M*A*S*H (season 2)

season of television series

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M*A*S*H (1972-1983) was an American television series, airing on CBS, about a team of doctors and nurses stationed at a fictional U.S. Army hospital (unit number 4077) in Korea, during the Korean War in 1950-53. The series spanned 251 episodes and lasted almost four times as long as the war which served as its setting. The series was based on the 20th Century-Fox film M*A*S*H (an acronym for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital), a big hit of 1970 which was based in turn on the book of the same name.

Henry: There's nothing wrong with Klinger. I mean, he goes out with girls.
Captain Hildebrand: Must be stealing their clothes.

Hawkeye: [orders breakfast] I'll have two scrambled powdered eggs and a slice of World War II surplus bread, and don't make it tasty.

Frank Burns: What is that?
Trapper: What is what, Frank?
Frank Burns: Why is someone's appendix in my boot?
Hawkeye Pierce: Because the other one is full of tonsils, Frank.

P.A. System: Attention all personnel. Colonel Blake, at 17:00 hours, will deliver his weekly lecture. Tonight's subject will be "Togetherness". The "togetherness" lecture will be followed by a talk on the perils of trench mouth.

Captain Hildebrand: Childish. Not childlike, with its connotations of innocence and joyous abandon, but childish. You delight in petty bickering, summer-camp capers, and in general, behave in a manner ill befitting officers in the United States Army, and members of the medical profession. It is, to some degree, understandable. You are, after all, only three miles from the front. You would not be the first people to crack under the stress of war.
Frank Burns: I resent that, Captain. I, for one, have not cracked because of the war.
Hawkeye Pierce: That's true, Captain.
Frank Burns: Thank you, Pierce.
Hawkeye: Frank showed up here cracked, with a Bible in one hand, and a pair of shorts that said, 'Hold Me' in the other.

Captain Hildebrand: These guys make a gin that can melt your dog tags.
Hawkeye Pierce:It's from a recipe first brewed in Herman Goering's navel, and then handed down from war to war.


Hawkeye: You're out of uniform!
Nurse: Where?
Hawkeye: How about my tent in five minutes?

Frank: I think it ill behooves us—
Hawkeye: Behooves? What, are we in the cavalry now?

Frank: Who put water in my gun?
Hawkeye: How do you know it's water?
Sidney: Sign this, soldier.
Klinger: What's it say?
Sidney: It says that I have examined you and found you to be a transvestite and a homosexual.
Klinger: I ain't any of those. Where do you get off calling me that?
Sidney: I think I got the idea from your cleavage.
Klinger: Listen, all I want is a Section 8. You know what you can do with this.
Sidney: Hey soldier. You forgot your purse.

Hawkeye: Great little war we have here.
Radar: I could do without it.
Hawkeye: We've been getting double-talk in triplicate.

Frank: [After entering the Swamp] Pigpen. Brothel!
Hawkeye: Here, sir!
Trapper: Yo!
Henry: You were ordered to stand down!
Hawkeye: I did, but I fell up again.

Trapper: I guess he's just unstable. You see, he took this weird oath as a young man, never to just stand by and watch people die.
Hawkeye: [looking for maps of the minefield] Why aren't they under "M"?
Radar: Because they're under "B" for "boom."

Hawkeye: Looks like a pregnant bagpipe.
Trapper: Do bagpipes get pregnant?
Hawkeye: Sure they do, right after they make those funny sounds.
Hawkeye: [seeing that his patient is a baby] Boy, did his Draft Board go crazy.

Hawkeye: [to Corporal Walker] Are you married?
Corporal Walker: Sort of.
Hawkeye: Sort of married? That's like being sort of a virgin.
General Mitchell: Who are you?
Margaret: Majors Burns and Houlihan, sir!
General Mitchell: Which is which?
Hawkeye: Doesn't matter, they're interchangeable.

[Klinger has gone hang-gliding in a housecoat and slippers]
Hawkeye: Did you see that?
Nurse: What?
Hawkeye: A big red bird with fuzzy pink feet.
Trapper: Hey, Hawkeye, did you see that?
Hawkeye: What did you see?
Trapper: A big red bird with fuzzy pink feet.
Hawkeye: We've just heard that General Eisenhower's gonna run for president... what some guys won't do to get out of the army.

