Really great post Joe. Thanks. I remember that episode well also. Didn't they have subsequent callbacks to the poker game in subsequent episodes (though not with the same structure)?
Arbus was wonderful in that role - and I suppose his voice has always been one of those in the back of my mind as I became a clinical psychologist (not a psychiatrist, but pretty close to Sidney in those pre- psychopharmacology days for psychiatry). When I started my clinical training the field was so dominated by officious conformity to cliched truisms, and I always appreciated Sydney's common sense, cut through the bull-shit humanity. On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 6:56 PM, Joe Hass <[email protected]> wrote: > If you just want the news, skip to the bottom of this message. > > When I was nine, our family moved to the suburbs of Chicago. All of our > extended family was in the Detroit area. This meant frequent travel back > and forth from Chicago to Detroit. Usually when we traveled, it was on a > Friday night after school has let out. This usually meant getting into > Detroit right around 11:00. At the time, WJBK (which was the CBS affiliate > at the time) would always show Mash at 11:30. This fed into a tradition: we > would look forward to getting to my paternal grandparent's house and > ordering Little Caesar's and watching Mash when we'd get there, exhausted. > This lead me to kinda fall for the show: both my dad and grandpa loved the > show, and the show's writing got to me, especially when it came to Hawkeye > (a guy who was generally smarter than everyone else). > > Over the years, I fell in love with one particular episode. It focused > around a weekly poker game that took place in The Swamp, and the events > that transpired during one of those poker games. Because the series was > having budget issues at this time, Loretta Swit didn't appear, but quite a > few guest regulars did: Captain Pak, Sidney Friedman, and the first > appearance of Colonel Flagg (who was named Halloran in this episode). > Additionally there was one patient (Private Carter) that snaps when Frank > Burns pushes him once too often. > > I remembered the episode vividly when I was younger because of a line that > was omitted in the syndication version: after Carter takes Burns hostage at > gun point, Friedman tries to talk to him. He refers to Burns as "a good > man: a terrific doctor and a great human being." The syndicated cuts the > next two lines: Henry Blake runs up to Hawkeye and says "Maybe we should > get Father Mulcahy" (another no show in the episode). Hawkeye replies, > "Yeah: he can give the truth the last rites." In the syndicated episode, > the laugh-track bled past the cut point. I was thrilled when it came out on > DVD and I could watch the full scene again. > > The episode hit my sweet spot for a couple reasons: the idea of a poker > night; the connection between guys (which I never experienced when I was > growing up); and the back and forth between the players during the game. > For someone with no friends and no male role model, it seemed like an ideal > of what could be. > > The patient was played by John Ritter. When he died, I remember thinking > there were just enough people who had already died that it became a tontine > in my mind: who would be the last actor from that episode to remain alive? > > The actors in that episode: > Alan Alda > Wayne Rogers > McLean Stevenson > Larry Linville > Gary Burghoff > Pat Morita (Sam Pak) > Allan Arbus (Sidney Freedman) > Edward Winter (Captain Halloran) > Jamie Farr > Jerry Fujikawa (Whiplash Wang) > John Ritter > Gwen Farrell (Nurse Wilson) > Tom Dever (Lieutenant Rogers) > > Fujikawa died in 1983. Stevenson in 1996. Linville in 2000. Winter in > 2001. Ritter in 2003. Morita in 2005. And it's remained static until > today. > > Allan Arbus, who played Sidney Freedman, died aged 95. As his character > said twice in the series (in "OR" and as his final line in "Goodbye, > Farewell, And Amen"): "Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice: pull down your > pants and slide on the ice." > > > http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/arts/television/allan-arbus-mash-actor-dies-at-95.html?_r=0 > > -- > -- > TV or Not TV .... 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