B. J. Hunnicutt
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| M*A*S*H character | |
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| B.J. Hunnicutt | |
|---|---|
| Rank | Captain |
| Gender | Male |
| Hair color | Brown |
| Eye color | Blue |
| Home city | Mill Valley, California, USA |
| Film portrayer | None |
| Television portrayer | Mike Farrell |
| First appearance | "Welcome to Korea" |
| Last appearance | "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" |
Captain B.J. Hunnicutt[1], played by Mike Farrell, is a fictional character in the TV show M*A*S*H, which ran from 1972-1983 on CBS.
Captain Hunnicutt resided in Mill Valley, California before he was recruited to join the US Army to fight in the War. He was educated at Stanford University and was a member of the Tau Epsilon Phi fraternity. B.J. is married to Peg (portrayed by Catherine Bergstrom in select episodes in photos, home movies, and Dreams) (née Hayden) who writes many letters to him while he is in Korea. The couple has a daughter, Erin. He is also a third-generation doctor in his family. B.J. and Peg's wedding anniversary is May 23 (9.14).
Captain Hunnicutt first appeared on the show in 1975, after Trapper John McIntyre was allowed to return home from the 4077.
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[edit] Name
Unlike his tent-mates, referred to in the series occasionally as B.F. Pierce and C.E. Winchester, B.J.'s full name is just "B.J. Hunnicutt". The subplot of an entire episode for Hawkeye was trying to find out what the B. and the J. stand for. Hawkeye went to such lengths as to contact friends and family of B.J., each replying that they knew his name only as "B.J." In the final scene, Hawkeye asked, "What kind of parents would name their kid B.J.?", to which B.J. replied, "My mother...Bea Hunnicutt, and my father...Jay Hunnicutt."
[edit] Personality
In addition, he tended to be much less aggressive in his crusades than Hawkeye, usually preferring to be a quieter voice of reason to his friend. For instance, when Hawkeye tried to print a letter protesting an unfeeling Marine commander's treatment of a Dutch immigrant soldier in the military press, the letter was cut by the commander, and Hawkeye was almost arrested for arguing with the commander about it. B.J., on the other hand, watched the drama from a distance until he calmly suggested that Hawkeye take his letter to the civilian press train in Seoul which is beyond the commander's control, thus frustrating the officer.
However, Hunnicutt's mild manner did change during his time in Korea. His smiling level-headedness, the 'yin' to the 'yang' of Hawkeye's proud outrage, dissipated as the seasons of the show progressed. By the end of the series, there was a darker, slightly angrier color to B.J.'s personality, brought on by prolonged separation from his family (particularly his little girl, Erin), heavy drinking, and overall suffering of war all around him. In earlier episodes, he also appeared to be more religious, responding to Father Mulcahy's question "Do you need me, B.J.?" with "Not until Sunday". Later, he, as with most of the 4077th, would be too tired, hung over or uninterested to attend services.
Unlike Trapper, who was a class clown, B.J. was used more as a straight man to Hawkeye's antics, though he never missed a beat on the jokes he and Hawkeye would tell, seeming to ad-lib everything comically, though would develop a knack for playing practical jokes, something Trapper used to do with Hawkeye. B.J.'s other hobby was riding motorcycles. (In 8.10 he rides a motorcycle with a sidecar, and in 10.13, he rides his favorite, an "Indian Head" motorcycle.) B.J. received a motorcycle in the series finale, which used to belong to a group of Chinese musicians who followed Winchester back to the 4077. At least four episodes show B.J. playing chess with Hawkeye; B.J. also plays Frankie Laine records and talks in his sleep. Later episodes show him frequently wearing black Converse sneakers around the camp instead of regulation army boots.
[edit] Relationship with wife and family
He often frustrated his bunkmate and best friend, Captain Hawkeye Pierce, with his traditional values and steadfast loyalty to his wife and his marriage. The enforced separation from his family was a habitual source of turmoil. In that regard, the missing of important family moments and the apparent neglect of his own domestic responsibilities were particularly upsetting to him while also taking insults to his familial loyalty very personally. For instance, in "Yessir, That’s Our Baby," when BJ and Hawkeye tried to get the Army bureaucracy to help an abandoned amerasian infant, the attending officer not only refused to help, but mockingly asked if either of the petitioning officers is the father. BJ, quietly furious at such an affront to his faithfulness to his family and beyond caring about the consequences, responded "It's a good thing for you we're doctors, because I'm going to break every bone in your body!"
