M*A*S*H (television)/Funny

"Wait wait... we should say something. Something meaningful and sentimental..."

• beat*
  

"Goodbye, Ferret-Face!"

—Hawkeye Pierce, regarding Frank Burns being committed.

• Pretty much any of the 'two-man routine's between BJ Hunnicut and Hawkeye Pierce:

BJ: [to Hawkeye] Your gun, sir.
Potter: Is it loaded?
BJ: I filled it with water myself.
Hawkeye: Look out everyone, I shoot to drown!

• • In the aforementioned episode, Hawkeye has two other bits involving serious wordplay to show how much he detests guns.
• The entirety of "Movie Tonight".
• Nearly every scene with Col. Flagg.
  • Col. Flagg: You think you're smart. But you're not. You're very, very dumb. And you've met your match in me.

Potter: Flagg, let's not cause any more casualties.
Flagg: What's war without casualties?
BJ: Peace?
Flagg: If it wasn't for you, you wouldn't know what peace was!
BJ: (shrugs) True!

• Father Mulcahy's temperance lecture...while drunk.
• Col. Potter's sleep-deprivation-induced rambling anecdote about prickly heat... over the PA system while Margaret, who has that condition and wants to keep quiet about it, is trying to explain the situation delicately. What she didn't know is that's when Klinger finally reassembled and reactivated it after needlessly dismantling for practice. When she finally hears the rest of the camp laughing and realizes why:

Houlihan: Klinger, you idiot!!
Klinger: Major, No! It took me 3 hours to fix this thing- *SMASH*

• • Preceded by an early episode where Hawkeye becomes so sleep-deprived he concocts (and partly carries out a plan) to ship the latrine to the North Koreans, believing that it will end the war.
• Any time Colonel Blake attempted to give a lecture involving cardboard cutouts of male and female labelled A and B.

Trapper: "What happens in the event that figure 'A' is attracted to figure 'B' and wants to get married. But figure 'A' is already married to figure 'C' and figure 'B' is engaged to figure 'D' but figure 'A' can't keep his hands of figure 'B' because she's got such a great figure."

Radar: Sir, do you suppose that sometime you could give us a talk about VD?

• The episode "Tuttle", enough said. Especially Hawkeye delivering a eulogy for Tuttle at the end of the episode.
• "98 degrees plus 98 degrees equals 196 degrees."
• In one episode BJ pulls a prank on Hawkeye and Charles that involves Charles frequently getting pantsed and Hawkeye getting the blame and almost turned into a camp pariah. When Hawkeye and Charles figure out what BJ is up to they fire back in grand style: they strip BJ while he's asleep, stick him and his cot in the nurses' tent and nail his blanket to the cot so that he can't use it to cover up. Then they fake an announcement of incoming wounded to ensure that BJ comes outside, where Hawkeye and Charles are lying in wait with an audience of nurses and enlisted, and a camera to capture it all for posterity.
• After being told by Klinger for the umpteenth time that I-CORPS won't replace her broken footlocker because it wasn't damaged in combat, Margaret calmly borrows Winchester's hunting rifle, walks inside her tent and then shoots said footlocker.

Margaret: There I was, alone in my tent! Suddenly, a sniper leaped out at me, and fired two shots! Bang! Bang! Without hesitation, my valiant foot locker threw itself into the direct line of fire, giving its life that I might live!

• In a fifth season episode, Klinger was pouring what appeared to be gasoline over himself in another attempt to get a Section 8. Colonel Potter calls Klinger into his office to try to talk him out of it, and whispers something to Radar behind Klinger's back. A minute later, Klinger rejects Potter's offer and resumes pouring the "gasoline" over himself. Then, he suddenly realizes something. Klinger spits out the real gasoline, then yells "Who put gasoline in my gasoline?!?" He gets up and runs into a nearby shower tent. A nurse runs out, screaming and covering herself with a towel.
• Col. Henry Blake unknowningly giving a discharge to a sheep.
• 'The General Flipped at Dawn'. Eccentric, racist General played by Harry Morgan, the same actor who later plays Col. Potter.
• "We will now leave one by one in order of departure."
• In the Season 4 episode 'The Gun', Radar is blamed for the loss of a colonel's personal revolver (actually stolen by Frank Burns). Radar eventually gets drunk and confronts the colonel; at the same time Frank tries to return the gun...and shoots himself in the foot.

Radar:You better believe it, Or I'm dead where you stand mister... [points teddy bear at colonel like a gun, at which point we hear Frank shooting himself in the foot] MY BEAR WENT OFF!

• "YOU TELL 'EM, FERRET FACE!"
• Klinger's (fake) letters from his family. Especially the scene in which Henry Blake reads from an extensive group of letters requesting that he be given a discharge because various people are dying or pregnant. In the last, half the family was dying, the other half was pregnant.

