Sherman T. Potter
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| M*A*S*H character | |
 Colonel Sherman Potter as played by Harry Morgan |
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| Colonel Potter | |
|---|---|
| Rank | Colonel |
| Gender | Male |
| Hair color | Gray |
| Eye color | Unknown |
| Home city | Hannibal, Missouri, USA |
| Film portrayer | — |
| Television portrayer | Harry Morgan |
| First appearance | "Welcome to Korea" (glimpsed) "Change of Command" (first full appearance) |
| Last appearance | "Saturday's Heroes" (AfterMASH) |
Colonel Sherman T. Potter was a fictional character from the M*A*S*H television show. He was portrayed by Harry Morgan.
At the end of the show's third season, McLean Stevenson had left the series, and his character of Henry Blake died on his way home. The producers wanted a different type of commanding officer for the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH). They decided on a "regular army" commander – a man who had made a career out of the service, and was close to retirement. The producers chose Harry Morgan to fill the role, after the strong performance he gave as a visiting General earlier in the first episode of the third season, "The General Flipped at Dawn."
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[edit] Background
Col. Potter was both an excellent surgeon and leader. He led mainly by example, always doing his best and encouraging others to do the same. He was at times willing to ignore the letter of regulations in order to abide by their spirit. Easygoing by nature, Potter understood the hellish realities of life in a MASH unit, and the need for jokes, pranks and recreation to boost morale. When he found out about Hawkeye and B.J.'s gin distillery, he offered advice on how to improve its yield, explaining he'd had a still while stationed on Guam during World War II. The maverick doctors in turn respected Potter's authority, and were more prone to obey his orders than they ever were with Col. Blake. At the same time, however, Potter did not suffer fools gladly; he was sterner and more decisive than his predecessor Col. Blake, and he readily put his foot down if he felt things were getting too carried away, and castigated staffers who slacked in their duties.
Despite the distance that military duty imposed upon him, Col. Potter was at heart a family man. He kept in regular contact with his wife, children and grandchildren, and told them all about the people he served with at the 4077th. For the most part, Potter and his wife Mildred had to maintain a long-distance relationship, although he was able to meet her for a couple weeks in Tokyo at one point.
Colonel Potter showed that he was a man of integrity, who after two World Wars had grown tired of fighting. More than once, when old Army buddies committed serious errors that resulted in men being hurt or killed, Col. Potter reported them to headquarters - even though it broke his heart to turn on his old friends. He declared that he didn't care if it cost him every friend he had; the price of not reporting an error was too high, if even one soldier died or was hurt needlessly. Potter's integrity and sense of fairness were exemplified when the doctors discovered that a racist CO was deliberately sending African-American soldiers disproportionately into hazardous duty so that they'd be rotated out of his unit sooner, if they weren't killed in action. Despite having grown up in Missouri (then a segregationist State), Col. Potter participated in a sting that got the CO to reveal his true intentions, and forced him to resign.
Although Col. Potter was able to keep his cool nearly all the time, he did occasionally lose his temper. In the episode "Pressure Points", a visiting captain came to the 4077th to discuss how to treat patients who came in with phosphorus burns. During the lecture, Potter became visibly upset, and when the captain was nearly finished, Potter went off on him, asking "If they can invent better ways to kill each other, why can't they invent a way to end this stupid war?!"
Potter's self-confidence was shaken, when he made a surgical mistake that nearly cost a patient his life, and called on psychiatrist Sidney Freedman for a private consultation. Freedman stayed a few days with the unit, and helped Potter talk through his concerns, to regain his confidence.
[edit] History Prior to the 4077th
A Methodist, Sherman Potter was from Hannibal, Missouri, the childhood home of Mark Twain. (Two early episodes mention a home in Nebraska, however, and Potter implies in another episode that he's a Presbyterian.) His mother's name was Erma. Potter learned (among other things) Army foot care from a fellow Missourian – future President Harry S Truman. He also revealed early on that he was one-quarter Cherokee, when Frank Burns complained that Hawkeye "always gets the Cowboys, while I get stuck with the Indians!" (referring to friendly troops versus enemies, brought in for treatment). Potter's ethnicity may have influenced some of his liberal political sympathies.
Sherman Potter enlisted in the Army at fifteen, when he lied about his age to get into the cavalry. (His exact age during the series is debatable. In the episode "Pressure Points", Potter gives his age as 62. With the episode set in 1952, he would have been born in 1890, and been fifteen years old in 1905. In another episode he mentions joining the cavalry during the days of Theodore Roosevelt's "Rough Riders" – which existed during the Spanish-American War of 1898!) Col. Potter gave distinguished service, earning the Good Conduct Medal. Because he was an enlisted man at the time, he was eligible for one. Potter noted that neither MacArthur or Bradley had earned such an award. (This is a continuity error; the Army did not issue a Good Conduct Medal until 1941, by which time Potter had become a commissioned officer.) He married Mildred in 1916; a conversation with a wounded soldier (in the episode "Point of View") reveals their wedding date as September 8.
During World War I, he and members of his Army unit spent the night in a French chateau while under fire. They came across a cache of brandy, and proceeded to drink all but one bottle. They made an agreement (a tontine) that the last survivor of the group would get the bottle, and make a toast to his old friends. (Years later, Potter turned out to be the last survivor of the group, and drank the toast together with his new friends at the 4077th.)
