| No. |
# |
Episode |
Airdate |
Overview |
| 1 |
J301 |
“M*A*S*H the Pilot” |
September 17 |
June 1950: Pierce and McIntyre’s houseboy, Ho-Jon, has been accepted to Pierce’s old college, but needs one thousand dollars of tuition. To raise the money, Pierce and McIntyre hold a party while Blake is away in Seoul, much to the chagrin of Burns and Houlihan. At the party, a weekend pass to Tokyo in the company of a nurse, Lieutenant Dish, is raffled off. Because Dish is engaged, Hawkeye rigs the raffle so that Father Mulcahy ends up the winner. Margaret reports the doctors’ actions to General Hammond, but he decides not to press charges after seeing them in action in the operating room. |
| 2 |
J303 |
“To Market, to Market” |
September 24 |
The black market has knocked off the 4077th’s supplies again. Pierce and McIntyre meet with a black marketeer and agree to trade Blake’s 100-year-old vintage desk for a new batch of hydrocortisone1, which they desperately need. |
| 3 |
J308 |
“Requiem for a Lightweight” |
October 1 |
Nurse Margie Cutler arrives at the 4077th. Realizing Cutler is an incredible distraction for Hawkeye and Trapper, Major Houlihan has her transferred to another unit. Henry agrees to try to get Cutler back if one of them fights in a boxing tournament with a staff member at Cutler’s new unit and they agree. To secure victory, Hawkeye has Trapper’s boxing gloves coated in ether. the Title is a spoof of 1956 play Requiem for a Heavyweight |
| 4 |
J307 |
“Chief Surgeon Who?” |
October 8 |
Henry has appointed Hawkeye chief surgeon, much to Frank’s disdain. Frank and Margaret call over General Barker, who enters the insane world of the 4077th and tries to bring about some order. This episode marks the first appearance by Corporal Klinger. |
| 5 |
J305 |
“The Moose” |
October 15 |
Sergeant Baker stops by the 4077th with his “moose”; a teenaged Korean girl named Young Hi whom he “bought.” Obsessed with freeing the girl, Hawkeye wins her from Baker in a card game, but now Young Hi thinks she belongs to Hawkeye. Hawkeye and the other doctors try to change her into something other than a moose. |
| 6 |
J310 |
“Yankee Doodle Doctor” |
October 22 |
Lieutenant Bricker is making a documentary about MASH units and General Clayton recommends the 4077th. However, when Hawkeye and Trapper discover the “documentary” is little more than army propaganda, they destroy it and make their own version. |
| 7 |
J311 |
“Bananas, Crackers and Nuts(a.k.a. After Me, The Deluge)” |
November 5 |
Henry won’t let Hawkeye and Trapper leave for R&R, so Hawkeye begins faking insanity while he’s away and Frank is in command. Captain Sherman, a brilliant psychiatrist, comes over to see if Hawkeye’s madness is for real and decides Hawkeye can use a few weeks of observation. To avoid this fate, Hawkeye, Trapper and Radar pull off a scheme that makes it appear Sherman sexually assaulted Hot Lips. |
| 8 |
J309 |
“Cowboy” |
November 12 |
A disgruntled chopper pilot nicknamed “The Cowboy” attempts to kill an emotionally exhausted Henry, through various creative ways, when he is denied a trip back to the United States, where he believes his wife may be cheating on him. |
| 9 |
J302 |
“Henry Please Come Home” |
November 19 |
Henry has been transferred to Tokyo for administrative and training duty and now things at the 4077th are run Frank’s way. Hawkeye and Trapper forge Frank’s signature on two passes to Tokyo and try to convince Henry to return to his old post. |
| 10 |
J306 |
“I Hate a Mystery” |
November 26 |
A stealing spree has swept through the 4077th and Hawkeye becomes the number one suspect when the stolen goods are found in his footlocker. How can Hawkeye convince Henry and the others that he’s innocent? |
| 11 |
J304 |
“Germ Warfare” |
December 10 |
Hawkeye and Trapper discover that a North Korean in the 4077th’s care has a rare blood type. Since Frank has the same blood type, they furtively steal some of Frank’s blood in the night. However when the patient develops hepatitis, they suspect Frank is the carrier. This is the last episode Spearchucker Jones appeared in. |
| 12 |
J313 |
“Dear Dad” |
December 17 |
December 1950: Hawkeye writes to his father about Christmas at the 4077th, including Henry’s mandatory talk about sex and an instance in which Hawkeye must perform field surgery dressed as Santa Claus. |
| 13 |
J312 |
“Edwina” |
December 24 |
