MA*SH (season 8)

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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.

Too Many Cooks

Are You Now, Margaret?

Williamson: Do you always treat enemy soldiers?

Hawkeye: Of course not, only if they're sick.

Hawkeye: (to Willamson, furious at his blather about the Red Menace) Don't tell us about the Red Menace! We're up to our ankles in it! It comes out of those kids you keep sending us!

(Klinger has just photographed Williamson in a compromising position with Margaret in her tent. BJ, Hawkeye, and Charles burst in.)

Williamson: Will someone please tell me what's going on here?

BJ: We thought your wife might like some pictures of your fact-finding tour.

Hawkeye: Suitable for hanging.

Klinger: (passing out copies of Stars & Stripes to the officers) Here; read this.

Hawkeye: (reading) "Scandal Rocks Capitol Hill. Congressman Daniel Lurie-!"

Everyone else: *gasps of surprise*

Hawkeye: (reading on) "-Caught in Washington Love Nest with Aide's Wife! 'My-my husband drove me to it,' sobbed a tearful-"

Everyone: (reading together) "-L. Shirley Williamson!" (laughter)

Hawkeye: (reading on) "I needed more than a man who's married to his work first and me second!"

Margaret: Oh well that seems fair. He had the Congressman's ear, and she got everything else!

Guerrilla My Dreams

(Klinger has just brought Charles a bottle of Napoleon brandy)

Charles: Ah...Napoleon. If you'd given more of this to Josephine...she might have stayed home nights.

B.J.: Oh none for me. It offends my palate, not to mention my co-palate.

Hawkeye: You son of a bitch.

(This was the first time in US TV history that such a line was not censored)

Goodbye, Radar (Part 1)

(Col. Potter walks into the Swamp)

Potter: Either of you seen Radar?

Hawkeye: Last I saw him he was in the Officer's Club having a touch of the grape.

BJ: Why? What's wrong?

Potter: Plenty. I just got a wire from the boy's mother in Iowa. Radar's Uncle Ed passed away.

Hawkeye: Oy.

Potter: Yeah, oy.

Radar: And to top it all off, my Nehi is warm.

Goodbye, Radar (Part 2)

Potter: Listen, Radar, I guess you realize I'm kinda fond of you. Lord knows I've never met a soul I could depend on more, but above all that, you've been a damn good friend. Well, friend, it's time we said goodbye. Time you got on with your life. You've come as far as you can go here. You've earned your wings... now you've gotta fly.

Radar: That's a bear we all have to cross.

[Radar's last scene on the show]

Driver: Where are you headed?

Radar: Ottumwa, Iowa.

Driver: Never heard of it. I guess anywhere you live is home.

Radar: I'm ready, let's go.

Period of Adjustment

BJ: Well, if it isn't Hawkeye Benjamin Franklin Pierce, named for a president, an Indian, and a stove.

Potter:(to Klinger) So far you have performed your duties with the efficiency of a one-legged man at a BUTT-kicking contest!

Potter: Folks around here were pretty fond of Henry Blake when he ran this fort, weren't they?

Klinger: Well, sure, the Colonel was a top notch kind of a guy.

Potter: You bet he was. And, I don't mind telling, you my first few days in his shadow were a mite uneasy. No one was jumping for joy over me. I was no Henry Blake, never tried to be. That didn't make me any better or worse, just different. The point is, the folks here gave me the time to take this job and make it Sherman Potter's. I guess I forgot that when you took over for Radar. What I'm trying to say is, you need the time to take this job and make it Max Klinger's. So, just do it. And, if you need some help, if you've got a question, just knock on my door. Is that clear, Max?

Klinger: Crystal, sir.

Potter: From now on- Radar's office is closed; Klinger's office is open.

Klinger passes out

Potter: OK, we'll open tomorrow.

Nurse Doctor

Mulcahy: I had to give a girl the brush-off!

Hawkeye: (stunned) Would you mind repeating that? I think the sun was in my ears.

Hawkeye: Come again?

Mulcahy: She was hugging the stuffing out of me!

Hawkeye: Well I don't blame her, Father, I think you're as cute as the dickens.