In the fifth season episode, "Hanky Panky", (2/1/77), B.J. came close to having a one-night stand with nurse, Carrie Donovan, putting him in great shame and anguish. "I'm a happily married man!" he lamented. "Not like Frank Burns is happy because his wife owns real estate." He almost told his wife, but Hawkeye advised against it, and B.J. eventually straightened things out and made peace with Carrie. In 5.22, Hawkeye and B.J. sing a duet in which they claim to operate on patients during the day and nurses through the night. (This is an anachronism and would be more in keeping with Hawkeye and Trapper John than BJ attitude towards women and marriage commitments).
In 8.23, B.J. falls for a war correspondent, Aggie O'Shea (played by Susan Saint James, but again confesses that he loves his wife. She later gives Col. Potter a drawing of B.J. with a life preserver marked "S.S. Mill Valley," because B.J. remarked that his life in Mill Valley was his one way of staying sane in an insane place.
B.J.'s parents-in-law live in Quapaw, Oklahoma; the father-in-law is a farmer who fought the Germans in World War I.
Another time B.J.'s love for his family began to affect him was in the episode, "Period of Adjustment." After his wife, Peg (portrayed by Catherine Bergstrom in select episodes), and daughter, Erin, met Radar (who had been discharged in the previous episode) at the San Francisco airport, Peg wrote to him, saying that Erin greeted Radar with a "Hi, Daddy", once he got off the plane. As the episode went on, B.J.'s anger began to show, and he tried to drink his problem away, thinking that his alcoholism would bring him back home to his family. Hawkeye confronted him in the Swamp during this time, telling him that he also was far away from his family, but B.J. countered by saying that his situation (being away from his child) was worse. After Hawkeye tells him that he can't drink his way home, B.J. loses it. He shatters their still, and sucker-punches Hawkeye in the face as he leaves.
After he and Klinger (who also was angry with Radar, with whom he had been unfavorably compared since he took over as company clerk) went on a drunken rampage, ending in Col. Potter's office, Hawkeye found a broken B.J. on the floor, crying and upset that his daughter called someone else "Daddy", and how even if he went back home tomorrow, he would never get that moment back. Having talked his troubles through, B.J. eventually recovers, and later constructs a new still with Hawkeye (with the aid of Klinger, who had managed to procure some much-needed equipment, thus signaling his acclimation into Radar's abdicated "scrounging" role). All is well in the Swamp again.
Another dark side of his character played out in episode 10.5, "Wheelers and Dealers". Unhappy that his wife Peggy took a job as a hostess in order to pay a second mortgage on their home, he resorts to excessive gambling, betting huge sums of money in poker games and trying to coerce young soldiers to bet playing pinball. He does this in an effort to make more money, saving Peggy from having to work. After another tirade about being away from his family and insulting Margaret's lack of a family, Margaret strongly rebukes him, saying "How dare you think your brand of suffering is worse than anyone else's! Maybe you do have the most to lose but that's only because you've got the most!" That scolding finally brought B.J. back to his senses.
[edit] As a doctor
Hunnicutt was an excellent doctor with strong morals and was always looking to do the right thing. This was displayed in "Preventive Medicine", (2/19/79), where Hawkeye and B.J. spiked the drink of a bloodthirsty commander to make him medically unfit to lead an unnecessary battle. Hawkeye unexpectedly upped the ante by claiming the commander has appendicitis (despite B.J.'s insistence that it was simply gastritis) and must be operated upon, a trick he and Trapper John once used to put Colonel Flagg temporarily out of commission. This time, however, B.J. objected to this needless surgery ("Why don't you just stab him? Cutting into a healthy body is mutilation!") and violation of his oath, so he refused to cooperate after a heated argument with Hawkeye, finally telling him, "You want to play God, you do it alone!". After Hawkeye sanctimoniously proceeded with the surgery, he returned to the Swamp dejected, saying, "It was pink and perfect, and I tossed it in the scrapbucket.". With an announcement of more casualties coming in, B.J. tells Hawkeye "You treated a symptom. The disease goes merrily on."
His fellow surgeon, Major Charles Emerson Winchester, privately conceded B.J. to be a "personable chap", although as a Boston Brahmin, Winchester couldn't help but sneer at the fact that B.J. was born, raised, and studied for his M.D. in California, in contrast to a Harvard graduate such as himself.
[edit] As a soldier
In "Bombshells", B.J. was in a helicopter and forced to cut a rope leading down to a wounded soldier he and the pilot were trying to rescue from enemy soldiers (effectively abandoning him to capture or death). Though he was unable to save the soldier, B.J. received a Bronze Star for bravery for his efforts, but announced to Hawkeye that he could not go on thumbing his nose at authority any more, and that the act he had committed had turned him into a soldier. His conscience did not allow him to keep the medal, though, so he gave it to an American soldier who had almost died in the O.R.
[edit] Later episodes
At the start of the seventh season, (1978-79), Hunnicutt grew a mustache, which he would wear for the remainder of the series (and would be occasionally picked on for wearing, with it being characterized as "cheesy").
