Trivia / M*A*S*H S11 E16: Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen

• Directed by Cast Member: Directed by Alan Alda, who also helped write it.
• Enforced Method Acting: Of the heartwarming variety: David Ogden Stiers (Charles) was a notoriously private man who preferred to reach out to his colleagues instead of letting them do the same, which led to a long-standing joke between him and Loretta Swit (Margaret) about her being unable to invite him to parties because she didn't have his phone number. When Charles gives Margaret the copy of Sonnets from the Portugese that he'd earlier demanded she return, you see Winchester open the book and direct Margaret to something written on the flyleaf. In return she beams a sunny, radiant smile reading whatever it is he wrote inside. This was actually Loretta's real-life reaction because David had written his phone number for her.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: The fire that forced the camp to bug out was written into the script after a fire destroyed the exterior set on the Fox Studios ranch in Malibu. Exterior filming had to be moved to another location.
• Recycled Script: Hawkeye's subplot is basically a repeat of "Bless You, Hawkeye" from Season 9; a suppressed memory causes bizarre behavior in Hawkeye until Sidney Freeman coaxes the memory out of him and assists him in coping with the resultant trauma. It even has a similar Narm-y performance from Alan Alda in his breakdown scene.

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