Margaret: [walks into Potter's office along with Mulcahy and Hawkeye] You wanted to see us, sir?

Potter: Not really, but it's the only way I can talk to you.

Hawkeye: What's this about Colonel?

Potter: Glad you asked. I'm a very busy man so I'll make this short and sweet. Lieutenant Harris dropped by this morning, had a little surprise for me. A request for an immediate transfer.

Mulcahy: [knowing he is the cause] Oh dear.

Potter: Naturally I thought she wanted out because she couldn't take a bath but that wasn't the reason. So I said, "What is the reason?" And she said, "I made a damn fool of myself and the whole camp knows it." So I said, "Well I don't know it." And she said, "I'm surprised Pierce didn't tell you."

Hawkeye: (confused) What?

Potter: So I said "Why are you dropping this in my lap when you should be talking to your head nurse?" And she said, "The head nurse hates me."

Margaret: I do not hate her!

Potter: So I said "Back up a bit. What is it you did that got everybody's tongue wagging except mine?" And she said, "I had an unhappy love affair." So I asked, "Was it one of my doctors?" And she said "No. It was your priest!"

Mulcahy: Colonel, you must understand, she's very upset.

Potter: That's what she said! She was so upset she's giving up on Med School. I didn't even know she was going to Med School!

Mulcahy: She mustn't give up!

Potter: Now look folks this is none of my affair, so why don't we keep it that way. The woman's got only a few weeks left in this man's army. A transfer would be a waste of good red tape so here's what you're gonna do. (points to Hawkeye) You stop talking about her. (points to Margaret) You stop hating her. (points to Mulcahy) And you stop dating her.

Private Finance

Mulcahy: You know, you'd make a fine priest.

Hawkeye: Ah, thanks Father, I don't think it would work out. Besides, the only Latin I know is Xavier Cugat.

Potter: (to Hawkeye) This is the happy hour. Angry hour starts at ten!

Klinger: (to Korean mother who accuses him of conduct unbecoming) Madam, it is against the rules to fold, spindle, or perforate military personnel. Could we go back to the broom or how about a vacuum cleaner? Uhh Colonel would you mind dropping everything and coming out here fast?!

Potter: What the heck is going-- put that thing down lady this is no hayride. Now what in the name of Beezlebub is goin on here? (everyone starts talking at once to explain and Colonel Potter holds up his arms for silence) Hold it down! (after everyone is quiet) Now that's more like it. Klinger this woman seems a little cranky.

Klinger: Actually sir it's very amusing.

Potter: Then how come Madame Pitchfork isn't laughing?

Klinger: (referring to Korean woman holding pitchfork) This is Miss Oksun Li. She thinks I was playing inappropriate games with her daughter here.

Mr. and Mrs. Who?

Charles: On only one other occasion in my life did I even approach that level of inebriation.

Donna: When was that?

Charles: It was the night after I graduated from Harvard Medical School, I distinctly remember trying to swim the Charles River in cap and gown, reasoning that since it was named after me, it was my river.

Donna: Well of course. Did you get married then, too?

Charles: Nope. Got pneumonia!

BJ: Now, Father- we understand this ceremony may be against the tenets of your religion

Potter: (drunk) I didn't know tennis was a religion!

BJ: Do you, Chuck Emerson Winchester III, take this lovely if gullible young woman as your un-lawful, un-wedded un-wife?

Charles: I undo.

BJ: And do you, Donna Marie Parker Winchester the Third, take this pickled amnesiac as your un-lawful, un-wedded, un-hubby?

Donna Marie: I undo, too.

BJ: Now with the power invested in me by the state of intoxication, I pronounce you man and woman. You may now ignore the bride.

The Yalu Brick Road

Rizzo: You know you feal after eatting two many hot dogs and drinking too much cheap booze?'I wish I felt that good!'

Rizzo: "You mean Klinger poisoned us with his Thanksgiving surprise?"

Potter:"It sure looks that way."

Rizzo: "Now I hope I live...just so I can KILL Klinger!"

Rizzo: Hey, Father, can I make a confession?

Mulcahy: Certainly, Sergeant.

Rizzo: I murdered somebody...tomorrow.

Klinger: C'mon, I'm trying to help!