In the final episode of the eleventh season, the staff began putting together a time capsule of mementos from their time in Korea. Hunnicutt's contribution was a fly fishing lure that had belonged to Henry Blake, to stand for all the soldiers who never made it home. (Blake had been discharged eight seasons earlier, only to be killed when the plane carrying him home was shot down.)
In Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen, B.J. actually received an official Department of Defense order discharging him from the Army. This both puzzled and concerned Colonel Potter. First, he was losing a surgeon and would need to replace him. Second, he wondered out loud how Hunnicutt would be allowed orders home when several 4077th unit members had been in Korea much longer than him. At first, Potter wanted to call I Corps to confirm the order was legitimate, but B.J. talked him into a deal, fearing I Corps would deny sending the order. B.J. agreed to personally find a replacement surgeon if Potter would allow him to leave. Potter conceded, and B.J. was overjoyed because this would allow him to be home for his daughter Erin's second birthday.
However, B.J.'s elation was short-lived. Just as he was pulling away in a helicopter from the 4077th, Klinger showed Potter another DOD order, this one rescinding B.J.'s discharge. Potter watched B.J. take off in the helicopter to the States while Klinger was speaking. After B.J. left, he turned to Klinger and asked him to repeat what he said, as he "couldn't hear him" over the noise of the helicopter. He then instructed Klinger to put any official correspondence on his desk and he'd look at it "in an hour or so." (leading one to believe that he had in fact heard Klinger, but purposely put off noticing the news out of kindness and sentimentality).
Potter was still in desperate need of a surgeon, with Hawkeye still in the mental hospital and Hunnicutt's replacement also unable to make it the 4077th due to heavy fighting. Potter then calls I Corps and asks them to find anybody who they can get their hands on. After making another call to I Corp to find out when B.J.'s replacement would arrive, Potter and Klinger went out to meet the chopper carrying the supposed replacement surgeon. To their surprise, out stepped B.J. himself. B.J. explained that he had gotten all the way to Guam before he was notified that the 4077th needed a surgeon and that he was available, now that his discharge was null and void.
During a picnic for Father Mulcahy's orphanage kids, Col. Potter, understanding B.J.'s disappointment at missing his daughter's birthday, sets up a party for a young Korean orphan girl whose birthday is the same day as Erin's. When the Colonel, Mulcahy, and Margaret explain that they don't have any actual records of the girl and decided to make her birth date the same as his daughter's, B.J. is overjoyed at the heartfelt gesture.
His final line in the series is not spoken. Hawkeye was upset at B.J. for refusing to say 'goodbye' to him, harkening back to Trapper's departure; B.J. did not like saying goodbye and sensed that both men knew they would not see each other after the war, given the distance between their homes. One of the final scenes was Hawkeye getting into a helicopter to fly out of the camp site on the first leg of his journey home, and seeing B.J. sitting on his motorcycle before the chopper lifts off. B.J. promised Hawkeye that he'll see him back in the states, but just in case, he left him a note. Hawkeye failed to hear him over the noise of the chopper. After B.J. rode away, Hawkeye's chopper took off. As he's leaving, a smiling Hawkeye noticed B.J.'s note--the word GOODBYE spelled out in rocks on the ground.
[edit] Trivia
- Prior to his joining M*A*S*H, Mike Farrell's then-wife, actress Judy Farrell, appeared on the show in the early seasons playing various nurses. When he joined the show, he had B.J.'s daughter named Erin after his own daughter with Judy.
- B.J. was referred to in passing in the TV hospital drama, St. Elsewhere, as a one-time drinking buddy of Dr. Craig while he was in Korea. The series writers were fond of inserting such inside jokes from time to time.
- During production of M*A*S*H, Mike Farrell met doctor Patch Adams, who served as a technical consultant on the show. Farrell later produced the biopic Patch Adams, which starred Robin Williams.
- Actress Catherine Bergstrom played Peg Hunnicutt in Oh, How We Danced and Dreams.
- B.J.'s injuries were:
- in 5.7, a slight flesh wound in the leg caused when Burns accidentally shot his gun at B.J.
- in 8.6, he nearly has a nervous breakdown
- in 9.10, he suffers a hemorrhage in one of his hands when an autoclave exploded.
- an alcoholism problem - B.J. admits (in 4.24) that they drink a lot compared to living back home, but not enough compared to being in Korea.
- Stanford University medical school (formerly Cooper Medical School) did not become part of Stanford until 1959.
[edit] References
- ^ This spelling is correct. Kalter, Suzy (1984). "Year Four 1975-76", The Complete Book of M*A*S*H. Harry N. Abrams, 100. ISBN 0-8109-1319.
[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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