Run Till You Fall

A little while ago, I heard about a TV movie from 1988 called Run Till You Fall, starring Jamie Farr. By itself that's not that remarkable--there were a billion TV movies in the 70s and 80s--until you learn that it was directed by none other than Mike Farrell, making this a mini-M*A*S*H reunion!

RTYF is Farrell's sole non-M*A*S*H directing credit, and I haven't been able to learn anything about it other than a one-sentence plot summary ("A small town private eye tries to win back his estranged wife and their young disabled son"). Unlike a lot of TV movies from the time, it's not available on YouTube, though you can watch a fifteen-minute chunk of it there.

Along with Farr, the cast includes Fred Savage, Shelley Fabares (Mrs. Mike Farrell), CCH Pounder, and Clyde Kusatsu, who appeared in four episodes of M*A*S*H--including the classic "The Joker is Wild", where he played an old Army buddy of...B.J. Hunnicutt!

If anyone can help me track down this movie, it would be greatly appreciated!

Movie Tonight: The Cat From Outer Space

Today is another, overdue installment of a segment we call "Movie Tonight", where we discuss a movie with particularly notable M*A*S*H connections.

The film in question for today is the 1979 Disney movie The Cat From Outer Space, which I remember my Mom taking me to in the theaters:

The reason we're discussing it here is the cast. Aside from family film stalwarts like Ken Berry and Sandy Duncan, TCFOS features no less than both 4077 commanders, Harry (Col. Potter) Morgan and McLean (Henry Blake) Stevenson! Even better, they share some scenes like together, like this one early in the movie:

As the title suggests, the plot concerns an alien that comes to Earth, that just happens to look like a kitty cat. Morgan is a blustery general who thinks this is the beginning of an alien invasion, and Stevenson is a kind but befuddled doctor who works alongside Berry and Duncan. There's a long scene where Morgan gets to yell at everyone, the first of three or four scenes where both M*A*S*H actors share the screen.

There's various hi-jinx involving Berry and the cat, ending with the alien feline (named Jake) applying for U.S. citizenship! That's where another M*A*S*H veteran comes in: Sorrell Booke, who at the time was famous for being Boss Hogg, but nevertheless appeared as General Barker in Season 1 of the show:

While expecting a lot of from a piece of product like The Cat From Outer Space is a little too much, it's a shame that this movie is so lifeless. Just because a movie is for kids doesn't mean it has to be bad, and all the proceedings here are so dull that it's a shame such a talented cast is wasted (including Roddy McDowall, who spends so much of the movie by himself I'm betting he shot almost all of his scenes over a weekend, then headed off for another Apes project). As we know, Harry Morgan could be very funny, even when playing a mean guy, but here he's just a one-note jerk. Stevenson comes off a little better, but he's playing second fiddle to Ken Berry. Sheesh.

Part of the reason I find these movies with M*A*S*H connections even worthy of noting is, I wonder what the cast conversations were like when they weren't filming? By this time, the show was in its fifth season, and more popular than ever. At the same time, it was obvious that Stevenson's decision to leave M*A*S*H dealt his career a catastrophic blow. Did Harry and McLean chat around the craft services table? Did McLean look at Harry and think "Man, what did I do..."?

Speaking of M*A*S*H connections, there's yet another one: TCFOS was directed by Disney go-to guy Norman Tokar, who helmed Season 2's "Five O'Clock Charlie", one of the funniest shows that season! So the guy knew funny, he just didn't really deliver that here. As I mentioned above, I saw this in the theater, and I think even then I caught the M*A*S*H connection, which probably just confused me.

And that's the Movie Tonight!

Movie Tonight: With Six You Get Eggroll

Today is the first installment of a segment I'm calling "Movie Tonight", where we discuss a movie with particularly notable M*A*S*H connections.

The film in question for today is the 1968 Doris Day comedy With Six You Get Eggroll. For those of you really steeped in M*A*S*H arcana (and why else are you here?), you already know why this movie is being mentioned at all in the same breath as the show, so please don't spoil it for everyone else!

I'm not going to bother describing the plot details of the movie (I think the words "Doris Day" and "comedy" pretty much do that job), but rather go right to the end of the film, where Doris' character meets some hippie bikers, played by:

...yep, that's Jamie Farr and William Christopher, a full five years before M*A*S*H started production! Virtually all of their scenes in this movie are together, making them a truly bizarre moment for any M*A*S*H fan, used to to seeing them side-by-side but not looking like this! What are the odds that two character actors would end up on the same show just a few years later?

But upon further examination of the movie, Farr and Christopher are not the only M*A*S*H connection this movie has. Earlier in the film we meet a friend of Doris':

That's General Clayton himself, Herb Voland!

Unfortunately, Voland doesn't appear much in the later part of the movie, so he shares no scenes with Farr or Christopher. But as fate would have it, his name in the credits was placed right next to theirs:

Wow, swap fonts and you could think this is a M*A*S*H credit sequence (not really, but go with me on this one). Truly a bizarre grouping of future 4077 regulars, in a setting about as far away from 1950s Korea as possible.

And that's the Movie Tonight!