Rizzo: You wanna help? Die on your own.

(Hawkeye, BJ and "Ralph" are walking back to the 4077th because BJ crashed their jeep. They encounter a Korean man trapped underneath a hay wagon.)

Hawkeye: Allow me to introduce ourselves. That's Ralph, I'm Pierce, and this is Hunnicutt; you probably know each other from driving school.

Life Time

Hawkeye: We're 3 1/2 minutes over! Damn it!!

BJ: Maybe the hypothermia bought us some time.

Hawkeye: Yeah, on the other hand, maybe it didn't.

BJ: Hawk, we saved his life.

Hawkeye: Yeah, well I guess that's something.

BJ: It's more than something, it's everything.

(The patient is wiggling his toes, proving he's not paralyzed. Hawkeye, BJ, and Margaret jump for joy. A blood-drained Charles rests nearby)

Margaret: WE DID IT! WE DID IT! Do you know what we DID?!

BJ: We made a man who's part George and part Harold!

Charles: And part Winchester.

Hawkeye: That's right! When he wakes up, he won't know whether to be brave, generous, or pompous!

Dear Uncle Abdul

Klinger: Holy Toledo! (to Charles) Major, either that bird hit a landmine, or you just shot down a kamikaze pigeon!

[Hawkeye and BJ ask Klinger who he thinks is the funniest guy in the camp.]

Klinger: It's no contest: neither one of you. You guys don't even make the first cut. I'm trying to tell my uncle what kind of a place I work in: doctors, nurses saving lives. Well, I got a commanding officer who dresses me up in his clothes and sits me on a horse named Sophie so he can paint his own picture. There's a priest writing war ditties, and a snooty Major who pays me twenty bucks to follow him out in the woods and watch him blow up a pigeon with a landmine. And if that doesn't do it for ya, I got a head nurse who shoots unarmed luggage. All you two guys do is walk around all day telling jokes. What the hell's so funny about that? [returns to writing his letter] Ya see, Unc? It's no wonder I never got a Section Eight; there's nothing special about me. Everybody here is crazy.

Captains Outrageous

Potter: (about a General) The man graduated 312th out of 320 and he says he's gonna do his best.

Mulcahy: (after finally receiving his captain's bars) This experience has taught me a valuable lesson. The meek may inherit the earth but it's the grumpy who gets promoted!

Stars and Stripes

Margaret: I'm just as much a major as any other major. You'll notice these leaves come in gold, not pink for girls and blue for boys.

Hawkeye: (to Margaret) Maybe you and I are just too choosy. We're both looking for a custom fit in an off-the-rack world.

Yessir, That's Our Baby

[Charles and Hawkeye are trying to secure the Justice Department's assistance through a disinterested Roger Prescott; Hawkeye is getting more irritated as Mr. Prescott keeps leaving the room]

Hawkeye: If he tries to leave the room one more time, he's gonna be a diplomatic corpse.

Charles: Now, you see, Pierce? This is precisely the reason that I am needed here. Your pugnacious attitude will accomplish nothing.

Hawkeye: Ooh, but it'll make me feel so good!

Charles: You're clearly out of your element here. This is a time for civility and graciousness; there is no room for rancor.

Hawkeye: How about just one bolo punch?

Charles: Look. If you wish to accomplish our objective, you will leave this to me. I'm well-versed in the verbal art of thrust and parry, give and take.

Hawkeye: Kick and gouge.

Charles: Sit there, keep your mouth shut. I will orchestrate these proceedings to a successful-

[Prescott returns to his office]

Prescott: Well, so much for that.

Hawkeye: [sarcastic] Delightful for you to drop in on us again.

Prescott: Can you imagine, those cretins were actually going to seat the deputy chargé d'affaires next to a sumo wrestler!

Hawkeye: [more sarcastic] Oh! How gauche!

Charles: [glancing at Hawkeye] Yes, these are trying times.

Hawkeye: Yes, they certainly are.

Charles: They take one's attention away from the important issues at hand. For example, the disposition of the unfortunate child we were discussing.

Prescott: Yes, the child.

Hawkeye: The one we want to send to the States. That child.

Prescott: Yes. Well, the answer's no.

