M*A*S*H

In what is probably its most familiar form, M*A*S*H is an American half-hour television series that ran from 1972 to 1983. Set during the Korean War of the 1950s, it follows the exploits of army personnel stationed at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH).
 
==Canon Overview==
M*A*S*H began life as a novel, MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors (1968), written under the name "Richard Hooker" by Dr. H. Richard Hornberger (a Korean War veteran) and writer W. C. Heinz.Information from the Wikipedia article "MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors". The book focused on the adventures of two MASH doctors, Duke Forrest and Hawkeye Pierce. In 1970, the book was adapted into a movie, MASH (M*A*S*H, in publicity posters), in which thinly disguised commentary on the contemporary war in Vietnam was presented as a dark comedy in which the characters use humor and alcohol to deal with the horrors of war. The movie was directed by Robert Altman.
Although the movie was somewhat controversial, it was popular enough that in 1972, a television version debuted on primetime. (It was with the TV series that the punctuation with asterisks became the accepted spelling.) For the television version, the focus shifted to Hawkeye and another MASH doctor, Trapper John McIntyre, with a supporting cast that was partly original.
M*A*S*H was wildly successful, redefining the American half-hour comedy genre in a number of ways.John Thornton Caldwell, Televisuality: Style, Crisis, and Authority in American Television, (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1995), 61-62.Michelle Hilmes, Only Connect: A Cultural History of Broadcasting in the United States, 2nd Ed., (Canada: Thomson Wadsworth, 2007), 237. The show ran for 11 years; the Korean War only lasted three. 
For a list of related fandoms, see List of Military Fandoms.
=== Cast ===
The show consisted almost entirely of ensemble comedy, although in its 11 years there were several casting changes. This is a list of some of the lead characters (not all), along with a few distinguishing characteristics.
* Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce - doctor, raconteur, incipient alcoholic. Played by Alan Alda.
* Captain "Trapper" John McIntyre - doctor, raconteur, incipient alcoholic. Hawkeye's first partner in crime. Played by Wayne Rogers.
* Major Margaret "Hotlips" Houlihan - straitlaced nurse, budding generalissimo. Foil to hijinks and hijinxers. Played by Loretta Swit.
* Major Frank "Ferret-face" Burns - Weasel-like foil to Hawkeye and his partners in crime; partner in bedroom farce to Hotlips. Played by Larry Linville.
* Captain B.J. Hunnicutt - doctor, family man, and Hawkeye's second partner in crime (after Trapper John heads out). Played by Mike Farrell.
* Major Charles Emerson Winchester III - doctor, blueblood, superior snot of the first water. Played by David Ogden Stiers.
* Lt. Colonel Henry Blake - unit commander, avid fisherman, mild-mannered drunk. Played by McLean Stevenson.
* Colonel Sherman T. Potter - unit commander (after LTC Blake leaves), regular Army doc, all-around father figure and recovering cavalryman. Played by Harry Morgan.
* Corporal Walter "Radar" O'Reilly - company clerk, animal lover, wallflower and telepath. Played by Gary Burghoff.
* Corporal Maxwell Q. Klinger - crossdresser extraordinaire, company clerk and all-around dogsbody. Played by Jamie Farr.
* Chaplain (Captain) Francis Mulcahy - company chaplain, Catholic priest, boxing piano player, mousy but stout-hearted man of God. Played by William Christopher.
== M*A*S*H Fandom ==
The MASH fandom is somewhat small, but because of the show's pervasive nature (it was on the air for so long, and is still played more than once a day on cable networks such as TVLand), references to MASH, its characters and its canon can be found sprinkled liberally throughout the fannish world.
The first MASH slash story was Three Day Pass, by Arduinna, a Hawkeye/Trapper story written for the zine Nothing to Hide in 1998 and posted to the net a year later. It was the only MASH slash until 2001, when the mash-slash mailing list was started up on Yahoogroups. 
===Best Care Anywhere and M*A*S*H The 4077th Home Page===
From the mid 90s through the early 2000s, MASH fandom was largely organized around message boards located on the websites Best Care Anywhere (still active as of Feb 28, 2023) and M*A*S*H The 4077th Home Page. The M*A*S*H The 4077th Home Page, commonly known as "Andy's", referred to its forum as the Bulletin Board and also featured The Officer's Club, a chat room that required users to manually refresh the page in order to see the latest updates. In 2001, a small group of fans from the Bulletin Board and Officer's Club arranged a meet-up in Toledo, Ohio. The Bulletin Board later relocated to its own domain.
====Fan Fiction====
Fan fiction was not typically posted to message boards; rather, it was e-mailed to the site owner who would format and post the stories to his site's fan fiction section. Gen and het were the norm, with Hawkeye/Margaret being the most common pairing and Charles/Margaret also developing a loyal following. Rivalry between supporters of the two pairings was largely good-natured. 
There was a small degree of controversy when the owner of Best Care Anywhere reportedly refused to post a m/m slash story by author Megan Faye. It was also around this time that smaller M*A*S*H fan fiction archives such as Colleen's began to appear. Some of the newer archives allowed slash as well as NC-17 stories.
==Pairings and Relationships==
* Pierce/Hunnicutt
* McIntyre/Pierce
* Pierce/Houlihan
===Mash-Slash Mailing List===
The Mash-slash mailing list has generated some stories every year since 2001, although activity has been erratic in the last few years. With no archive available, though, the stories are restricted to list members. However, in 2004 the list membership organised the Mash Slash AwardsMash Slash Awards (for Excellence in Fanfiction), accessed November 3rd, 2008 which provides an overview of some of the best stories available then. 
