In this episode of MASH Matters, Jeff and Ryan discuss listener’s favorite episodes and Ryan’s favorite episode from Season One. Plus, sound effects!
SHOW NOTES:
By popular demand (okay, it was actually one guy), MASH Matters is now on Facebook.
Tuttle is still alive … and he’s running for the Senate in Maine. (I wonder if he campaigns in Crabapple Cove.)
Jamie Farr picks his top 18 favorite episodes. It’s a pretty good list.
Stacker ranks the top 100 M*A*S*H episodes. Do you agree?
What’s your favorite episode? Let us know!
TV’s M*A*S*H: The Ultimate Guide Book – highly recommended!
Congratulations to Alan Alda for his SAG Lifetime Achievement Award!
Connect with Jeff & Ryan
Visit our website: www.mashmatterspodcast.com
Like MASH Matters on Facebook.
Follow MASH Matters on Twitter.
Email questions, comments, show ideas, and more to MashMattersPodcast@gmail.com
Call and leave a voicemail at 513-436-4077
Subscribe to MASH Matters on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts. And please leave us a five-star review!
TRANSCRIPT: MASH Matters #003 – Favorite Episodes
Attention all personnel. Incoming podcast. This is MASH Matters.
RYAN: Episode three, here we are. MASH Matters. I’m Ryan Patrick and he’s Jeff Maxwell.
JEFF: Ryan! And a happy day to you from me, Jeff Maxwell, your wonderful partner. We’re so excited to be here on episode – which episode? Three?
RYAN: This is episode three.
JEFF: Wait, we have sound effects now
[bicycle horn]
JEFF: See, I went out and spent a lot of money. I’ll do it again
[bicycle horn]
JEFF: This is going to be really irritating to you and most of the people who are listening, if there are any listeners, and I’m sure there are, they’re really going to get sick of this thing because it’s really fun to do this.
[bicycle horn]
JEFF: Anyway
RYAN: We have spared no expense for you, the listening public. This is a podcast – if you’re just joining us for the first time – this is a podcast centered around the television show MASH, which I’m a huge fan of and which Jeff was on for many, many years. Was it nine seasons?
JEFF: It was the last 9 years of the 11.
RYAN: Okay. We are just going to be talking about MASH –
JEFF: Oh, by the way, I played the part of Private Igor. That’s who I played.
RYAN: Ohh
JEFF: The cook, the server guy. Oh, that’s who I was.
RYAN: Oh, see I, I was under the impression that you played Nurse Abel.
JEFF: Oh, oh, well I may have on the weekend, but not on the show.
RYAN: [laughs]
JEFF: You know, we’re wild here in Hollywood.
RYAN: I’ve heard that about you west-coasters. As always, you can get in touch with us through our website which is mashmatterspodcast.com. You can find us on Twitter @mashmatters. You can find the email address there on the website and also you can call and leave a voicemail. We’re still waiting on our first voicemail. So who will be our first voicemail? Will it be you? Call now. Here’s the number: 513-436-4077.
JEFF: Maybe they can call in as their favorite character. So if you have something – you have a comment or a question, call in as Hawkeye or Radar or –
RYAN: Nurse Abel.
JEFF: Nurse Abel, call in as Nurse Abel. Call in as somebody and we’ll have to guess who it is, but leave your comment or your question. But call in as the character, that’d be kind of fun, huh?
RYAN: That would be, that would be, unless it’s a terrible, terrible impersonation and then just know that we have free rein to make fun of you.
JEFF: [laughs]
RYAN: It’s our podcast.
JEFF: We can do it. Well, that will be fun.
RYAN: So no voicemails yet, but we have received quite a bit of mail. So let’s open up Radar’s mailbag here and take a look.
[Audio from the show]:
Hey, mail call!
Yes, yes, yes, I’ll write you a long letter right away.
We got a letter written in mumble.
Sirs and everybody, I’ve got a whole bunch of letters here and they’re all on stationery from the Pierre Hotel. Hey!