Hawkeye: No? Just like that? No?

Charles: Pierce. Mr. Prescott, surely you will agree that this is a decision that should not be made in haste; there must be some discussion.

Prescott: Actually, none whatsoever.

Hawkeye:Look, Prescott, this "unattended juvenile" you're so blithely dismissing could conceivably be murdered in the name of racial purity. You got space on your application for that?!

Charles: Pierce, I'm handling this, remember?

Prescott: There's nothing to handle. The Immigration and Naturalization Service, by statute, has strict quota restrictions. My hands are tied.

Hawkeye: Now there's an idea!

Charles: [elbows Hawkeye] Just a moment. There are always alternatives.

Prescott: Not in this case, Major.

Charles: [trying to maintain composure] Mr. Prescott, I have friends of considerable influence.

Prescott: Gentlemen...

Charles: Congressmen.

Prescott: ...you are wasting my time.

Charles: Senators.

Prescott: Please believe me, this is departmental policy.

Charles: Cabinet members.

Prescott: There can be no immigration under the circumstances you have set forth.

Charles: Captains of industry.

Prescott: Good day.

[Losing his temper, Charles slams his peaked cap on Prescott's desk and jumps to his feet]

Charles: There's nothing good about it, Mr. Prescott! We are discussing a little girl! A human being who is facing a life of misery! An issue infinitely more important than you and your stupid seating arrangements!

Hawkeye: Charles-

Charles: Shut up, Pierce! [Prescott's desk telephone buzzes; Charles snatches up the handset] Mr. Prescott is in conference; let them eat out! [hangs up]

Prescott: How dare you-

Charles: You smarmy bureaucratic microbe; you're going to that dinner breathing through your FLY!

[Charles tries to attack Prescott, who flees while Hawkeye restrains Charles]

Hawkeye: Run for your life, Prescott, it's a wild boar!

Bottle Fatigue

Charles: Well, how would you feel if your sister were marrying a swarthy dark-haired olive picker?

Klinger: She did. And for your information, Major, so did my mother and my grandmother, not to mention the future Mrs. Max Klinger, whoever she is. (Klinger storms out of the office)

Charles: Did I say something to offend him?

Charles: (Enters Colonel Potter's tent) Colonel it is imperative I get to Boston.

Potter: Boston, Massachusetts?

Charles: Yes! Yes. Boston, Massachusetts.

Potter: Now just hang on to your homburg Winchester. You come barreling into your CO's bunkhouse, bellow at him like a berserk buffalo aggravating his anger and his hangover all because you want to bug out. How would you like to spend the rest of the war with a bull's-eye on your dome?

Heal Thyself

Klinger: (afraid of catching mumps) If you get 'em as a kid, you don't get 'em as an adult. But if you get 'em as an adult, you don't get kids. Take that, you little homewreckers!

Margaret: Let me get you to your tent.

Potter: I'd better warn you, Major, I get mighty crotchety when I'm battling a bug. And I make one ornery patient.

Margaret: Well, I make one ornery nurse! Take it easy.

(Enter: Winchester)

Winchester: Uh-- Colonel isn't it a bit early in the day to be, um-- how shall I put it-- bagged?

Potter: It's not booze that's got me in this shape, Winchester, it's mumps.

Winchester: (laughs) I-- Forgive me, Colonel. It's just that it's a bit silly to find a childhood malady - afflicting a man of your advanced years.

Margaret: Step aside, Major.

Winchester: What's next for you, Colonel? Unsightly teenage blemishes?

Potter: Ah, between you and the mumps, Winchester, I'd prefer the mumps. At least I know they're going to go away.

(Hawkeye, with B.J. brings in Winchester, who HIMSELF has the mumps!)

Hawkeye: But what can you give a man who has everything, including the mumps? - His very own roomie! - So here he is now Charles Emerson Winchester the puffed.

(looking at Potter's painting)

Winchester: At least the other doctors have something to do. The only activity I am allowed is talking.

Potter: Winchester, the artistic temperament is a delicate thing. So clam up, you yahoo!

Winchester: I do not understand why you are allowed your pleasures, and I am not allowed mine!

Potter: Because my pleasures are a little more on the quiet side!

