Episode 12 - Dear Dad

Season 1, Episode 11: Dear Dad
Original Air Date: 12/17/72
Written by: Larry Gelbart
Directed by: Gene Reynolds

This episode opens with Hawkeye writing a letter to his Dad, as Christmas approaches at the 4077th.

There's no big storyline threading through this episode--rather, its a series of smaller scenes that Hawkeye describes to his Dad.

We see Trapper and Ginger Bayliss as they help dispense medicine (and lollipops) to local kids, a date between Frank and Hot Lips ruined by a series of escalating practical jokes pulled on them by Hawkeye and Trapper, Henry gives the camp a lecture on sex, and a run-in between Klinger and Frank, which leads to Klinger decking him, and then returning with a grenade to blow them both up! Thankfully, Father Mulcahy intervenes and talks Klinger out of it.

Lastly, just as Hawkeye (dressed as Santa) is about to entertain some visiting Korean children, an emergency at the front pops up--a wounded solider requiring emergency surgery!

Hawkeye, still dressed as Santa, hops in a chopper and lands in the middle of a battle, to perform the most amazing house call of all time.

The episode ends with Hawkeye signing off, and reintroducing everyone at the 4077th one more time.

Comments: This is the first episode in the "Dear...." format, where a character will narrate the entire episode as they dictate a letter to someone back home.

Every single character in the series (in addition to Sidney Freedman and even an undercover North Korean spy) would get at least one episode to themselves doing this, except for Hot Lips and Frank. My imagination reels at the thought of an entire M*A*S*H episode narrated by Frank Burns.

Favorite Line: This early on, the show is still using the P.A. Announcer (who we never see) as a way to add random jokes, like when he reads off the list of men who "Have volunteered for the 10-mile physical fitness hike:"
Dead silence.