After World War I, Sherman Potter entered medical school, serving his residency in St Louis and beginning his practice in 1932. Potter's grandfather, a veterinarian, had sparked his interest in medicine, and he'd known several general practitioners at home, but he wanted most of all to become a surgeon. Potter remained in the Army, having married Mildred while still serving in the Cavalry, and served in a number of administrative positions before his final tour of duty, in Korea. He and Mildred purchased a home in Missouri (though they often lived on Army bases), and raised a son and daughter. He and Mildred were grandparents; their son had a daughter, Sherry Pershing Potter, while their daughter had a son, Cory Wilson.
[edit] CO of the 4077th
As he later told Klinger, Potter's first few days in camp were "a mite uneasy", and "no one was jumping for joy" over his arrival. Hawkeye and B.J. feared having a "regular army" man in charge, which they felt would be even worse than having Major Burns in charge; with Burns at least they stood a chance of outwitting him. They were also concerned about Potter's not having done any recent surgeries. Their fears were allayed when Potter proved himself capable in both roles.
Once Potter and his staff got to know each other, he became good friends with many of the people in the unit, and spoke of them as "my family". Almost always giving off the aura of everyone's favorite father, he was especially close to Hawkeye, B.J., Radar, Father Mulcahy, Klinger, and Major Houilhan. Potter became a father figure to Radar during his time at the 4077th, much as his predecessor Henry Blake had. In return, when Radar found a wounded stray horse (later named Sophie), he gave her to Potter, so he could care for her. (Another continuity error occurs, because in that particular episode, the horse is referred to as a male.) Potter was delighted to have a horse again, and rode her regularly.
Potter quickly demonstrated that he knew every trick and dodge in the book, and continually refused to discharge Klinger, though he let Klinger get away with crossdressing. When Radar's Uncle Ed died at the beginning of the eighth season, he helped Radar get a hardship discharge so he could return home to Iowa. When Klinger took over as clerk, Potter realized that Klinger needed time to adjust to the job. Remembering his own experience with having to replace Henry Blake, he told Klinger to make the job his own, as Potter had with Blake's former role. Klinger eventually did a passable job, and won a promotion to Sergeant. (Klinger also did nearly-perfect imitations of Colonel Potter's voice and signature, which were key to his snagging needed supplies.)
Potter disliked Frank Burns – but so did everyone. When Frank said he loved serving in Korea, Potter told him that either he (Burns) or Klinger was nuts, and Potter would have to figure out which one it was. When Burns ultimately had a nervous breakdown and was transferred stateside, Potter arranged to have Major Winchester, sent as a temporary replacement, assigned permanently to the unit. Winchester was a much better surgeon than Burns, but prideful and not easy to get along with. Winchester resented the assignment, and having to perform non-surgical jobs, which led to several arguments between the two. (In the end, Winchester told Potter he admired his surgical skills, and that he was inspired by Potter's wisdom and leadership.) Potter also had to occasionally deal with the intelligence officer Colonel Flagg, refusing to be intimidated or pushed around by him.
[edit] Decorations
Several times throughout the series, the awards that Colonel Potter had earned during his service in the army could be seen on his uniform. He had earned the following:
Purple Heart With Oak Leaf Cluster (earned when his still on Guam exploded)
Army Good Conduct Medal
National Defense Service Medal
Several other awards were not shown, but Potter would have been eligible to receive:
European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal
American Defense Service Medal
[edit] After the Korean War
With the armistice declared in Korea, the 4077th was disbanded, everyone in the unit parted ways, and they went on with their respective lives. Col. Potter retired from the military, and returned to Missouri. In the final episode, Col. Potter announced his plans to go home to Mildred, and become a semi-retired country doctor. Leaving the 4077th on his horse Sophie (whom he dropped off at the local Orphanage to be used productively), he was given perhaps the first and only military salute by Hawkeye Pierce (along with BJ) as a sign of just how much respect the two doctors had for him.
However, Harry Morgan, William Christopher, and Jamie Farr — the three who voted to continue the series at the end of the 10th season — were invited to star in a spinoff series at CBS, called AfterMASH. Potter became the administrator of a veteran's hospital in Missouri. Father Mulcahy, after losing his hearing from an explosion in the M*A*S*H series finale, was now the hospital's Catholic chaplain. Max and Soon-Lee Klinger, after experiencing discrimination in Toledo, moved to the area so that Max could take a job as Potter's assistant.
Gary Burghoff reprised his role as Radar on AfterMASH, for a two-part episode about his wedding. Edward Winter also returned as Colonel Flagg, in a guest role. But without the majority of the cast or the writers from the original series, the show was never as popular as M*A*S*H, and CBS cancelled the series after only two seasons.
| Preceded by Frank Burns (interim) |
Commanding Officer Of MASH 4077 19 September 1952 – 29 July 1953 (TV Seasons 1975 – 1983) |
Succeeded by None |
[edit] Quotes
- "I've got a soft spot for Klinger. He looks a little like my son, and he dresses a lot like my wife."
- "Horse hockey!"
- "That is Grade A, one hundred percent bull cookies!"
- "Monkey muffins!"
[edit] Trivia
- In the Series, Potter wears a Model 1911 US Cavalry hat called "Boss of the Plains", whereas American soldiers in the Korean War (when not wearing helmets) wore either Matthew Ridgeway hats, or fatigue caps.
- Potter was mentioned on a Frasier episode, when Daphne said Colonel Potter reminded her of Martin.
- Harry Morgan also appeared as another character in MASH, Morgan played crazed Major General Bartford Hamilton Steele before he portrayed Colonel Potter.
[edit] External links
- Finest-Kind.net - M*A*S*H website with character profile
- Best Care Anywhere - M*A*S*H website with character profile
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