Winchester: Ah! That is either a horse or the RCA building.

Potter: It's a horse. I'm about to paint his back end; fortunately, I have a live-in model!

Winchester: Aha! If only your talent matched your callousness!

Potter: Major, go about your business.

Winchester: I have no business.

Potter: Take a nap.

Winchester: I'm not sleepy!

Potter: Just listen to yourself yammer. That'll snap those eyelids shut in a flash.

Winchester: Even the most despicable convict is allowed the basic pleasures of life. - But not I.

Potter: Don't rile me, Winchester. My face gets any redder, somebody's gonna get whopped.

Winchester: Threaten all you want, I can't take anymore. I demand my rights. I'm going to play my music.

Potter: Don't touch that dial.

Winchester: I need this music to nourish my fading hope that truth and beauty still exist. Viva Caruso-- [ Gags ]

Potter: I'm warning you. Eighty-six that Italian!

Winchester: I have nothing left to lose!

(Caruso)

Potter: That tears it!

Winchester: What are you gonna do?

Potter: I'll decide when I get there.

Winchester: No, Colonel. - Oh, no!

Potter: Oh, yes!

(Potter yanks the Caruso record off the record player and throws it out of the tent, where it smashes against a jeep!)

(Winchester and Potter are playing gin, and are still at one another's throats)

Potter: Gin.

Winchester: Again? Colonel, it hardly requires an advanced degree in differential calculus to master the numerical sequence of ace, deuce, trey. Fifty-four points, record.

Potter: Oh, shut up and deal. I can't remember the last hand I won.

Winchester: Oh, really? Having won so few I should think they'd stand out in your memory.

Potter: On second thought, I think I'll read a little and then turn in. Some Zane Grey maybe.

Winchester: (sarcastically) Ah, Zane Grey. Tolstoy with spurs.

Potter: He happens to be a great writer!

Winchester: Colonel, what gin rummy is to games of skill Zane Grey is to literature. Therefore, I shall counter with something civilized-- Caruso.

Potter:En-riko Caruso? The singer?

Winchester: Why, yes, I do believe he sings.

Potter: Nix on that. I hate opera!

Winchester: Colonel, a closed mind is an empty mind. All I ask is that you listen, and I assure you you will be carried away on majestic clouds of musical rapture.

(Caruso Singing In Italian)

Potter: That guy sounds like a banshee in a bear trap. [Stops]

Winchester: Sir! This man is one of the giants of serious music.

Potter: If I want music-- I'll send for my Tex Ritter 78s. If I want a giant, I'll send for Mel Ott!

Winchester: Well, I don't know Mr. Ott's work but cowboy crooners, even one so noteworthy as ol' Tex can hardly be mentioned in the same breath with the immortal Enrico Caruso!

Potter: Oh, yeah? If you wanna match windpipes, can that Caruso guy yodel?

Winchester: Not even at gunpoint!

Newsome: (after walking out of OR and going into the tent) The blood won't come off. No matter what I do it just stays there. See? Never gonna go away. No matter how many times I wash or how much I scrub it's gonna stay there. Where do they come from? What do they expect me to do? I can't. I can't.

Old Soldiers

Potter: It's a tragedy people have to eat horses, they're beautiful animals. You ever take a peek at a cow or a pig? They're ugly. We're doing them a favor by eating 'em. Saves 'em the agony of looking at their reflections in the trough every morning. But a horse, that's a noble beast. Why, in the cavalry, a man's steed was his best friend, a real companion. Where do people get off making pork chops out of them? Too much killing in this world, too much death. No respect for people, for tradition, for life. The whole world is spinning down the tubes and nobody even seems to notice. I don't know, I...(breaking off due to the looks of the others)

(in the lab preparing tetanus shots for the Korean children)

Hawkeye: OK, ten shots, one every two hours.

Charles: Ah, a mere twenty hours 'til we are released from the munchkin horde.

BJ: Charles, have you been hoarding munchkins again?

Charles: Unworthy of you.

Morale Victory

Potter: You two baboons spoiled a swell movie!

Hawkeye: No, we didn't! It's been here so long, it's spoiled by itself.

Everyone: Yeah!

