"Tuttle" | |
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M*A*S*H episode | |
Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 15 |
Directed by | William Wiard |
Written by | Bruce Shelly David Ketchum |
Production code | J315 |
Original air date | January 14, 1973 |
Guest appearance | |
Dennis Fimple Mary-Robin Redd James Sikking Herb Voland | |
"Tuttle" is an episode from the television series M*A*S*H . It was the 15th episode broadcast and aired on January 14, 1973. It was written by Bruce Shelly and David Ketchum and directed by William Wiard. This episode was nominated for a Writers Guild Award. [1]
Guest cast is Dennis Fimple as Sergeant "Sparky" Pryor, Mary-Robin Redd as Sister Theresa, Herb Voland as Brigadier General Crandell Clayton, and James Sikking as a finance officer.
To create a way of diverting camp supplies to the local orphanage, Hawkeye and Trapper invent the fictional Captain Tuttle (based on Hawkeye's imaginary friend from childhood). With Radar's help, the doctors add more layers to their creation (such as a fake personnel file), and the deception slowly grows until nearly everyone at the 4077th believes Tuttle is a real person. The situation ultimately climaxes when they obtain Tuttle's back pay—fourteen months' worth—and donate it and Tuttle's future pay to the orphanage. However, matters threaten to spiral out of control when General Clayton decides to award Tuttle a medal for his actions. Hawkeye ends the problem by faking Tuttle's death, stating that he had heroically jumped into a combat zone without his parachute, and claiming that the orphanage is the sole beneficiary of the fictional doctor's GI insurance. As the episode ends, the Swampmen joke with each other about where they got a pair of dog tags they used to authenticate Tuttle's death—from the equally fictional Major Murdock.
Captain Tuttle is a parody of Lieutenant Kijé [ citation needed ], the subject of a novella by Soviet author Yury Tynyanov. Kijé, who existed only on paper, was supposedly a soldier in the Czar's army. As with Captain Tuttle, the paperwork edifice begins to collapse when Lieutenant Kijé must make a personal appearance. The novella was made into a film, famous for its music by Sergei Prokofiev.
This is the only episode of the series in which the normally unseen character of Sparky actually appears.
In the closing credits, "Captain Tuttle" is credited as playing himself. [2]
M*A*S*H is an American war comedy drama television series that aired on CBS from September 17, 1972, to February 28, 1983. It was developed by Larry Gelbart as the first original spin-off series adapted from the 1970 feature film M*A*S*H, which, in turn, was based on Richard Hooker's 1968 novel MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors. The series, which was produced with 20th Century Fox Television for CBS, follows a team of doctors and support staff stationed at the "4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital" in Uijeongbu, South Korea, during the Korean War (1950–53).
Lieutenant Kijé or Kizhe, originally Kizh (Киж), is a fictional character in an anecdote about the reign of Emperor Paul I of Russia, in which the cover up of a transcription error leads to the creation of a fictional soldier, Kijé, and his rise through the ranks. When Paul asks to meet the now renowned officer, the creators of the hoax are cornered into a final lie that the soldier has died in battle. The story was used as the basis of a novella by Yury Tynyanov published in 1928 and filmed in 1934 with music by Sergei Prokofiev. The plot is a satire on bureaucracy.
The pilot episode of M*A*S*H, the first episode of the first season was broadcast on September 17, 1972, although the initial script was first written in November 1971. The episode was written by Larry Gelbart and directed by Gene Reynolds, who received the Directors Guild of America Award for it. It was also nominated for two Emmys for its direction and writing.
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MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors is a 1968 novel written by Richard Hooker with the assistance of writer W.C. Heinz. It is notable as the foundation of the M*A*S*H franchise, which includes a 1970 feature film and a long-running TV series (1972–1983). The novel is about a fictional U.S. Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in Korea during the Korean War.
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"Divided We Stand" was the 25th episode of the M*A*S*H television series, and the premiere entry for season 2.
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"Requiem for a Lightweight" is the third episode of the television series M*A*S*H. It was first aired on October 1, 1972 and was repeated on December 31, 1972, the first episode of M*A*S*H to do so. In Watching M*A*S*H, Watching America, a sociological examination of M*A*S*H as an illustration of shifting American values in the 1970s and early 1980s, James H. Wittebols cites this episode as an example of the sexual humor which was common in early M*A*S*H episodes, but downplayed later in the program's history.