[sound of ruffling paper and bicycle horn]
RYAN: The first message comes from Michael James and he says, “Hello gentlemen, first of all, thank you so much for doing this. I think it’s not only about time, but also a great thing to do to carry on MASH’s great legacy”. Well, thank you, Michael. We appreciate that. He says, “I’m obviously a lifetime fan. I’ve been watching since I’m 8. So that’s 42 years”. He wanted to answer our call for ideas. He said “an idea I had was to recreate the show on the air, like they did in the old days on the radio. It would obviously involve more people, but there it is. I don’t know if this is the kind of idea you were thinking about. I just thought it would be cool and I wish you all the luck with the new podcast. Thank you, Michael James”.
JEFF: Well, thank you, Michael. That’s great. It’s an idea. You know, really, to really do that would be kind of difficult because you really would be bumping up against what we all perceive and what all the listeners and what all of the watchers of the show has enjoyed about those characters. And I think by putting, you know, Bill and Sarah and Aunt Gussie in as the characters on here might be confusing or frustrating. I don’t know, just my impression. But thanks for the idea, but it would be kind of difficult to do and it would be kind of a – be frustrating to hear because you’d expect certain rhythms and certain jokes. And the jokes are not going to work because the actors are not the same actors and so it’s not quite going to be the same.
RYAN: No offense to Aunt Gussie. I mean, she’s a fantastic actress, but, I agree, Jeff. I think that it would be a challenge to try to recreate the magic that you and your MASH family were able to create every week for all these years. I don’t want to hear somebody else as Hawkeye. I don’t want to hear somebody else as Hot Lips. Those voices have already been seared into my memories with Alan Alda and Loretta Swit, and we would be doing a great disservice to the material if we tried to recreate it with other voices. I love the theater of the mind aspect of it. He talked about doing like a radio show, and I am a huge fan of classic old time radio. I love listening to Jack Benny and Burns & Allen and The Shadow and things like that, but I’m not going to try to recreate Burns & Allen. I’m not going to try to be Jack Benny. Those people who were who they were and they made it successful because of who they were. And so was MASH. I’ll tell you, Jeff, MASH – there are several different iterations of MASH and one of them being a stage play that a lot of community theaters will do. And the only time I have ever – and I’ve seen a lot of plays in my time, and I’ve seen a lot of good plays and I’ve seen a lot of bad plays in my time – but the only play I ever walked out of the theater in the middle of was watching a stage adaptation of MASH because the actors had to try to recreate these characters that they should never ever try to recreate. So that’s my feeling on it, but thank you, Michael [laughs]
JEFF: [laughs] Hey, send in another suggestion, Michael. I’m sure you’re happy to hear our response and reaction to that idea. I’m sure you have a couple of other good ideas too, somewhere maybe.
RYAN: But he’ll never share them with us [laughs]
JEFF: [laughs] No, but it’s true. It really is true. And I was gonna bring up that play. I’ve never seen it, but I’d rather be eaten alive by scorpions than go see a play to kind of recreate that environment. Although, here’s an interesting comment, if I do say so myself. I was at a school function that I was invited to participate in about how to get into show business and how to do that and what it meant to you and what you had to do to prepare yourself. And it was done at a school and it was myself and some people in the music business and other forms of the entertainment industry. And I got up and I said, okay, so – and there were about 60 students there. And they were there, and it was a high school, and they were there to learn about show business. So they were interested in it. So I said, well, how many of you have seen MASH? And one person raised their hand. And I thought it was kind of a joke. I thought, well, this is a joke. I said, okay, no, how many people have seen MASH? And the same girl raised her hand: [in high-pitched voice] “I think I saw it once with my mother”. And that – that gave me chills because out of a room of 60 young kids in high school, only one person was familiar with the show. I then wonder if those 60 or those 59 kids went to the play, would they then be exposed to that concept of a MASH unit and all those kinds of characters and have no relationship to the actors that were in the show that was so iconic and has been emblazoned in our brains? So I wonder if they would have a different feeling about it. I couldn’t take it. I would pass out. But I wonder if somebody that was not familiar or they came from Mars and they didn’t know anything about MASH and they went to that play, would they enjoy it? I don’t know.