Radar: [during roll call] Major Frank Marion Burns.
Trapper: [snickers] Marion.
Hawkeye: His folks wanted a boy.
Hawkeye: Frank, do you know what a hero is? Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, he's somebody who's tired enough and cold enough and hungry enough not to give a damn. I don't give a damn.

Radar: [at show-end referring to sniper's thinking that he was firing on MacArthur's headquarters] Where do you think you're going to get a MacArthur to show him, for Pete's sake?
[Hawkeye and Trapper dress a sleeping Burns with cap, sunglasses, and corncob pipe]
Frank: [awakening] What's going on?
Hawkeye: You have returned.

Hawkeye: You risked your life for a . . . a ketchup on rye?!
Radar: With butter and lettuce!

Frank: Funny thing, war - Never have so many suffered so much, so, so few could be so happy!!
Margaret: We're lucky to be two of the few and not the many.
Frank: I know, darling, and I love being both of us.
Hawkeye: [responding to a plethora of requests for help] My kingdom for an intelligent octopus!

Hawkeye: [on the telephone seeking help] Send me anyone! Jack the Ripper! Anyone who's good with a knife!
Hawkeye: [regarding the requisition of the incubator being denied] We're not asking for a jukebox or a pizza oven.
Captain Sloan: Oh, those I can let you have.
Henry: No kidding! Hey, those would be great on movie nights. You got any pizza requisition forms?
Captain Sloan: Just use the standard S stroke 1798 and write in "Pizza" where it says "Machine Gun".

Hawkeye: Thank, you Colonel. Sorry, Captain. Sorry, patient, you have a temperature of 109 stroke 10. I'm afraid you can't have an incubator but you can have a pizza with everything on it to go. Unless, of course, you go first.
Henry: Let's stay on the ground, shall we, Pierce?
Hawkeye: [to Sloan] Does the book allow us any ground, Captain? Otherwise I'm afraid I'll have to ask you all to take a step up.
Trapper: Into Limbo!
Hawkeye: No, you can't have any Limbo. In fact, you can't have - anything - stroke nothing, which is not approved by STATQUOPAC. Which is enough to make you reach for AIRSICKBAG.
Henry: Well everybody, happy days, stroke cheers.

Henry: Holy cow! (Reading charges) "Insubordination! Conduct unbecoming officers! Violations of Articles 13 through 27 with a repeat on 26!"
Hawkeye: That must be altering salute by placing thumb on nose.
Trapper: Henry, there's something you should know about those charges.
Hawkeye: Yes. We're guilty.
Henry: I'll tell you what else you are: You are under arrest. General's orders.
Hawkeye: Swell. What do we tell the casualties? We only operate on visiting days?
Trapper: You gonna lock us up Sheriff?
Henry: If you guys didn't outclass every bit of surgical talent in Korea, your tails would have been in handcuffs a long time ago.
Hawkeye: Henry, it's no crime--or it shouldn't be--for doctors to try to get decent medical equipment.
Henry: Did you really yell "Give me an incubator or give me death"?
Henry: Wow. Did you really call a one-star general a "NINCOMPAC"?
Hawkeye: Well, you had to be there.
Radar: Uh, sir, if you're thirsty. Compliments of Colonel Blake. Scotch. Gin. Vodka. And for your convenience, all in the same bottle.

Trapper: You have a lot of trouble with women, don't you?
Hawkeye: Every chance that I can!

Klinger: Hi sirs, sandwiches from the mess tent.
Hawkeye: Hope everybody likes carrier pigeon.
Klinger: There's ham, chicken, and something brown that just lays there.

Frank: Well, looks like the "conference" is in full swing.
Sidney: Hello, Frank. What's new on The Mount?
Capt. Pak: Read any good commandments lately?

Hawkeye: Hold it everybody freeze!
Sidney: What's the matter?
Hawkeye: One of the sandwiches just moved.

Frank: Now be advised, if you so much as touch that man you're violating regulations.
Hawkeye: Frank. We promise to keep saluting all throughout the operation.

Frank: You did it, didn't you? Operated on the CID man.
Hawkeye: Yeah, we thought we'd save his life for kicks.

Hawkeye: [during a poker game] Sidney, what's the psychiatric basis for gambling?
Sidney: Sex.
Hawkeye: Why?
Sidney: I don't know, they told me to say it. Sex is why we gamble, sex is why we drink, sex is why we give birth.
Hawkeye: Thank you, doctor.
Sidney: I'm taking a five dollar chip. That was a house call.

