Rushed off to work after that. We were totally dead for the first half of my shift. The weather was really too lovely for grocery shopping! Though it was gale-force windy, it was also sunny and much warmer, in the lower 50's. It did start picking up in the early afternoon, but I was almost done by that point.
After I got home, I changed and put on The Backyardigans. Uniqua, Pablo, and Tyrone are dismayed when Tasha insists on having a "Tea Party." It proves to be anything but boring when Tasha takes them on a trip through the treetops of Borneo, to the palace of grumpy Emperor Austin, and on a fast ride across the Gobi Desert in search of the perfect cup of tea.
Switched to the original film version of MASH while resting. Captain Benjamin "Hawkeye" Pierce (Donald Sutherland) and Captain Augustus "Duke" Forrest (Tom Skerritt) arrive at 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Unit in South Korea during the Korean War in a stolen jeep and proceed to really shake up the hospital. They may be hard drinking rule-breakers who flirt with anyone who looks like a nurse, but they also prove to be excellent surgeons.
The duo convince religious by-the-book officer Frank Burns (Robert Duvall) to move out of their tent, bringing "Trapper" John McEntyre (Elliott Gould) in on their antics. Burns isn't thrilled, and neither is newly arrived nurse Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Sally Kellerman). The trio do everything they can to deflate their pomposity with the help of the head of the camp Colonel Henry Blake (Roger Bowen). They do pretty much the same thing in Japan to a Colonel who protests their doing surgical work on a sick local baby. Hot Lips gets a lot more into the football game they organize with another hospital when they realize that their black surgeon Spearchucker (real-life football player Fred Williamson) used to be a football star. Henry is more than happy to bet on the game.
As different as this is from the subsequent TV show (and is said to be from the book), I ended up enjoying it just as much. There's incidents here that are as funny as anything on the show, including the football game in the finale. It feels like a darker military-themed preview of the snobs vs. slobs comedies of the 80's and early 90's. There's the amazing cast, too. In addition to Kellerman, Gould, Duvall, Skerritt, and Sutherland, we have Jo Ann Pflug (as a cute nurse Hawkeye pursues early on), John Schuck (as the camp dentist), Rene Auberjonis (as Father Mulcahey), Gary Burghoff (who would be the only actor to carry over to the show, remaining Radar O'Reilly), and Bud Cort (as a young private). If you love military comedies or want to see where MASH came from, this is highly recommended.
Spent the rest of the evening working on that spring-themed fairy tale I began last year but couldn't figure out how to continue. I have some ideas now. Instead of being Mother Nature's son, Sir Michael is now the tutor to her actual son Prince Anthony, a mischievous young man who'd rather be building things and eating than dealing with his place at court. The Prince is winter witch Lady Jacqueline's fiancee....or so she says. She's turned the Prince into a rabbit when he refuses to let her end spring, but no one can find Sir Michael...
Watched Match Game Syndicated while I worked, and later as I ate dinner. Both of the show's sets could be as cantankerous as any of the panelists, as in the episode with Phyllis Davis, Charles Siebert, and Richard Deacon where a light bulb broke on the air with an audible pop. Charles claims he'll sell a giant prop light bulb for $2. Gene gathers the others at the end to screw a new one in. The last episodes brought in Jamie Lee Curtis, along with Bart Braverman and Fannie Flagg.
Switched to Hulu for two early episodes of the TV MASH. Hawkeye helps a young GI marry a "LIP (Local Indigenous Personnel" whom he's had a baby with while pursuing a pretty nurse. "Carry On, Hawkeye" has him, Radar, and Hot Lips as the only ones who are able to keep working when everyone else comes down with the flu. They recruit Radar to help in the operating theater while Hot Lips does her best to get Hawkeye to respect her command.
Finished the night at Shout TV for Mystery Science Theater 3000. Prince of Space is two episodes of a Japanese TV show edited together and dubbed (badly) into English. Mike and the robots have a field day making jokes about a mysterious masked superhero who combats a group of aliens bent on taking over the Earth.
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