RYAN: I don’t know either. That’s a very good point. And it’s a terrible question for me to try to answer because I can’t distance myself from the memories I have of the show.
JEFF: Yeah.
RYAN: Now, if I was to go into a play version of a TV show that I had never seen, who knows? Maybe that play would then make me interested in looking at the TV show. I don’t know if that has ever happened or if somebody has been introduced to MASH through the stage show. If so, please let us know. I want to hear from you. I want to hear your side of the story, but again, thank you, Michael. We really do appreciate you reaching out to us and sharing that idea with us.
JEFF: And one more thing, if the writer of the play would like to write in, we’d be happy to talk to him or her and talk about the stupid play. I mean, the play that they wrote.
RYAN: [laughs] Okay, well that escalated quickly. Uh, let’s move on to another note here.
JEFF: Do we want to go to Nicole and Russ or somebody else?
RYAN: Let’s go to James first here and then we’ll go to Nicole and Russ.
JEFF: Okay.
RYAN: James says, “Hello, love the show so far. Thanks for taking the time and making the effort to do it. Please consider setting up a Facebook presence. I couldn’t find a page or maybe even a Facebook group to have further interaction with the fans. So, you know, posting updates there that fans can share may broaden exposure. Just a thought, keep up the great work. Thank you, James Coulter”. And James, because of you, I am happy to announce that we have started a Facebook page.
[bicycle horn]
RYAN: So hop onto Facebook, search for MASH Matters Podcast, and you will find the page and you can like it, then you can unlike it just so you can like it again.
JEFF: Is that the way that works? Can you do that? Does that build up likes or –
RYAN: No, but if you really like a show, you can show how much you like it by liking it, unliking it, liking it again, then unliking it and liking it again.
JEFF: Can I do that in the next election?
RYAN: [laughs]
JEFF: Will that work for me? Cause there’s some people I would like to unlike and –
RYAN: Well, you have to understand, I come from Illinois. That’s how they vote in Chicago. So, hey, go for it, man.
JEFF: [laughs] That and with machine guns.
RYAN: No comment.
JEFF: Moving on to Nicole and Russ. From Nicole and Russ, you didn’t leave your last names, Nicole and Russ. That’s okay. We’ll make one up. Nicole and Russ Balaminem. They say, “Hey guys, my husband and I are huge”. How huge are you, Nicole and Russ.
RYAN: [laughs] I think there’s more to that sentence.
JEFF: Oh, I’m sorry. “Huge MASH fans”. I didn’t realize there was more. I didn’t see that. “My husband and I are huge, relatively young MASH fans, super excited about the podcast”. Thank you for being super excited about the podcast. You should be. It’s a super exciting thing. And nobody, let’s be honest, nobody is doing a podcast about MASH with an incredibly good broadcaster like Ryan and a wacky kooky guy from the actual show MASH, like myself
RYAN: With sound effects
[bicycle horn]
JEFF: Yes, very expensive sound effects. Anyway “our question is: what is each of your favorite episodes and why? Thank you so much. We look forward to future episodes”. Well, thank you for looking forward to those future episodes and asking this question. Alright, my good friend Ryan, what is your favorite episode of MASH? And more importantly, why?
RYAN: Uh, I don’t know.
JEFF: Okay, well, that concludes episode three.
RYAN: [laughs] I mean, this is a hard question for me to answer. It’s like asking, you know, which is your favorite child and – which actually I could probably answer that. But no, here’s the deal. There are so many episodes, so many great episodes and to narrow it down to one favorite episode is really, really tough. So here’s what I would like to propose to you, Jeff. I will highlight one episode from each season. I’ll talk about my favorite episode from season 1 in this episode. And then in future episodes, I can highlight favorite episodes from each season moving forward. And then ultimately I’ll have a collection of my favorite episodes that I can share with everybody. Is that okay? Check the rule book. Is that allowed?