Trapper: Henry, the guy could have died!
Hawkeye: He was bleeding, Henry. And Frank, here, who studied medicine under General Rommel was too chicken to operate. He was afraid that under anesthesia the lieutenant might give away Harry Truman's hat size!

Henry Blake: Radar, what's going on?
Radar: It's a patient, sir. He blew his cork.
Hawkeye: Sidney, front and center.
Sidney: I'm not going out there without a bulletproof couch!

Henry Blake: Okay the first thing people do in a situation like this is panic.
Hawkeye: Well I think I'm doing it in the right order.

Hot Lips and Empty Arms

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Margaret: [following Hawkeye's "toast"] I too have a toast. Here's to Captains Pierce and McIntyre. To their all-night binges. To their secret nurse ceremonies. To their planting of microphones in sleeping bags. To their childish switching of names on latrines. All of which goes into my special report to General Mitchell, which culminates in a detailed account of your Thanksgiving "Come As Your Favorite Nude Pilgrim" party.

[Pierce gives Margaret a shot]
Margaret: Ow! What was that?
Hawkeye: Load of B1. Get you on your feet again.
Margaret: Oh... And I didn't get you anything...

Henry: Uh, that, uh, scotch you just poured is rye.
Margaret: That's OK, the champagne I just had was gin.

Henry: Why don't you call me Henry, for Pete's sake.
Margaret: [drunk] That's really swell of you, Pete.

Officers Only

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Duk: One Shirley Temple.
Frank: I've been dying for one of these all day. [drinks] That's very good...
Duk: Kwang Duk, sir.
Frank: That's a cute name.
Duk: We're a cute people.

Duk: Can I get you something, sir?
Henry: You bet. I'm dying for a banana daiquiri.
Duk: Is that a drink?
Henry: Sure. You just take some bananas, some rum and some cream, and you mix it all in a blender.
Duk: We got no bananas, no rum, and no blender, sir, and only powdered cream.
Henry: Okay, I'll have a beer.

Henry In Love

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Henry: I can't believe it. I couldn't wait till she got here, and now I'm glad she's gone.
Trapper: It's for the best, Henry.
Hawkeye: Yeah. If you had sucked your gut in one more time, your belly button would have fallen out your backside.

[To his son, on the phone.]
Henry: I don't care if she did put an ice cube in your underwear! Girls will do that. You mustn't hit her with the dog! Now until I get back, you're the man of the house. Yes, I know Mommy thinks she is, but you really are!

For Want of a Boot

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Margaret: They love you, Frank.
Frank: It was their hatred that fooled me.

Henry: I'd be lying if I said I understood that. I'd also be lying if I said I cared.

Frank: You're asking me to let a pervert out of the Army?!
Hawkeye: Oh, by all means, Frank. Let's leave the perverts in the Army.
Trapper: Anyway, Klinger's not a pervert.
Margaret: How do you know?
Trapper: Because I'm one—and he's never at the meetings!

Operation Noselift

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Henry: Don't tell me. I don't want to know about it. You guys have my full permission, and I never said that. I mean, I'm not even here, so how could I? Radar!
Radar: Sir?
Henry: Make an entry in the daily report that I wasn't here today, and bring it to me so I can sign it.
Radar: Uh, sir, if you sign it, it'll show you were here.
Henry: Then you sign it for me.
Radar: Yes, sir. Should I sign your name?
Henry: You'll have to, because I'm gonna say it was a forgery.

Hawkeye: [seeing available selections in "nose" catalog] Gee, I never knew how hard it was to pick a nose.
Robbins: [pointing to one selection] This one paid for two Cadillacs.
Trapper: Now that's what you call "paying through the nose."
Robbins: The wit in this room flows like molasses.

[while playing catch]
Radar: Hey, you got a good, strong arm there, Father.
Mulcahy: Well, you develop a lot of muscle wrestling with temptation.

The Chosen People

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[After Hawkeye tries to say something in Korean]
Captain Pak: Give him a bicarbonate and tell him to stay off his feet.
Hawkeye: Isn't that "Your presence is welcome in our camp"?
Pak: No, it's "Your uncle has gas from eating cabbage".
[After Hawkeye says something else in Korean]
Pak: Sorry to hear that.
Hawkeye: What?
Pak: Your uncle with the gas is now pregnant.

