History Fridge / MASH

* Whenever Hawkeye replaces Frank's gun with a toy or a gun shaped lighter, he immediately pulls the trigger when unholstering it, thinking it is a real gun. We all know Frank [[YouFailGunSafetyForever failed gun safety]] and RuleOfFunny notwithstanding, he's pointing it at someone '''every''' time. In ''Five O'Clock Charlie'', when he 'arrests' Henry and Pierce for sabotaging his [=AA=] gun, he points the toy popgun at Pierce and pulls the trigger, [[RuleOfFunny if only done for the 'bang' flag to pop out]]. When he builds a small sandbag bunker in the Swamp and is woken up in the middle of the night, he points the lighter in Hawkeye and [=BJ=]'s direction. Again, this was done so the lighter would light, but still. In either time, had he had a real gun and done that, he would have [[IJustShotMarvinInTheFace shot Pierce in the face]]

*** The irony being that Charles almost kills a patient with curare early on, but is the first to tout its effectiveness in trained hands like theirs.

* Edward Winter, known for portraying Colonel Samuel Flagg, first appeared as a Captain Halloran, an officer with the CID in the episode ''Deal Me Out'', where he played poker with Sidney Freedman. When Colonel Flagg later met Sidney Freedman in the episode "Quo Vadis, Captain Chandler" he remarked that they once played poker together. Some fans apply FridgeBrilliance to claim Halloran as one of Flagg's alternate identities.

* A rather sad one, but all the characters who [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome disappear without explaination]] were in a frontline unit in a war zone, with a mine field nearby. In fact, one nurse near the end of the series dies after stepping on a mine while on a walk. These characters could have died, and it was too depressing for the main characters to mention close friends and collegues dying. The nurse late in the series had only been there about a month, and no one had gotten to know her, and Henry dying was so much of a shock that they couldn't help but think of it.

* In ''{{MASH}}'', Hawkeye always referred to Colonel Potter by his rank or name ("Colonel, I need some help here"), while he tended to call Lt. Col. Henry Blake by his given name. At first, I thought it was primarily because Hawkeye and Blake were more friends than officers. Then it hit - Hawkeye also had far more respect for Potter than he had for Blake (probably because Potter didn't put up with much from Hawkeye). The only time Hawkeye called Potter by his given name was when he was going to ask Potter to stay in Korea... and it came out like he was asking a loved one not to leave. I have no doubt that Hawkeye loved Henry Blake, but he ''respected'' Potter - and using Potter's rank was his way of showing it. - Tropers/CaliforniaDave

* Whenever Hawkeye replaces Frank's gun with a toy or a gun shaped lighter, he immediately pulls the trigger when unholstering it, thinking it is a real gun. We all know Frank [[YouFailGunSafetyForever failed gun safety]] and RuleOfFunny notwithstanding, he's pointing it at someone '''every''' time. In ''Five O'Clock Charlie'', when he 'arrests' Henry and Pierce for sabotaging his [=AA=] gun, he points the toy popgun at Pierce and pulls the trigger, [[RuleOfFunny if only done for the 'bang' flag to pop out]]. When he builds a small sandbag bunker in the Swamp and is woken up in the middle of the night, he points the lighter in Hawkeye and [=BJ=]'s direction. Again, this was done so the lighter would light, but still. In either time, had he had a real gun and done that, he would have killed Pierce.

* A rather sad one, but all the characters who [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome disappear without explaination]] were in a frontline unit in a war zone, with a mine field nearby. In fact, one nurse near the end of the series dies after stepping on a mine while on a walk. These characters could have died, and it was too depressing for the main characters to mention close friends and collegues dying. The nurse late in the series had only been there about a month, and no one had gotten to know her, and Hanry dying was so much of a shock that they couldn't help but think of it.

* One story has Potter and Klinger bartering with a Canadian unit for curare, an anesthetic banned by US officials. The unit they dealt with was the Princess Patricia's Light Infantry, an Alberta regiment. So what was an infantry regiment doing with surgical anesthetic. There were two Canadian medical units in Korea at the time, the No. 25 Canadian Field Ambulance and No. 37 Field Ambulance, yet the [[DidNotDoTheResearch writers chose]] [[SmallReferencePools the most prolific Canadian infantry regiment]].