JEFF: [ruffling pages and mumbling] page 42, episode nine, next week, episode three, episode nine. [clearly] Yes, that’s allowed.
RYAN: Okay, good. So I looked at season 1 and first let me tell you my honorable mentions. These are the ones that were in the running. Chief Surgeon Who, I Hate a Mystery, the Longjohn Flap and what is considered to be one of the greatest episodes of the entire series came from season 1, Sometimes You Hear the Bullet. And maybe we’ll talk about that one a little bit more in depth at a later episode, because it is an amazing episode. Those were all in the running, but ultimately I settled on one that’s kind of a fan-favorite and that is Tuttle, written by Bruce Shelley and David Ketchum, originally aired in January of ‘73. Well, first of all, if you’ve never seen the episode Tuttle, you really do need to go check it out. It is an episode where Hawkeye and Trapper invent a soldier named Jonathan Tuttle because they are giving away supplies to the local orphanage. And they tell Sister Theresa who runs the orphanage, they tell her: “it’s not us being generous, it’s Captain Tuttle”.
HAWKEYE: All right, sister Theresa, all set.
SISTER THERESA: Oh, how can I ever thank you, Hawkeye? And you, Trapper?
HAWKEYE: Don’t thank us, we’re just acting on orders.
SISTER THERESA: But whose? Who’s the author of all this generosity?
HAWKEYE: Tuttle, Captain Tuttle. Right, Trap?
TRAPPER: Captain Tuttle?
HAWKEYE: Yeah, one of our finest officers.
SISTER THERESA: And a beautiful man.
HAWKEYE: Just picture George Washington with John Wayne’s agent.
RYAN: And it escalates and it grows into something much bigger, gets the entire camp involved. To where spoiler alert at the end, they have to kill Tuttle off because, you know, he actually never lived. I think it’s cool because it shows the lengths that Trapper and Hawkeye will go to, to help someone. They’re not concocting this imaginary doctor so they can have financial gain. They could’ve, they could’ve kept Tuttle’s back pay for themselves.
HAWKEYE (as Tuttle): Now you understand that all my future pay is to go directly to sister Theresa’s orphanage.
FINANCE OFFICER: You are an inspiration to us all.
HAWKEYE (as Tuttle): I know
RYAN: And we also get to see what makes these characters so special. We see Hawkeye and Trapper’s heart and creativity. We see a little bit of the naivete that we get from Radar in later seasons. We see Hot Lips being very overheated and passionate over Jonathan Tuttle, who’s apparently very handsome, but she’s never seen.
MARGARET: Auburn hair, hazel eyes.
FRANK: Oh for Pete’s sake, Margaret, you’re practically drooling
RYAN: We see Frank’s paranoia coming out. We see Henry’s cluelessness notched up to 10. I think it’s a great starter episode for someone who has never seen MASH, and it’s one of those episodes I will watch whenever it’s on. And we also get to learn about Radar’s imaginary friend, Shirley.
RADAR: I had an imaginary friend when I was a little boy.
HAWKEYE: Terrific.
RADAR: Her name was Shirley.
HAWKEYE: Your imaginary friend was a girl?
RADAR: Mm-hmm.
TRAPPER: What’d she look like?
RADAR: Like me.. Only with tiny little breasts.
HAWKEYE: Out! Out!
RYAN: So, Tuttle is my pick for my favorite episode from season 1. It’s a fun episode. It’s the episode where we get to see Sparky, the operator from Seoul. He only appeared in one episode, in one scene, played by Dennis Fimple, and we never saw him again. Why we never saw him again? I don’t know.
JEFF: He wanted too much money.
RYAN: [laughs]
JEFF: Sorry, Dennis.
RYAN: Interesting note, Larry Gelbart did not write this episode, but he was the executive script consultant, which is – does that mean he was the script doctor on it? Is that what that means?
