The General Flipped at Dawn
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Aired September 10, 1974, "The General Flipped at Dawn" is the first episode in season 3 of M*A*S*H (TV series).
An inspection by the strict Major General Bartford Hamilton Steele puts the 4077th on edge. The final straw comes when he orders the unit to move the camp closer to the front, to be more economic and to show that a MASH unit should be mobile. On an inspection tour of the new site, Steele takes along Blake and Burns. After Steele forces Blake to salute him and all three are shot at by snipers, Steele gives Blake & Burns a choice — fight or have lunch! (Blake and Burns choose lunch) When Hawkeye sends a chopper off with a patient instead of letting the general use it to scout the new site, Steele calls for a court martial for Pierce and Blake. When Steele goes into a song and dance routine (because the helicopter pilot is Africian-American) the Army hurriedly closes the court-martial and Steele gets sent back to the United States, where he is placed in charge of Northeast Asia.
[edit] Trivia
- General Steele is portrayed in the episode by character actor Harry Morgan, who impressed the producers with his performance in the episode that they asked him back for the next season as Col. Sherman T. Potter, the replacement for McLean Stevenson's Lt. Col. Henry Blake once it became apparent that Stevenson intended to leave the series. This episode, therefore, marks -- albeit unintentionally -- the only time in the series that the two colonels are on screen together.
| M*A*S*H | |
|---|---|
| Film: | MASH |
| TV series: | M*A*S*H | Trapper John, M.D. | AfterMASH | W*A*L*T*E*R |
| Characters: |
Hawkeye Pierce | Trapper John McIntyre | Duke Forrest | B.J. Hunnicutt | Henry Blake | Sherman T. Potter | Frank Burns | Margaret Houlihan | Charles Winchester | Radar O'Reilly | Father Mulcahy | Maxwell Klinger | Igor Straminsky | Luther Rizzo | Sidney Freedman | Col. Flagg | Spearchucker Jones | Ugly John | Walter Koskiusko Waldowski | Ho-Jon | Lieutenant Dish | Donald Penobscot |
| Episodes: | Season 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| Books: | M*A*S*H: A Novel About Three Army Doctors | M*A*S*H Goes to Maine |
| Related material: | Guest stars | Differences between book, film and TV versions of M*A*S*H | Suicide Is Painless |
