm there I thought I'd go after the appendix that's not the appendix Frank that's my pinky and a very fond of it Wow unlike everyone else on the on the series Frank Burns has never been allowed or never was allowed to grow I mean if he suddenly became liberalized or humanized or acquired a genuine sense of humor the character would dissolve and or change into that which is no longer a technical comedic contrivance somebody's been fooling with this it's a gag candle oh why can't people leave us alone I think they were all my wife you can't define roles as how much Fame you get or how much you're paid in order if you can stand back and look at something like Frank which is a very peculiar creation and say yes that was successful yes that would work and yes that was good and if you take pride in that that's good someone threw these mics exit Frank Burns and her major Charles Emerson Winchester the third comprende comprendo well major David Ogden Stiers was spotted by Bert Metcalf while playing the role of the station manager on The Mary Tyler Moore Show his view of what of that sort of behavior on Mary was lovably unlovable and that's in quotes that I could really be a desperate person and a bastard to people who were who were loved and managed not to be so hateable myself that you didn't want to see the character again and he thought that would be useful in terms of this show he was wrong please you continental down seven points with a plane a major financial losses had their laughing matter what they wanted in the Winchester character was a more formidable adversary for Hawkeye almost a William F Buckley type unlike Frank Charles is a multi-dimensional character his response to a given situation can't always be predicted but the time Hawkeye had a hot date and needed someone to take his job sorry OD odious beauty of already done mine weekend's your turn look I'll take all your duty for the next three days it'll just work this weekend I hate working weekends what difference does it make every day is a holiday in Korea it's just well come what I'll let you use my empty shame kerosene makes me break out money sorry Charles you don't understand this woman alright alright I'm giving in merely because I can use a three-day vacation from you now please don't get the idea that I'm doing it because I'm generous or worse amiable trust me no one will ever think of you as anything but completely rotten coming in there's that initial worries of the show that's been very popular and very strong it's gonna take a dive because suddenly you've joined it Farrell went through that fear when he came in after room after Wayne left that the the ratings went into the toilet for five six weeks or so and he assumed that it was on his shoulders my concern was just generally well what if because of a lousy lead-in show or a lousy time or a lousy night or something the show fails what if people get tired of mash what if they hate me yet you know whatever the reason if the show is cancelled on his fourth year my career is over because everybody will say that guy sank mash single-handedly at least that's what I thought and the same thing happens when I joined the only worries I had were essentially invented and and ignoring the fact that these people are consummate pros and wouldn't put you through awfulness you know to join does that answer they have since put you through a little bit little here you saw the room Michael you saw my dressing room well I'll tell you as that mm-hmm I came back when I came back from Thanksgiving some of the actors had contacted the paint department and as a joke they painted my room orange and purple it will be repainted and repaid no just repainted and I'm planning on using Farrell's mustache let's take her with us babies mob chief ride Viva be a lunatic she's just now dozing off don't rile em Beach you know how crazy they get winner under see how close and personality is Hawkeye Pearson Alan Alda I don't know and that night ver I some in some ways he's some B's I guess he's a he's a part of my personality we've met over the years you know we met each other halfway I'm not a womanizer and I never have been I don't drink as much as he does no nothing as much of a smart aleck as he is so there are a lot of ways in which were different but I think you have to draw on your own personality a lot if you're gonna do a half hour a week and yet you also need to have a strong character that you can fall back on if you're gonna find stories that come out of that character radar they didn't do anything to it if I mortar fire his chest all right I don't know look look around in there you're working out a scene in an in a show and we said well we better not have them drink because they're going into a surgery yeah we're not gonna go into surgery drunk and I said you know there's something we've never dealt with how do they know sometimes that they're going into surgery we're suppose we actually deal with that that even if they do know they're going into surgery they they they they drink too much or one of them drinks too much another and I began to figure out a Hawkeye what was the reason he drank too much it was because he was guilty about sending radar often and the radar got wounded and then he drank too much and then he wasn't he wasn't detoxified by the time surgery came around again the next morning so he he had to leave surgery to thrill up he walked out on a patient and major Winchester had to finish for you so I did that his name for him if he was sick well a lot of people don't look at it like you were sick Hawkeye a lot of people look up to you here they admire you and they kind of feel like they want to be like you know G when you walk out of an operation but they kind of feel like you let them down if they can't depend on you well they figure well maybe there's no point depending on anything how dare you the hell with your Iowa naivete in the hell of your hero worship and your teddy bear and while you're at it the hell with you don't you grow up for cryin out loud I just left radar know the Hulk I please accept this in the spirit Intendant you're under enormous pressure here and I I just want to know one little thing have you lost your mind but you don't know how sorry I am I mean that that boy is lying there in a hospital bed with tubes sticking out of his body and you you you call him a ninny father Ivan tensed I've outraged where's your decency man your your humanity I am harmonious given the physical demonstrations of emotion but let me tell you I am persuaded to violence go ahead father I think I will glad you let it out father why sometimes like to think the mash is about a priest in Korea but actually it's about doctors but it could be about a priest in Korea a lot of great stories about the chaplaincy Anna you could chaplain could be a protagonist of a show I wouldn't have the I know that the network's insist on a certain amount of female male relationship sex as it's called you know that might be I did have one little brief romance but that a question was not one in which Mulcahy was allowed to respond religion is is more sensitive than violence it's more sensitive in sex you have to be extremely extremely careful and I thought and we have tried to do that we've tried to to have a rounded character in a man who is a man who is a naive and innocent and very decent and fragile but he's a very good priest he's a decent man I think we've done right by him but I said enough what's going on father Shh he's exhausted okay where's the guy that exalted him let me take care of it please I'm not even Catholic would you like to be 12 of Denver tick one bad action action you know you're being much too harsh on yourself you mustn't think that you failed but I have no magic bullet from the conception of an idea - it's being broadcast on the air may take anywhere from two to three months out of those two or three months the director is involved for seven days get up has a check for all problems and moved to you're off position he comes to prepare for two days he rehearses a day and he shoots for three or four days and then he leaves they're all over director at any time I believe to be to fulfill the writers intention that still has to be done on mash with great talent come out of the tent this guy isn't a general I'm gonna sing him a fool at her area that he won't forget but I hear it with aria if this guy isn't the hero know if this guy isn't the general I'm gonna sing him a 4-letter aria that he won't forget I like area okay you got it you're the direct sometimes it means finding out what their impulses are and making sure they are adhered to and emotion is sometimes it means bringing something to the material which even great tell us and it is may or may not cease all needed tecna's inoculations but they're all reacting to the skin test God set it up again going very well one more time I'd like to make people think it's real and we're inside the action I also try not to disturb the comedy which is a 50% part of mash maybe more sometime

Channel: dick tingley

Views: 172,063

Keywords: M*A*S*H, Father Mulcahey, Radar O'Reilly, Hawkeye Pierce, Hot Lips Houlahan, Trapper John, Major Charles Winchester, Colonel Shem Potter, The Making of Mash

Id: TNKSG3ap3lY

Length: 20min 17sec (1217 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 20 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/McZubs]

Thank you for sharing.

[u/ChristianScottHorner]

The fact that Stirs could pull off that accent with the mannerisms of his character shows this man is the best.

[u/forma711]

Love seeing behind the scenes specials. Thank you for sharing! Any others to share?