JEFF: It can be, it can be. I mean, Larry Gelbart was the, you know, he was the guru, he was God and people would write scripts and give them to him and he could basically do anything he wanted to with them. And very often writers, you know, he wrote most of the episodes, I think for the first four years. So when scripts came in and from somebody else, and they were very, very limited number of outside writers, but if somebody did come in and give them a script, I’m sure he sat up, you know, at six o’clock on Wednesday night before anybody started shooting and went through it word by word and sentence by sentence. He’s gone now, so we can’t get him to verify that. But from what I understand about the process, he would really add whatever he felt needed to be added or taken away from the story or the jokes or whatever. Because there was nobody like him, and he really kind of created the voice of the show over the first, certainly the first season, second season. And it gained momentum as it went, but boy, he certainly started the train. So I’m sure he was – the answer to the question is yes, I’m sure he put his stamp on all the scripts.
RYAN: Yeah. Well, his fingerprints are all over this one, even though it was written by Bruce Shelley and David Ketchum, we know that Jonathan Tuttle, the character that they invent, his parents’ names that they invent were Harry and Frida, which were Larry Gelbart’s parents’ names. And then Tuttle’s serial number, which for trivia buffs, it’s 39729966, that was actually Larry Gelbart’s real army serial number. And later it was listed as BJ’s serial number in the episode The Late Captain Pierce. These are little tidbits of information, by the way, that I pulled from a fantastic book which is called “TV’s MASH: The Ultimate Guidebook” by Ed Solomonson and Mark O’Neill. It is awesome. If you’re a huge MASH fan and you do not have this book, go check it out. It’s called “TV’s MASH: The Ultimate Guidebook”. I’ll put a link to it in the show notes, but my favorite little bit of trivia about this particular episode, then we’ll move on in the closing credits of this episode, Captain Jonathan Tuttle is listed as playing himself. [laughs]
JEFF: [laughs]
RYAN: I love that they were including crazy credits before crazy credits were a thing.
JEFF: That’s wonderful
RYAN: So that’s my favorite episode of season 1. I will let you know what season 2 is in incoming episodes.
JEFF: Very nice.
RYAN: Jeff, the question to you, do you have favorite episodes of MASH?
JEFF: Well, this is a long story. I’ll try and condense it. Yes and no. You know, when you said something in a previous podcast that I was trying to say, I didn’t quite say it as well. When I said that, you know, I was not a fan of MASH. I was certainly a fan of MASH in the respect that it was a job and I was working there, I loved all the people but as you pointed out that I was I was seeing pieces of it and so you’d go in Monday morning and there would be a readthrough and then Tuesday they’d start shooting it and you’d be shooting a scene here and a scene there and a scene here and a scene there. I wasn’t in every scene obviously, so I would get pieces of things, but I was there for many years when I was Alan Alda’s stand-in and when I was doing that, I was there every day, he was there. So I got to see it from dusk to dawn basically.
But we’re watching pieces and we’re watching scenes being shot and I’ll do three takes and then one more and then move to another set and by the – in between you get an apple and you go to the toilet and then you come back and you do another scene. So I’m experiencing that show in pieces. And it’s not like a three-camera show where you’re doing basically a play. So you’re going from one, you know, the beginning to the end within 30 minutes. MASH – 30 minutes of MASH or 26 minutes of MASH took at least three days to shoot. So I was getting components. I loved the components. And I loved the experience of the components. And I loved watching various actors come in as guests. And I loved watching the actors who were the permanent cast. I loved watching the directors. I loved listening to the language. I loved watching the crew work who were phenomenal, who would move the lights around and do various things, obviously in order to make the production work. But it was a compartmentalized experience for me, which is kind of sad. I kind of feel bad about it because I wish I had the kind of experience that you, Ryan, have had and most of the wonderful people that are writing in and telling their favorite episodes.
I have a different experience than all of you because of that issue, the component kind of experience that I had. I didn’t sit in front of the TV and watch each episode and then kind of fall in love with the characters and really appreciate them. I appreciated them from a different perspective. The writers I knew, so I appreciated what they did and how they did it and where they were doing it, what time they were doing it, and they were staying up all night long to do it. I appreciated the acting techniques that were done in the show. I appreciated the way the mechanics worked in terms of the technical movement to the cameras and the film guys and all those kinds of things. So that’s what I loved about MASH. I miss that very badly. But that’s what I love rather than having a specific episode. There are specific moments of the nine years that I had that I love and that I treasure. And that we can talk about. But in terms of the episode, I don’t have a specific favorite episode if any of that makes sense.
