Plot: After a long diet of liver and fish, Hawkeye arranges to have spare ribs flown in from the States.

Very, very funny stuff. I love the scene where Trapper tries to get his old (and apparently really ditsy) girlfriend to mail them the ribs: 'We use 'em for dissection, they won't let us work on real people...You understand?!' And a little later on: 'The WAR, Margie, the WAR! (pause) In KOREA!!'

Why exactly is Klinger there when the ribs are being served? Why would Pierce allow him to have some of his ribs, when Klinger blow up at him when he couldn't get his Section 8, and wouldn't help getting the ribs.

Also, a bit unusual. The camp didn't get into the tradition of, when a surgeon gets something good, he HAS to share it with the rest of the camp.

I dunno...i hear you on the sharing stuff...but somehow i don't think Hawkeye was in any kind of mood to just give away his precious ribs at that point.

Hawk obviously ordered ribs for the entire camp. He origionaly ordered 40 pounds of ribs. He lost 12 lbs. in "customs" leaving 28 lbs. Stince there were 3 people in on this deal (Hawkeye, Blake, and Radar, not counting the guy in "Customs") that works out to 9 lbs. per person. I don't think anyone could eat tha many ribs.

BTW, I once estimated the population of the 4077 from the episode where a goat eats the pay for the entire camp. (I took Rizzo's pay and divided it by the amount Haweye signed out.) THe total I got was 140. 28 lbs. divided by 140 works out to 3.2 oz. per person. (The original order was 40lbs./140 or 4.571 oz. per person.)

:In "Dear Ma", they mention that there are 200 people, which sounds about right for a normal M*A*S*H unit. But in a real unit, there would also be more doctors, and in eps like "C*A*V*E" there are obviosly less than 200. It depends on the ep, there are the amount of people that the writers found there were needed.

I watched this one this morning, and I noticed that when Hawkeye was talking to Chicago, he identified himself as Lamont Cranston--AKA The Shadow. He's lucky the guy at the Dearborn St. Station wasn't a fan.

Actually, Hawkeye identified himself as Cranston Lamont. He reversed the Shadow's true identity.

Oh, yeah. Thanks.

why did Hawkeye leave the ribs on the table when the casualties came in? He could have stashed them somewhere real quick them ate them later.

For all we know, the surgeons and Radar and Klinger ate them in the O.R. There were episodes that indicated that they ate "on the job". Certainly, they were shown drinking orange juice while operating.

Uhhhh...Benn? Drinking O.J. out of little paper cups is one thing...dripping barbeque sauce into open wounds is quite another.

Unless you meant they took quick 'snack breaks' between operations...but even that strikes me as kinda involved, especially given the cleanup time.

Depends on how much sauce is on it.

There was an ep where Mulcahy was taking orders for what kind of sandwhiches to bring the doctors in O.R. My guess is that a nurse or corpsman would feed the doctors. The surgeons would turn their heads aside to take bites - away from the wounded. I mean come on, even eating a BLT you run the risk of getting crumbs in the patients.

But even if they ate during breaks, so? They wear fresh gloves and gowns each patient. They're usually covered in blood from each operation. (That aspect, though, was seldom shown. But Hawkeye did once reveal he stopped wearing underwear because he was getting blood on him.)

There's a brief scene in the Mess Tent that's been deleted. It consists of Klinger getting his tray. He then sits by Radar. The two then discuss Klinger's new outfit. Radar states the Klinger reminds him of his dead aunt. In the previous ep, Margaret reminded Radar of his 37 year old sister.

Also cut for syndication is the more of the people in the Mess Tent chanting "We want something else!"

Okay, was it ever explained how this surgeon from the little town of Crabapple Cove, Maine knew about a rib joint in Chicago? Seems a bit odd that Hawkeye would know about it. Now if it had been Henry, a native of Illinois, who had the craving for spare ribs from Adam's Ribs in Chicago, that'd be different.

