M*A*S*H

M*A*S*H (1972)

43 mistakes in season 6 - chronological order

(28 votes)

Fade Out, Fade In - S6-E1

Visible crew/equipment: After Potter tells Klinger that his lawyer, Schaeffer, is a fake who's impersonated a chaplain among other things, when Schaeffer tells them that 25 couples are living in sin, in the next shot two curved chalk actor's marks can be seen on the floor. (00:35:45)

Super Grover

Fade Out, Fade In - S6-E1

Continuity mistake: In the episode 'Chief Surgeon Who' (season one), near the end of the episode we see Radar in Col. Blake's office smoking a cigar with ease, but in the first episode of season six when Col. Potter offers Radar a cigar, he doesn't know how to smoke it and he throws up after he puffs it.

M*A*S*H mistake picture

Fade Out, Fade In - S6-E1

Continuity mistake: When Colonel Potter, BJ, Hawkeye, and Charles are in the changing room, Charles wants to be alone so he takes his tan jacket off the first nail on the right and leaves, but in BJ and Hawkeye's closeups the tan jacket is still hanging on that first nail, then it vanishes again.

Super Grover

Fade Out, Fade In - S6-E1

Continuity mistake: Charles and the G.I. lay waiting for an explosion. When the last mortar hits, the explosion is just to the left of the back tire, the jeep is untouched. After a cut, the jeep is trashed and burning.

Movie Nut

The Winchester Tapes - S6-E5

Plot hole: In a tape home, Winchester implores his father to get him out of the MASH and suggests that Senator Griswold should help as his father "paid good money for him". As the length of time the show ran so exceeds the length of the war itself, inconsistencies for dates are perhaps unavoidable, and it might not be fair to call them mistakes. In this case however, the writers/producers have carelessly picked a senator who only served from November 1952, making dating inescapable. As Charles, in the same episode, complains how hot it is and everyone is in shirtsleeves, it must be very late spring, perhaps May, at best, just a month before the end of the war. To emphasize the mistake, by the next episode it is late fall/early winter. (00:12:45)

M*A*S*H mistake picture

The Winchester Tapes - S6-E5

Continuity mistake: While Colonel Potter is painting the portrait of Charles, the portable military field desks behind Potter are all open - note the front doors are flipped down, but in the closeup of Charles holding the painting of himself the doors are folded up. And the books, etc. atop the field desks change as well.

Super Grover

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: As Leonardo da Vinci put it: Art is never finished, just abandoned. The fact that it looks complete to you or me is no reason why the artist couldn't find minor details he'd want to touch up.

Doc

The Winchester Tapes - S6-E5

Continuity mistake: While Charles is reading the letter about his nephew being discharged because of fainting spells, Klinger feigns a fainting spell falling forward onto Hawkeye's cot, and his body lies lopsided with his leg hanging off, but when it cuts to the next shot Klinger's perfectly positioned on the cot. Also, note the mail Klinger tossed earlier onto Hawkeye's cot, near his pillow, is now neatly tucked under the blanket towards the foot of the cot.

Super Grover

The Light That Failed - S6-E6

Factual error: Charles mistakenly injects a Post Op patient with curare instead of morphine. This would have been hard to do. Curare was not approved for use in Korea by the U.S. Army and it would not have been there. Even if it had been, curare was used in conjunction with anesthetics in the operating theatre. It would make no sense to have it in the Post Op. (source pg. 14 "Notable Names in Anasthesia" by J. Roger Maltby, Royal Society of Medicine - Great Britain). (00:12:20)

Images - S6-E9

Continuity mistake: When Cpl. Hendrix is examined on the operating table, Klinger and Hawkeye admire his tattoos. Klinger asks "do you really think the real Louise is built like that?" and Hawkeye replies, "If she is, I'm in love". Later, when Radar talks to Hendrix, Radar says, "Her face is still pretty, and her legs are the greatest." Hendrix asks, "What about the rest of her?" and Radar replies, "There isn't any." How could Hawkeye and Klinger admire Louise's build if the tattoo was that shot up? (00:01:10 - 00:07:20)

Images - S6-E9

Other mistake: In the episode where Radar is talking to Corporal Hendrix, Radar says that he was thinking about getting a tattoo himself. But in season 3 episode 7 when Col. Blake was giving Radar his physical he had an anchor on his right arm which he said was his new tattoo. (00:08:20)

The M*A*S*H Olympics - S6-E10

Visible crew/equipment: When Colonel Potter surprises everybody with his "little Olympics" idea in the mess tent, after Margaret comments, "I just know I'm not going to have anything left for Donald," at the start of the next shot the boom mic casts a very quick moving shadow on BJ.

Super Grover

Frank Burns: You disgust me!
Hawkeye: You're right, Frank... I discussed you with everyone I know and we all find you disgusting.

More quotes from M*A*S*H

Trivia: Gary Burghoff's left hand was slightly deformed, and he often hid it behind his clipboard during filming.

More trivia for M*A*S*H

Dear Dad - S1-E12

Question: A number of times it is mentioned that the outfit is unarmed, yet several times, Frank has a rifle, or a pistol, and once Klinger had a grenade, and the guards and Klinger, while on sentry duty, has a rifle. Was this standard, or is this a mistake?

Answer: Even an Army field hospital would have SOME weapons for self-defense if the enemy attacked. What's meant is that it's not a combat outfit, and therefore wouldn't have enough weapons to actually attack anyone. (It's also mentioned a few times that the Officer of the Watch is supposed to carry a pistol at all times, but Hawkeye refuses to do it when he's in charge and Colonels Blake and Potter don't enforce the rule).

Captain Defenestrator

Answer: The Geneva Convention allows even doctors to carry a sidearm to be used in their self defense or the defense of their patients, however it is rare to do so.

stiiggy

Answer: As an old medical unit staffer, my experience is that med units have combat units assigned to defend them. Usually it was marines.

Answer: My old doctor (now deceased) served in Korea during the War. He was required to carry a sidearm anytime he was not in the hospital.

More questions & answers from M*A*S*H

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