RYAN: It totally makes sense to me, yes, and I think it’ll make sense to a lot of people.
JEFF: And I believe it’s the same for everybody who was connected with the show. I can’t speak for everybody, but I think it is because when you’re acting in something, it is a job. It’s a different experience than watching it on television and having that intimate relationship with a story and a half hour worth of a television show. You have intimate relationships with each other and the family that is created by virtue of being together for 11 years. So that intimacy is very, very important to all of us, but it’s a little different than being a fan. So, I’m sorry, I’m not a fan [pretends to cry].
RYAN: [laughs]
JEFF: I’m sorry, everybody, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
RYAN: Okay, it got really deep and dark here. I think it’s time for a sound effect.
[bicycle horn]
JEFF: Alright!
RYAN: Alright! We’re back!
JEFF: Hey, you know, we do have other folks that have written in and suggested that they have favorite episodes. Shall I read some of those?
RYAN: Sure, please do, yes.
JEFF: Okay, John Hutchinson: “If I had to guess, it’d be an episode, I think in season 2 called Crisis. Everyone had to make accommodations. Also the episode where everyone wears Hawkeye’s longjohns, the Longjohn Flap in season 1.
RYAN: Yes
JEFF: Well, he liked that cause his name is John
RYAN: [laughs]
JEFF: So he likes John, or at least the name John.
RYAN: Right.
JEFF: And Emma Walker says, “I never really watched the show until I married Matt”.
RYAN: Good old Matt.
JEFF: “He’s a big fan of the show. And I asked him. His favorite episode was when Hawkeye and Margaret were stuck in a hut getting shelled. In his words: ‘it was full of raw emotion and fear’. I’ve come to appreciate the show now that I’m older and will sit and watch it with him when it’s on”. I ask you, Emma, have you ever been stuck in a hut with Matt and gotten shelled? So just a question. You might want to consider it. [laughs] Thank you, Emma and Matt for writing in about that.
RYAN: Yeah. Also thanks to Claire Hughes who said season 2, episode 13, Deal Me Out is her favorite. She says “for starters, it has two of the best recurring characters, Colonel Flagg and Sidney Freedman”. With apologies to you, Jeff. She says you can be third. And second, she says “it’s the pinnacle showcase of the main cast personalities: Frank is extra snivelly, Pierce is extra one-liney, Blake is extra lovably unfit, and Radar’s comic naivete is turned up to 11”. She says “the only episode that comes close to achieving such MASH perfection is Winchester and the French horn”, but she says she’ll save that analysis for another day and another question. So, thank you Claire, for that.
JEFF: Wow.
RYAN: Yeah.
JEFF: I like extra snivelly
RYAN: Yeah [laughs]
JEFF: That’s fun to say. Extra snivelly.
RYAN: And Amy Swiney, she says, “Heroes, which is season 10, episode 18. Father Mulcahy’s story showed that you never know how someone is going to influence your life or how you’re going to influence somebody else’s lives. I also loved BJ making the defibrillator with no motive except to save the soldier’s life. A good reminder of what is more important, especially more important than fame”. So yeah, that’s Heroes is a really cool episode from season 10 that will probably be on my short list once we get to that season. So a couple of other people, Tim Miles, my best friend, Sometimes You Hear the Bullet. Kevin Rothende, he likes The Interview. Jason Snyder, Where There’s a Will, There’s a War. Also Jean Spate, Spite, I don’t know, Jean, I don’t know how to pronounce your last name, my apologies. but she also is a fan of Deal Me Out. And Brett White says the Dream episode is one of his favorite and oh boy –
JEFF: That’s unusual. Would you consider that unusual as a favorite? Cause a lot of people I’ve heard don’t like that.