** They probably just wanted to use a unit name that Americans might recognize, but it also suggests a possible bit of fridge horror: since in the real world, curare was a weapon long before it was a medicine, and an infantry regiment would have no ''medical'' reason to keep a supply of a powerful paralytic, were the Canadian Forces involved in secret chemical warfare?

* One story has Potter and Klinger bartering with a Canadian unit for curare, an anesthetic banned by US officials. The unit they dealt with was the Princess Patricia's Light Infantry, an Alberta regiment. So what was an infantry regiment doing with surgical anesthetic. There were two Canadian medical units in Korea at the time, the No. 25 Canadian Field Ambulance and No. 37 Field Ambulance, yet the [[DidNotDoTheResearch writers chose]] [[SmallReferencePools the most prolific Canadian infantry regiment]].

* One story has Potter and Klinger bartering with a Canadian unit for curare, an anesthetic banned by US officials. The unit they dealt with was the Princess Patricia's Light Infantry, an Alberta regiment. So what was an infantry regiment doing with surgical anesthetic. There were two Canadian medical units in Korea at the time, the No. 25 Canadian Field Ambulance and No. 37 Field Ambulance, yet the [[DidNotDoTheResearch writers chose]] [[SmallReferencePool the most prolific Canadian infantry regiment]].

* One story has Potter and Klinger bartering with a Canadian unit for curare, an anesthetic banned by US officials. The unit they dealt with was the Princess Patricia's Light Infantry, an Alberta regiment. So what was an infantry regiment doing with surgical anesthetic.

** Another reason: Harry and Henry are ''the same name''. Keep in mind Henry ''died''.
** Except for the fact that Col. Potter's name is ''Sherman...'' :P

*** Not all wartime injuries are life-threatening. They probably had a ''lot'' of lesser injuries and illnesses to treat, that would account for most of that 97%; we just don't see these less-serious cases very often because they're less dramatic than the life-or-death ones.

*** Not all wartime injuries are life-threatening. They probably had a ''lot'' of lesser injuries and illnesses to treat, we just don't see these very often because they're less dramatic than the life-or-death ones.

*** But not every time. Throughout Frank's stay, all four doctors are shown in the [=OR=] at once the majority of the time, with Frank rarely doing triage.

* A rather sad one, but all the characters who [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome disappear without explaination]] were in a frontline unit in a war zone, with a mine field nearby. In fact, one nurse near the end of the series dies after stepping on a mine while on a walk. These characters could have died, and it was too depressing for the main characters to mention close friends and collegues dying. The nurse late in the series had only been there about a month, and no one had gotten to know her.

*** But not every time. Throughout Frank's stay, all four doctors are shown in the [[=OR=]] at once the majority of the time, with Frank rarely doing triage.

* FridgeHorror: In "The Novocaine Mutiny", Frank says that he's aware that the hearing he brought against Hawkeye will result in Hawk's death "or [[FateWorseThanDeath worse]]", which is followed by a joke about wanting virginity. So Frank, who has entries in UnintentionallySympathetic, was willing to see Hawkeye raped? Huh.
* FridgeLogic: If one of the camp's four doctors was hopelessly incompetent, how did they have a 97% survival rate?

*** Not all the doctors perform ''surgery'' all the time. One has to man triage, for example.

*** But given the volume of patients they regularly had, and only had '''four''' doctors, they could not have such a high success rate if one of those doctors, who shared in about 25% of the load, was totally incompetent, and killed more patients than he saved.

** I believe Hawkeye would say that Frank is responsible for the other 3%.

* FridgeLogic: If one of the camp's four doctors was hopelessly incompetent, how did they have a 97% survival rate?

* FridgeHorror: In "The Novocaine Mutiny", Frank says that he's aware that the hearing he brought against Hawkeye will result in Hawk's death "or [[FateWorseThanDeath worse]]", which is followed by a joke about wanting virginity. So Frank, who has entries in UnintentionallySympathetic, was willing to see Hawkeye raped? Huh.