List membership tends to be young, mainly high-school and college-aged. Stories on the list tend to favor Hawkeye/BJ, but cover almost every imaginable slash pairing; it's also considered perfectly acceptable to post a story with no character names attached, inviting the readers to imagine their own favorite characters in the roles. Femslash is rare, and usually features Erin Hunnicutt, the daughter of BJ Hunnicutt (never seen in the show, during which she was a toddler), aged up to high-school or college age and generally paired with an OFC. 
Stories on the list -- particularly those featuring Hawkeye in any way -- also tend toward somberness and angst; there's lots of deathfic (often suicide); sometimes the death itself is the focus, but stories also revolve around funerals. There's also a remarkable amount of cutting and similar coping strategies. 
In recent years, the mailing list has developed a sister-LJ community, also called mash-slash.
===M*A*S*H in Yuletide===
Yuletide was a steady source of MASH fanfic until 2015, when it became too large to meet Yuletide's eligibility standards and was excluded from the tag set. Yuletide MASH fic consists mainly of gen and slash; the most common slash pairing seems to be Hawkeye/Trapper John, although there are some stories featuring Hawkeye/B.J. and one featuring Hawkeye/Mulcahy.
===M*A*S*H on Fanfiction.net===
MASH stories started appearing on fanfiction.net in 2000, most of them apparently gen or het. 
===M*A*S*H and other Fandoms===
MASH has also been crossed with other fandoms, from BuffyTwisting the Hellmouth, MASH accessed October 25, 2008. to Quantum LeapQ*U*A*N*T*U*M*L*E*A*P, by Kathryn Lively archived 28 Dec 2001, to HighlanderWalker Among The Dead by Jane Carnall accessed November 3rd, 2008 and The Manchurian CandidateRadar's First Time/Return A Man by Scribe accessed November 3rd, 2008 as well as being used as a setting for other fandom stories in which characters from other fandoms are cross-cast as various MASH characters.(need citations, examples, links) 
The show's combination of humor and pathos makes for a rich playground for many genres of fanfiction, from angst to fluff to schmoop.
==Fan Comments==
===1979===
===2009===
==Mailing lists and LiveJournal communities==
===Yahoo! Groups===
*mash-slash Mash-Slash "Everyone wants to see M*A*S*H slash, but no one writes it, come and write." And "A mailing list dedicated to the slash undercurrents of the show, M*A*S*H. Fic is hoarded, discussion is welcome. Gen or het is okay, but slash is encouraged. a lot. really a lot. ;)" (founded: Jan 19, 2001)
===Live Journal=== 
*mash-slash insanejournal community
*mash-slash livejournal community 
*4077th_watch livejournal community - discussion (3 eps/week), fan fiction
*M*A*S*H 100th livejournal community - drabble-a-week
*mashcaps livejournal community - screen captures
*mash_exchange livejournal community - fic exchange
*M*A*S*H Fic livejournal community
*M*A*S*H stillness livejournal community - icons
*Ultimate M*A*S*H livejournal community - discussion, fanfic (no slash)
==Wikis==
*Monster M*A*S*H - covers the Richard Hooker novels, 1970 film adaptation, CBS TV series, and spin-off series
==Tumblr Blogs==
MASH has a small but vocal fan community on Tumblr, which, like the rest of the current fandom, tends to skew quite young. Fans circulate animated gifsets of episodes and run role-playing askblogs.
*There Were No Survivors
*M*A*S*H Memories
*Swamp Rats
*L*G*B*T
*M*A*S*H Confessions
*Links to M*A*S*H roleplayers on Tumblr
==Fanzines==
Newsletters:
*M*A*S*H Newsletter
Gen:
*Double Natural (1981)
*M*A*S*H N*O*T*E*S
==Fan Websites==
* 4077th M*A*S*H Officer's Club originally at http://www.4077thmashoc.netfirms.com/fanfic.html (archived on the Internet Archive)
* Bec's M*A*S*H fan-fiction at http://www.angelfire.com/tv2/becmash/ 
* Best Care Anywhere at http://www.bestcareanywhere.net/story_search.aspx
* Welcome to the M*A*S*H 4077th (a/k/a Colleen's site) originally at http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Location/5044/MASH_4077.html (archived on Reocities)
* A Priest in Korea, fic by Iolanthe
===Fanlistings===
* Attention All Personnel!, a M*A*S*H TV series fanlisting
==Example Fanworks==
===Fanfics===
* Missing Hawk by Mariole Hawkeye disappears after his aid station is overrun. Alternate ending to "Where There's a Will." Brilliant imitation of the characters' dialogue. Mostly gen with a bit of het at the end.
* Game 22 by JMS. Voted "Outstanding Characterization of Frank Burns" at M*A*S*H* Slash Awards, 2004.
* The Dawn Don't Rescue Me No More by Epigone At home, before the war, his job had been to transform pain. Now he could only give it back. Sidney's POV of Hawkeye's breakdown during the Series Finale. Gen.
* well-behaved women seldom make history by Raven (singlecrow) Five times Margaret Houlihan was really proud of herself. Gen.
* what is living is fugitive by Raven (singlecrow) How Hawkeye went home, and all the people, things and acts of kindness that got him there. Gen.
===Fanart===
* Hawkeye and BJ in Hallowe'en Costumes by kippdipp
* finest kind by luluxa Portrait of Hawkeye and some of his eye-watering gin.
* Trapper and Hawkeye Singing "Gee Ma I Wanna Go Home" by rhyme with rachel
* Sketches of BJ and Father Mulcahey by shinyrock
* Son Boy Allowed (Radar) archived link by Golyadkin
===Meta===
* by vampirespider at The Shipper's Manifesto (2005)
* -- meme by mylittleredgirl, analysis by paulgadzikowski. Posted 2024
==References==
Category: M*A*S*H