BJ: I've seen better film forming in my soup.

Potter: Yeah? Well I happen to think this is a fine piece of celluloid. As a matter of fact, it's mine and Mildred's favorite. Mildred loves Charles Boyer. This is a war, you know! Be grateful that we got a talkie!

Hawkeye: We are, but don't you think we deserve a little decent entertainment?! God knows everything else around here stinks!

Potter: (sarcastically) Evening Captains Heckle and Jeckle, I would have been here sooner but I stopped to watch the dancing in the streets.

Lend a Hand

(discussing a surprise birthday party for Hawkeye in the Swamp)

Charles: What about we do something civilized?

Klinger: Like what?

Charles: Like sipping sherry while musicians play a string trio by Franz Josef Haydn. Or perhaps, someone with a trained voice could read selections from Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Margaret: This is for Pierce?

BJ: Oh he'd love it once we got him tied to the chair.

Klinger: That's the stupidest thing I ever heard. I don't wanna be entertained by somebody with three names unless it's Gypsy Rose Lee.

Charles: This cultural commentary is brought to you by Maxwell "Swinish" Klinger.

Klinger: Wait! Put away your thinking caps, I got it. Imagine if you will the world's biggest salami.

Charles: We don't have to imagine it, Klinger, we're looking at it.

Goodbye, Cruel World

Hawkeye: I think our job might be a little easier than yours, Sidney. At least we can always see where they're bleeding.

Potter: Now why the devil would I scribble my John Hancock 47 times?

Klinger: Ah, you were sleepwalking sir. I didn't want to wake you. I thought it might be dangerous.

Potter: Probably would've been. Thanks for clearing that up for me Corporal. By the way...you put too much swoop on the T.

Dreams

Potter: Have yourself a nice long rest and be back here in twelve minutes.

(Falling asleep, after Garvey has refused to send him any ambulances)

Potter: I'm too old for this. I've got children telling me I can't play with their toys.

[The 4077th is overcrowded because a young lieutenant at Battalion refuses to send vehicles to transport some of the patients to the 8063rd, fearing he will have to account for the cost if they get destroyed. Col. Potter gets a patient, who happens to be a general, to talk to the LT on the phone.]

General Coogan: (on the phone) Lieutenant, I'm sure you have a sound reason for not sending those ambulances into combat.

Lt. Garvey: Yes, sir!

General Coogan: Well, why don't you come down here in the flesh and tell me what it is?

Lt. Garvey: In the flesh, sir?

General Coogan: You wouldn't mind that, now, would you, Lieutenant?

Lt. Garvey: They're on their way to you right now, sir!

General Coogan: Thank you, Lieutenant...(hangs up phone, to Col. Potter) You see, he'll let us have those ambulances. He just wants to save his caboose!

War Co-Respondent

Back Pay

Potter: Okey-dokey?

Charles: Colonel, I...

Potter: Say "okey-dokey," Major.

Charles: Okey...dokey.

Charles (addressing three Korean doctors): Now, my diminutive voyeurs, this is the patient, without whom medicine would be just theory. This is the patient's chest; or in more scientific parlance, the front of the back. If there is no bellybutton in the immediate vicinity, you've committed a rather serious faux pas.

April Fools

(Father Mulcahy comes into the company clerk's office wearing a dress)

Mulcahy: Sir, I must protest the rash of mindless pranks being perpetrated around here!

Potter: Well, good morning Padre, or should I say, Padress.

Mulcahy: Colonel, there's no humor in this. While I was showering, someone stole my robe and left me this.... this.... housefrock!

Klinger: Better not take it off, Father. You'll be a defrocked priest!

Mulcahy: Klinger, how would you like the last rites? And a few lefts?

Rizzo: The Army is a breeze, once you get the hang of the Luther Rizzo secret of military success.

Klinger: What is it?

Rizzo: Never smile.

Klinger: Huh?

Rizzo: The Army hates to see a man grin. Makes them think they've failed somehow. But moan and groan and carry on, they'll leave you to your lonesome; long as they know you're miserable, they're happy.

Winchester: Pierce, that is a childish, totally immature and petulant suggestion.....When do we nail the swine?

M*A*S*H (season 8)