RYAN: That is a rather divisive episode. There are a handful of episodes like that. And Dreams, I think, is the front runner there for –
[parrot squawking]
JEFF: [laughs] Well, ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to my parrot named George.
RYAN: [laughs] Hey, we made almost through three episodes before George made her first appearance.
JEFF: Exactly. You know, I’m sure you’ll hear from her again sooner or later. She’s a fine animal. I’ve had that bird for 32 years, ladies and gentlemen. My bird, at least actually 32 years. I bought her as a small, tiny birdie, teeny little birdie. I had to teach her how to eat with sunflower seeds, which was kind of a weird thing. But I did and I’ve had her for 32, probably – might even be 36 years actually. She’s a fine creature.
RYAN: Wow. Well, we welcome George to the MASH Matters podcast and we welcome you too. We wanna hear from you. You can email us, you can call us, you can tweet at us, whatever you wanna do, but we wanna hear from you. Just go to mashmatterspodcast.com, click on the Contact Us link and contact us and tell us what your favorite episode or what episode you don’t like. I don’t care, whatever you wanna do, please let us know.
JEFF: Yeah, no, it’d be interesting to hear what episode you don’t like. It’d be kind of fun to hear that.
[George squawking]
JEFF: Or what kind of pet you have.
RYAN: [laughs]
JEFF: Or if anyone would like a bird.
RYAN: [laughs] Hey, we would love to hear from you also on iTunes, Apple Podcasts. If you listen to us through Apple, you can go there and leave us a five-star review. And you can write a couple of reviews too. We have a couple to feature here. D Wade AZ wrote “great podcast, looking forward to future episodes”. And David Albert G wrote “extremely entertaining and informative. The first episode provided an open and honest peek into the background of the hosts and the purpose of this podcast. A great mashup”. Ha ha Get it? “Of two perspectives of this wonderful show. Well done, gentlemen”. So thank you to anybody –
JEFF: That’s very nice
RYAN: Very nice. And we’ve had several people leave us five-star reviews. We would love for you to do that, too, because it really does help us out in iTunes and the Apple Podcast rankings and all that. So anything else, Jeff, before we sign off for this episode?
JEFF: Let’s see. Well, just this:
[bicycle horn]
JEFF: No, I think that’s good. I – you know, I really enjoyed hearing why you liked the episode. I think that was a real insight into you and why you liked it. Aside from people liking a particular episode, it’s really interesting to hear why because it’s the why that really sort of sets the hook emotionally. And so it was really fun to hear that, what it is about MASH or really any television show. I have certain shows that I feel the same way that you all feel about MASH. And there is an emotional component. So when you can get to that point and you explained it very well, that was really fun to listen to. So I thank you for doing that. And so, you know, we get to other folks down the road, it would also be interesting to hear their emotional connection to whatever that story was and why they think they really connected with it. Was it a person? Was it an event? What emotion really kind of drew them into that show and hooked them.
RYAN: And hey, you know, we want to hear it in your voice too. You can call and leave us a voicemail and tell us your story because we would rather hear you tell the story than us read your story. So if you have a personal story about MASH in a particular episode, call us and leave a voicemail. That number is 513-436-4077. And you can even include your own sound effects.
[bicycle horn]
JEFF: And if you, you know, I have met many, many people over the nine years that I was involved with the show, not only at the studio, 20th Century Fox on stage nine, which was a wonderful place to be. But not only being there, being out in the world, I went on USO tours. I, you know, went to different shows. I’ve spoken around the country about MASH and so forth. So it’d be interesting if anybody has ever met me and would like to say hi again, I’d love to hear what your experience was, where it was, and you know, it would be kind of cool to know that there’s somebody out there still alive that actually met me [laughs]
RYAN: [laughs]
JEFF: And with that, ladies and gentlemen, should we go?
RYAN: I think we should go. Thank you for listening. Thank you for subscribing. Thank you for emailing us. We really do appreciate it. And we will be back with episode 4 on November 1st.
JEFF: A wonderful day, if I may say so.
RYAN: [laughs] So long everyone.
[bicycle horn]
[George squawking]