If I'm not mistaken, the scene where Hawkeye wakes up in the middle of the night, craving the ribs has also been deleted. The scene has Pierce walking to the Company Clerk's office, past Klinger (who's on guard duty wearing a house robe and curlers). Hawkeye then knocks on the door to the offices. Since when did anyone knock on that door? Up 'til now, anyone and everyone who wanted to get in could whenever they felt like it.

When Hawkeye tells Radar that the ribs from Adam's Ribs are "better than sex", the Corporal responds that he doesn't know how good sex is. Well, if the events of "Springtime" are any indication, he does. Of course, the events of "Springtime" could happen after this ep...

Is Dan, the chopper pilot seen in this ep, the same one mentioned in "Smilin' Jack"?

Another cut scene: The Major in charge of supply in Ouijanbou mentions talking to a cocky little nurse from the 4077^th. He means Radar. (Actually, I think the entire sequence with Major Pfiefer has been edited out for syndication.)

A M*A*S*H 47 alert: To get the ribs, Hawkeye and Trapper need a form called "S47/19-J".

Incidentally, in Riverdale, Illinois, two blocks from Dearborn Street, there really is an Adam's Ribs. I think it's the one this ep is talking about.

Abyssinia!

Very, very funny stuff. I love the scene where Trapper tries to get his old (and apparently really ditsy) girlfriend to mail them the ribs: 'We use 'em for dissection, they won't let us work on real people...You understand?!' And a little later on: 'The WAR, Margie, the WAR! (pause) In KOREA!! - Kerriem

BTW, Kerrie, her name was Mildred. The third one in the series.

Abyssinia!

I think that Hawkeye became aquainted with the ribs joint when he was in medical school.

Given the way that the camp personnel feel themselves entitled to anything that another person has, you'd think that the entire camp would have been in the mess tent, begging for some of the ribs.

I think that Hawkeye became aquainted with the ribs joint when he was in medical school. - D.K. Henderson

Could be. But there isn't a line of dialogue in the ep to support that.

As for why Klinger was invited to share in the ribs, I think it was kind of an apology from Hawkeye for what happened to Max's stole in the Mess Tent.

Abyssinia!

Thanks, Benn. I knew it wasn't Margie...Still ranks as one of the single funniest scenes in all eleven seasons, IMHO, at least partly because you never see Mildred.

On the topic of Hawkeye and Adam's Ribs, I agree with DK. In the back of my head is a very strong, but entirely vague, memory of the medical-school explanation - I thought it was in the ep, but could be in one of the series 'companions' I read long ago.

>Actually, Hawkeye identified himself as Cranston Lamont. He >reversed the Shadow's true identity.

Lamont Cranston is actually one of the Shadow's "fake" identities. The Shadow's true identity is Kent Allard.

D'oh! Good catch, Todd. Thanks!

Abyssinia!

Actually Cranston WAS presented for many years as the Shadow's one true identity, but as a gimmick Shadow creator Max Grant came up with a story in which a true TRUE secret identity was revealed.

Hawkeye was complaining (to put it mildly) about the lack of variety in the menu, I assume. My father, a Korean era vet, would say that the Army always got the best food; it was the cooks who made it barely edible.

Wasn't there an episode where this was confirmed? ISTR one where a General sent them some excellent food, and the cooks converted it to chipped beef, or something like that?

Sounds familiar. The closest I can think of that scenario at the moment is from the season nine episode "A War For All Seasons". In that one, Father Mulcahy tends to growing (babying is more like it) a field of corn, looking forward to the day when he and the camp can eat it with (IIRC) "the butter rolling down his cheek". The Padre is incensed (to put it mildly) when, on the day of the big cookout, he finds out that his corn on the cob has been turned into creamed corn. Igor says something fairly ignorant to the Padre - "You expected to eat it off the cob or something?"

That's the one. Thanks, Adam.