Edwina “Eddie” Ferguson, a fairly attractive but hopelessly clumsy nurse, cannot find any romance at the 4077th and the other nurses conspire to hold off their romantic relationships with the doctors and corpsman until someone agrees to date her. Eventually, the doctors draw straws and Hawkeye becomes her date for an evening. |
| 14 |
J314 |
“Love Story” |
January 7 |
Radar has received a “Dear John” recording from his fiancée and he has consequently become depressed. This is until a new nurse arrives at the camp and it’s love at first sight for him. However, Majors Burns and Houlihan want to break them up because their relationship is against regulations, forgetting that Radar’s isn’t the only romance against regulations... |
| 15 |
J315 |
“Tuttle” |
January 14 |
Hawkeye and Trapper invent a fictional Captain Tuttle2, but one thing leads to another and soon everyone at the camp believes Captain Tuttle is real. This creates problems when General Clayton decides to honor Tuttle by awarding him a commendation and placing his picture in the newspaper. |
| 16 |
J316 |
“The Ringbanger” |
January 21 |
Hawkeye and Trapper try to have Buzz Brighton3, a colonel with a high casualty record, sent back to America by convincing him that he is insane. {Brighton nearly breaks Frank Burns wrist} |
| 17 |
J318 |
“Sometimes You Hear the Bullet” |
January 28 |
Frank, who put his back out, has applied for the Purple Heart and Hawkeye discovers one of his patients is an underage soldier4. Hawkeye agrees to keep the young boys secret until another soldier, who happens to be a childhood friend of Hawkeyes, dies on the operating table. The underage soldier goes home with Frank Burns’ Purple Heart. |
| 18 |
J317 |
“Dear Dad...Again” |
February 4 |
Hawkeye writes to his father again about several crazy events that take place at the 4077th, including the discover of an Abagnalesque fraud masquerading as a doctor, Frank becoming drunk and Margarets attempt to sing “My Blue Heaven” at the camp “No-Talent Show.” {There was a case during the Korean War of a fraud pretending to be a doctor-only it took place on a Canadian Navy Ship-see The Great Imposter}. |
| 19 |
J319 |
“The Longjohn Flap” |
February 18 |
In the middle of a cold snap, Hawkeye receives a pair of longjohns from home. Hawkeye gives them to an ill Trapper out of sympathy and Trapper loses them to Radar in a poker game. The longjohns pass through the hands of almost everyone in the camp before coming back to Hawkeye. |
| 20 |
J322 |
“The Army-Navy Game” |
February 25 |
December 1951: The 4077th is under enemy fire and an unexploded bomb lands in the compound. Henry calls the Army and Navy for aid, but both are too busy listening to the football game to provide sufficient help. The Navy eventually identifies the bomb as belonging to the CIA, and gives them advice on how to disarm it. The bomb explodes after the doctors cut the wrong wire, but it turns out to be a leaflet bomb. The opening theme in this episode and the two following it is played differently than it is normally. |
| 21 |
J321 |
“Sticky Wicket” |
March 4 |
Hawkeye has always teased Frank about how incompetent he is as a doctor, but now one of Hawkeye’s patients is failing. Hawkeye becomes obsessed with saving his patient to protect his ego. In the end, Hawkeye is forced to admit to himself (temporarily) that he can’t win them all. But he does find the problem, which was so well hidden that Frank says "anyone could have missed that." |
| 22 |
J320 |
“Major Fred C. Dobbs” |
March 11 |
Hawkeye and Trappers latest scheme succeeds where no other one has; Frank has finally demanded that he be transferred to another unit and Hot Lips has followed suit. However, when Hawkeye and Trapper discover they will be assigned double duty until replacements are found, they decide to trick Frank into staying by convincing him there’s a fortune in gold to be found near the camp. |
| 23 |
J323 |
“Ceasefire” |
March 18 |
News of a ceasefire has reached the 4077th. Everyone celebrates and says their good-byes, except Trapper who remains skeptical as to whether the ceasefire is for real or not. In the end the ceasefire does, of course, turn out to be a rumor, but not before Hawkeye tells several potential dates that he is married and forgives over a thousand dollars worth of gambling debts. |
| 24 |
J324 |
“Showtime” |
March 25 |
As a USO stand-up comic performs at the 4077th, Henry’s wife back home gives birth to a son. The camp’s dentist receives his discharge papers and takes great pains to make sure he doesn’t get injured before he sets off for home. |