As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
I was just reading about the actors and actresses on the series MASH. Oddly it all started in Pernell Roberts was in an episode of Wild Wild West and I was looking him up, and what a prick he was.
Roberts would portray Trapper John MD in a later manifestation of the fine character developed by Wayne Rogers. It was in reading about why Rogers left the show, that I needed to vent something which has irked me for years about the MASH series.
If you look at the work there, the show was carried by those who eventually were written off the show or left. It was horrid what was done to McLean Stevenson in people mocking his later television appearances, as Stevenson as Lt. Col. Henry Blake was one of the pillars of MASH. The other genius was Wayne Rogers. People never seemed to understand that Alan Alda never had any talent, comedic or acting, and it was the rest of the cast which made audiences think Alda was funny. Alda was just bland and boring. The real comedy was carried by Wayne Rogers and the true comedic genius of the series in Major Frank Burns, portrayed by Larry Linville.
Nothing would have worked on MASH if Larry Linville was not there. He was hilarious as the man you loved to hate. His timing was perfection as much as his reactions off of other actors.
Once Stevenson, Rogers and Linville were off the show, nothing worked. What was comedy, became a situation which you were supposed to think was funny, and it was not. It was just a soul probe examination of liberal views.
The replacements for Rogers were liberal Mike Farrell, a completely puss faced bore. Linville was replaced by David Ogden Steirs, again there was nothing funny about his character in being pompous. All Steirs character made you long for was Larry Linville. Lastly, Harry Morgan has comedic talent, but he was boring. His best work was portraying General Steele, and in that Morgan was pure genius.
After the funny people left, Gary Burghoff who was amusing in playing off of his three fellow actors, languished as much as Jamie Farr, as did William Christopher who could steal scenes, but it all needed Stevenson, Rogers and Linville.
I think of my favorite scenes of McLean Stevenson, in giving the orders to diffuse a bomb and blowing it. His desk flying by on a helicopter and his being bewildered. Rogers rewriting Burns Bible and Linville reading that Bible and exclaiming, "Who rewrote these commandments!", and I miss those early years as the late years were just something I would never watch.
In noting that, another mistake was writing Karen Philipp off the program as Lt. Dish. She outshown Alan Alda and exposed how little presence he ever had. Phillipp was a remarkably accomplished woman in being a singer, she was featured in Playboy and she could act. She is like Kathy Browne, another beautiful talent from Star Trek, Have Gun Will Travel, Wild Wild West, who should have been huge movie stars, but the break never came. After Karen Philipp was off the show, there never was another woman who ever appeared who could equal her beauty or presence.
That is what needed to be said.McClean Stevenson, Wayne Rogers and Larry Linville carried MASH and made the other people stars and were never given the credit they deserved. That goes for the star on top of the Christmas tree in Karen Philipp. The early MASH was the comedy and quality. MASH should have been cancelled when the real stars went off the show.
Nuff Said
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