Lieutenant Harper: Are you men doctors?
Hawkeye: Only when the moon is full.

As You Were

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Trapper: [listening to Radar play the piano] Hey Radar, don't you know another song?
Hawkeye: He doesn't even know THAT one. [Radar continues to play.] Radar, if you keep this up, you could be arrested for felonious fingering.

PA Announcement: Attention all personnel. Due to a lack of casualties, tonight's midnight movie will be shown at 9:00 AM. And midnight has been cancelled.

Hawkeye: [Scrubbing up before returning to the OR.] If my hands could talk, they'd scream. I'm raw from all the scrubbing.
Nurse: Why don't you see a doctor?
Hawkeye: How would you like a swift kiss in the mouth?

Crisis

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Frank: [in Henry's office] What if the Minutemen in 1776, on their way to Lexington and Concord, had stopped to worry about . . . toilet paper?!
Hawkeye: So we would have had independence 10 minutes later.

Henry: According to Regimental, the fighting shifted to the north and we won't be getting any casualties.
Hawkeye: That's the same Regimental that said to Custer, "One last stand and then you can go home."

Margaret: [Trapper is knocking on Margaret's door, Margaret and Frank are eating a stolen ham] Who is it?
Trapper: The heating officer!
Frank: You can't come in!
Hawkeye: Then we'll huff, and we'll puff, and we'll blow your nurse down!

Mulcahy: Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for seeing us through this day, and ask for Thy divine help for tomorrow.
Hawkeye: Same time, same station. Sorry, Father.
Mulcahy: Oh, that's quite alright. Humor, after all, was one of His creations.

George

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When Hawkeye asks Weston about his bruises..

Weston: I got a little drunk... Two men got beaten up: one was a negro and the other was a homosexual
Hawkeye: So you're a negro?
Frank: I found out something about someone that is very interesting--very interesting.
Trapper: Let us guess.
Hawkeye: Is this person a well-stacked U.S. Army major nurse who's bigger than a breadbox that you're seeing on the side?
Frank: No... [realizes what Hawkeye said] ...no!

Frank: The man is not normal!
Hawkeye: What's normal, Frank?
Frank: Normal is everybody doing the same thing.
Trapper: What about individuality?
Frank: Well, individuality is fine--as long as we all do it together.

Henry: Frank, you're the only man I know who would make George Washington look like a slacker.

Mail Call

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Klinger: [reading an alleged letter from home] "Dear Son--"
Henry: You obviously haven't sent her a recent picture.

Henry: [pulling out Klinger's file] Here we go. Father dying, right?
Klinger: Yes, sir.
Henry: [going through letters in Klinger's file] Father dying, last year. Mother dying, last year. Mother and father dying. Mother, father, and older sister dying. Mother dying and older sister pregnant. Older sister dying and mother pregnant. Younger sister pregnant and older sister dying. Here's an oldie but a goodie: half of the family dying, other half pregnant. [puts file down] Klinger, aren't you ashamed of yourself?
Klinger: Yes sir. I don't deserve to be in the Army.

A Smattering of Intelligence

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Flagg: It all depends on HQ.
Henry: HQ.
Flagg: Why did you say HQ? Whoever told you about HQ?
Henry: Well, you told me, Colonel Flagg.
Flagg: Who's Colonel Flagg?

Pratt: [referring to Flagg] Another time, he crashed his Jeep into a wall and set himself on fire.
Hawkeye: Is this guy available for kids' parties?

Radar: Sir Captain Stone to see you.
Pratt: My name isn't Stone, it's Martinez, but you can call me Pratt.
Henry: Oh Boy..but .Stone is definitely out.

Trapper: Major Burns doctor Surgeon
Hawkeye: Staff paranoid

when Burns asked pratt why the Corps of enginners is at mASH 4077

Pratt: The Corps of engineers is thinking of making Mash amphibious
Frank: IVe HAD ThAT IDeA FOr A LONG tIme...put everything on Pontoons and head for the High seas
Hawkeye: We CAN CALL ourselves THE titANIC

[Both Pratt and Flagg are planning to arrest Frank]
Frank: Arrest me?? What for, for heaven's sake!
Flagg: You're a communist!
Pratt: He's a facist!
Frank: I'm not either! I'm nothing!
Trapper: We'll vouch for that.