All The Lonely Feelings And The Burning Memories

I've been watching a few episodes of the first season of M*A*S*H, and I was reminded of a character I'd forgotten about. There was a fourth surgeon who shared the 'Swamp' with Hawkeye, Trapper, and Burns. This guy's name was, apparently, 'Spearchucker' Jones.

"I swear, if you're not talking about my Hail Mary pass...."
Actor and football player Timothy Brown as the good doctor. 

According to Wikipedia the character's full name is Dr. Oliver Harmon 'Spearchucker' Jones. But I am still surprised that a character could be given a somewhat racially offensive nickname on network television, even in the early 1970's. I kinda wondered if the character had been dropped for that reason; but also according to Wikipedia the writers dropped the character because they felt there wasn't room to develop him, with Trapper and Hawkeye being the focus, and also being told that no actual MASH surgeons in Korea were black. 

So where did that nickname come from? Turns out it was in the 1970 MASH movie, which in turn brought it from the original novel. The character of 'Spearchucker' Jones was a surgeon and former football player brought in by the 4077th to play as a ringer in a football game against a rival MASH unit. And yes, the nickname does, at least partially refer to his skill with the passing game. 

"We're not surgeons, we just play them on TV."
Also actor and also football player Fred Williamson, right; Donald Sutherland, left.. 

This would explain why actors and former football stars Fred Williamson and Timothy Brown were tapped to play the character in the movie and TV series, respectively. While such a game never happens in the first season, there is at least one scene in the first episode showing Jones tossing a football with another member of the unit. It seems like a reference to the source material. 

Of course, MASH wasn't the only war movie that Donald Sutherland appeared in during 1970. The other was the combat/caper movie Kelly's Heroes, with Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Don Rickles, and Sutherland playing an anachronistic proto-hippie tank driver named Oddball. 

"To a Pittsburgher like you, a hoagie is some type of...wait, where are you from again?"
Sutherland as Oddball.

Honestly, this bizarre role was much better suited to Sutherland's efforts than his part as Hawkeye Pierce, in my opinion. To me, Alan Alda is Hawkeye and Donald Sutherland is Oddball. Incidentally, that Sherman he drives, as well as the German Tigers that appear are the real deal and a very well-done mock-up, respectively. Since the movie was made in Yugoslavia, the producers had access to genuine Shermans held in reserve by the Yugoslav army, as well as a replica of a Tiger made for a government-sponsored movie about World War II.

Of course, Kelly's Heroes wasn't the only WWII movie made in 1970 that was full of armored action. George C. Scott delivered a masterful performance as Ol' Blood And Guts himself, General George S. Patton in the classic Patton. However, armored accuracy was another story. While Kelly's Heroes was able to present accurate fighting vehicles, Patton, filmed in Spain, went with what was on hand.

"George, it's not fair, using tanks that haven't been designed yet. You've got an unsporting advantage. Not that the fact seems to bother you much."

The armor used to portray American and British tanks in the movie were M24 Chaffee light tanks, while for the German armor, the larger, heavier, and more ironically-named in this instance M47 Patton tanks, both used by the Spanish army, were thinly veiled for the purposes of the movie.

"HA HA HA! VE HAFF GESCHTOLEN EIN PANZERS FROM ZE FUTURE SIEG HEIL!"

Of course, I've run out of war movies from 1970.