The Original Plan For M*A*S*H Involved A Lot More Marital Infidelity
The classic sitcom series "M*A*S*H" was incredibly ahead of its time, managing to get quite a bit of mature material past network censors. Sometimes that material had to deal with the anti-war nature of the series and the difficult conditions the characters found themselves in, and sometimes that material was just bawdy. Seriously, there are a lot of sex jokes in "M*A*S*H" and quite a few people are knocking combat boots, but originally there was going to be even more sex, and more adultery. There's already an awful lot of adultery on "M*A*S*H," with several major characters cheating on their spouses, but the original plan would have taken that up several notches.
The adultery in "M*A*S*H" has a complicated legacy — the early seasons are a bit more laid-back with the characters' morals and there's quite a bit of marital infidelity, while later seasons actually try to reconcile with this. In his book "Watching M*A*S*H, Watching America: A Social History of the 1972-1983 Television Series," author James H. Wittebols reveals that the original pilot would have made Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce (Alan Alda) a married man who cheated on his wife, which would have honestly changed the entire series.
Too much adultery for CBS
According to Wittebols, the pilot for "M*A*S*H" would have depicted Hawkeye as a married man, and he would have had a girlfriend at the 4077th — a married nurse named Lieutenant Dish. While Hawkeye is a total cad who hits on every woman that passes him by (and occasionally the men too), he's not married and technically isn't doing anything wrong as long as he's honest with the women. Of course he isn't, and at one point even starts telling various nurses that he's having affairs with that he is married in order to stop them from wanting more of a relationship, but he's not an adulterer. Mostly.
In one especially terrific episode, Hawkeye reunites with his lost love, a woman named Carlyle (Blythe Danner), and the two have an affair despite the fact that Carlye is married. It's something that messes with Hawkeye and causes other characters to call him out, so it's wild to imagine the character doing something like that regularly. For the network, however, it was just a matter of not having too much adultery; semi-villains Frank Burns (Larry Linville) and Margaret Houlihan (Loretta Swit) had an ongoing affair despite Frank being very married. One adulterous couple was plenty for CBS, although a number of other characters would behave badly when it came to their wedding vows.
The series evolved
There is a tremendous amount of infidelity in the first few seasons of "M*A*S*H," with several characters acting as if their wedding rings are inconsequential. The MASH unit's leader, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake (McLean Stevenson) constantly cheats on his wife, Hawkeye's best friend Trapper John (Wayne Rogers) has his share of flings, and of course Frank and Margaret had their affair. As the show progressed and started being more of a dramedy than pure comedy, Blake was replaced by Colonel Potter (Harry Morgan), who was extremely faithful to his beloved wife. In the season 11 episode "Strange Bedfellows," Potter reveals that he cheated on his wife exactly once and regretted it while consoling his son-in-law, who confesses his own infidelity. Instead of simply making extramarital affairs into a joke, the series dealt with why soldiers engaged in them and dealt with the fallout in later seasons.
Likewise, Trapper John was replaced by B.J. Hunnicutt (Mike Farrell), who is the very definition of a "wife guy." B.J. adores his wife and young daughter and talks about them frequently, but even he wasn't perfect when it came to marital fidelity. In one of the show's most controversial episodes, B.J. ends up cheating on his wife, which leads him to question things about his marriage and himself. The episode infuriated fans who felt that B.J. would never stoop to those levels, though it did help shake up the idea that he was a little too perfect (outside of that time he punched Hawkeye).
All's fair in love and war
"M*A*S*H" deals with a lot of morally gray areas, and though Hawkeye is often on the ethical side of things, the show doesn't come down hard on one side or the other on many issues. Instead it lets the audience make those decisions for themselves, because the complicated nature of war means that nothing the characters do is completely black and white. They face death every day and endure horrible conditions while trying to survive and help save lives, which makes it all so very complicated. It's a big part of what makes the show so compelling and the characters so lovable, even when they do things we might not necessarily agree with.
"M*A*S*H" is one of the best television shows of all time in part because the creators were willing to take chances and write storylines that would challenge audiences, and that includes some of its stories about infidelity. I'm just glad that they didn't make Hawkeye a married man, because that would have been a bridge too far.