page_title: List of M*A*S*H characters
section_title: Frank Burns
hierarchical_section_title: List of M*A*S*H characters / Main characters / Frank Burns
caption_attribution_description: Photo of Larry Linville as Major Frank Burns from the television series M*A*S*H.
context_page_description: This is a list of characters from the M*A*S*H franchise, covering the various fictional characters appearing in the novel MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors and its sequels, the 1970 film adaptation of the novel, and the television series M*A*S*H, AfterMASH, W*A*L*T*E*R, and Trapper John, M.D..
  M*A*S*H is a popular media franchise revolving around the staff of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital as they attempt to maintain sanity during the harshness of the Korean War.
context_section_description: Major Franklin Delano Marion "Frank" Burns is the main antagonist in the film (played by Robert Duvall) and the first five seasons of the television series (Larry Linville). Burns first appeared in the original novel, where he had the rank of captain. 
  In the novel, Burns is a well-off doctor who attended medical school, but whose training as a surgeon was limited to an apprenticeship with his father in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Nonetheless, he maintains a dismissive attitude toward his better-trained colleagues, blaming others for his own failures. He unjustly accuses a rookie orderly, Boone (Bud Cort in the film), of killing one of his patients and nearly kills another patient, earning him retaliatory assaults from Duke and Trapper John. Being of the same rank as Hawkeye in the novel, Blake tries to make sure neither is on duty at the same time, but cannot do so when things get busy. His medical incompetence causes Colonel Blake to instead assign Trapper John as Chief Surgeon. In the novel, the extent of the relationship between Burns and Houlihan is unclear and only rumored to be sexual, but in the film, it is overtly sexual and broadcast throughout the camp when Radar puts a microphone in the cabin window. After the "Swampmen" learn that Burns is having an affair with Major Margaret Houlihan, Hawkeye taunts him about it, baiting him to attack just as Blake enters the tent.   The next day, Burns is permanently sent away for psychiatric evaluation in a straitjacket, shot full of tranquilizers.  In the novel, the confrontation is less violent, and Burns is simply transferred to a VA hospital stateside. 
  In the film and in the subsequent TV series, Frank Burns' rank is that of major. The film version includes elements of the novel's Major Jonathan Hobson, a very religious man who prays for all souls to be saved. In the TV series, he is very high-strung, with a penchant for uttering what are often bizarre or redundant cliches and malapropisms; one example is from "The Interview" (season 4, episode 24), in which Burns describes marriage as "the headstone of American society".
  In the TV series, Burns is a firm believer in military discipline and continues to fancy himself a superior surgeon, but his actions invariably reveal his incompetence and require one of the other surgeons to prevent him from making fatal mistakes. Though by military rank Burns is second-in-command of the unit, he is outranked in medical matters by Hawkeye, who reluctantly accepts appointment by Blake as Chief Surgeon. Burns longs for command of the 4077th himself, and resorts to underhanded means in attempting to achieve this end, such as filing misleading complaints about Blake and unsuccessfully preventing Hawkeye and Trapper from testifying in Blake's defense. When Burns is left in command of the unit (per military regulations), he generally micromanages camp operations, just for the sake of being in command, but demonstrates a profound lack of military competence as well. In "The Novocaine Mutiny", Burns is left in temporary command when the 4077th is inundated with a deluge of casualties. Burns and Hawkeye recount opposing versions of the events. Burns claims that he was performing superior work even going so far as to donate blood to a critically wounded soldier in between treating patients and performing the Last Rites benediction in Latin for the deceased after Father Mulcahy passed out from exhaustion. Burns further asserts that the other surgeons could not keep up with him and complained that he was pushing them too hard. In Hawkeye's presumably far more accurate account, Burns was borderline hysterical and performed his duties with signature incompetence, which resulted in the near-deaths of multiple casualties. After being confronted by Hawkeye, Burns was knocked unconscious by the operating room door. In an early episode, however, before his character becomes more of a buffoon, he demonstrates himself to be an efficient though, again, micromanaging commander. In another episode, "A Smattering of Intelligence", Burns is gullible enough to beli
caption: Larry Linville as Major Frank Burns on the CBS-TV M*A*S*H series
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