"M*A*S*H" Cowboy (1972)

Director:

Don Weis

Writer:

Robert Klane (written by)

TV Series:

"M*A*S*H" (1972)

Original Air Date:

12 November 1972 (Season 1, Episode 8)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | War

Plot:

A wounded cowboy is itching to get back to the states to keep his marriage intact, but his request is denied. Henry becomes the target of a mad bomber. |

Plot Keywords:

Exploding Toilet | Attempted Murder | Hostage | Golf Course | Nurse

Cast

Alan Alda	...	Captain Benjamin Franklin Pierce
Wayne Rogers	...	Captain John McIntyre
McLean Stevenson	...	Lt. Colonel Henry Blake
Loretta Swit	...	Major Margaret Houlihan (credit only)
Larry Linville	...	Major Franklin Marion Burns
Gary Burghoff	...	Corporal Walter Eugene O'Reilly
Billy Green Bush	...	John 'Cowboy' Hodges
William Christopher	...	Father Francis Mulcahy
John Orchard	...	Capt. 'Ugly John' Black
Patrick Adiarte	...	Ho-Jon
Joseph Corey	...	Goldstein
Mike Robelo	...	Cook
Jean Powell	...	Nurse Baker

Runtime:

30 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound Recording)

Company:

20th Century Fox Television

Trivia:

Hometowns: HAWKEYE: Crabapple, Cove Maine; BJ: Mill Valley, California; MARGARET: Fort Ord, California; POTTER: Hannibal, Missouri; RADAR: Ottumwa, Iowa; KLINGER: Toledo. Ohio; CHARLES: Boston, Massachusetts; BURNS: Fort Wayne, Indiana; HENRY: Bloomington, Illinois; TRAPPER: Boston, Massachusetts; MULCAHY: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; NURSE KELLYE: Honolulu, Hawaii; SGT RIZZO: Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Cowboy: Reno, Nevada

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): After a jeep demolishes Henry Blake's tent, Radar says, "A jeep rolled loose and broke through his tent." It should be "a jeep broke loose and rolled through his tent."

Quotes:

Henry Blake: [after the latrine explodes while he's in it] "Boom!"

Ridem Cowboy

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

The Cowboy here is a chopper pilot who wants to go home because he is worried that his beloved is cheating with another man at the home front after he receives a letter from her hinting that is happening. He gets wounded and tries to get the unit to send him home. Enter Henry Blake (Mc Stevenson) who makes one of his rare decisions that Cowboy is not hurt seriously enough to home.

All of a sudden, Blake has a target painted on him. He starts having serious accidents and close encounters with serious injury. The high light of the show is when he goes to the latrine and it blows up around him leaving him with a toilet seat hanging around his neck.

Overall this is a funny episode with Stevenson for once getting more work than Alda and doing very well at being funny. This episode illustrates the reason that the early episodes of the series are sometimes better than the later one, because the support cast around Alda is better while Trapper & Blake are there. Alda's main scene in this one is finding Cowboys booby trap materials in his foot locker & calling Blake on the radio when he is in mortal danger on Cowboys Chopper.