Blake: Klinger, aren't you ashamed of yourself?
Klinger: Yes, sir. I don't deserve to be in the army.

• "Hey, Henry, isn't that your desk?" "It just keeps going up, and up..." "To a far, far better place I'm sure."
• Throughout the episode 'Dear Sigmund', pranks have been played on just about everyone by BJ Hunnicutt. At one point, Sidney the psychiatrist exits the tent to find Frank digging an air raid shelter to hide in, just in case. Towards the end of the episode, Sidney comes outside to find BJ whistling as he fills the shelter with water. He asks if Sidney wants to help, and tells him to shout 'air raid' as loud as he can. He does so, and Frank runs out of the tent in his long underwear and dives for the hole. Hilarity Ensues.
• In "None Like It Hot", Hawkeye and BJ have ordered a collapsible bathtub to beat the summer heat, initially planning to keep its existence a secret between themselves. However, word quickly spreads, first to Charles, Fr. Mulcahy, and Margaret, and finally to the entire camp, until Col. Potter imposes a ten-minute limit on use of the bathtub and there are frequently over a dozen people queueing up to use it. Halfway through the episode, a fight breaks out between Sgt. Zale and another enlisted man over their place in the queue, and Charles - previously last in line - proceeds to stroll past the queue as it dissolves into a crowd watching the fight, all the while muttering "Hey, there's a fight over there!" and similar phrases, until even the current occupant of the tub exits the bath tent to watch the fight. A smirking Charles promptly disappears into the tent for his ten minutes in the bath.
  • Klinger's attempt to get a Section 8 in this episode involves wrapping up in fur coats and long underwear and drinking hot chocolate in spite of the heat; Potter decides that if he keeps the charade up for several days, he will give him a discharge. With just hours to go, Klinger snaps, strips off his warm clothes, and charges into the bath tent - causing a screaming Margaret to rush out of the tent, wrapped in a towel.
• The entire episode of "Joker is Wild". After accepting a dare from Hawkeye, who had been unfavorably comparing BJ's pranking ability to his old friend Trapper's earlier, BJ proceeds to play an elaborate prank on him. It at first seems BJ is pranking everyone else in a rampant gag spree, however the others are actually in on it the entire time. Hawkeye was the ONLY target. By the end of the day, Hawkeye is so paranoid he ends up surrounding his cot with barbed wire fencing and keeping a rifle at the ready, refusing to sleep. His expression when the The Reveal happens is priceless. Doubles as a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
• When Margaret needs a pregnancy test, Radar allows his rabbit to be used, provided the doctors not kill it. Margaret thanks him afterward, and Radar says, "That's all right, Major. You'd've done the same for her."
• Hawkeye driving the entire mess tent into revolt after they serve liver or fish for a week straight. See it in all its glory here.
• Frank has developed a hernia, and Margaret talks him into reluctantly asking for Hawkeye and Trapper to operate on it. Just before walking into the Swamp, she comments that despite the differences Frank has with them, the other two "aren't animals." Then they enter and see Hawkeye and Trapper sitting, nonchalantly playing cards, wearing gorilla costumes. When Frank makes the request anyway, Hawkeye replies that he needs to consult with his colleague. The two begin hopping around, making gorilla noises, until Hawkeye turns to Frank, drapes his arm over Trapper's shoulder and says that "We'll do it--me and the missus."
• Anytime Radar feigns innocence, despite being probably the most savvy person in the unit.

Frank: (Walks into office) What are you doing here?
Radar: I was drafted, sir.

• Hawkeye upon learning about the (false) ceasefire from General Cayton.

Hawkeye: General Clayton this is Benjamin Franklin Pierce, look I realize you’re a general and I’m just a captain but I want to have your baby.

• One episode has Hawkeye, Trapper and Frank off to pick up some wounded that are being returned to them. They are warned that they are not to bring weapons, at the risk of losing the wounded in question to prisoner camps. Frank, being Frank, sneaks along a small handgun, giving himself away when he goes for it in response to a misunderstood gesture. The man in charge of returning their wounded is royally pissed off at this breach of contract and demands that Frank produce the weapon. When he does...

[laughing incredulously] What the hell is that!?

• "Hey Doc". Frank decides to get a tank sent into the 4077th to scare away snipers. He then decides to show Hoolihan how well he can drive said tank. He does not do well. At all. The tank goes bonkers and drives through half the camp (literally) with it finally culminating in Potter parking a jeep in front of the tank and ordering Burns to stop. He gets out of the way, but the jeep does not. Horn still blaring, Potter draws his pistol and shoots the flattened jeep to put it out of it's "misery" like you would a horse.
  • Bonus points: Potter is former Army cavalry and earlier in the episode, he refers to tanks as "Today's Cavalry". It's the punchline to one episode long horse joke.
  • Even better: It's probably a reference to one of the famous Bill Mauldin's WW 2 cartoons, where an old cavalry Sergeant shoots a broken down jeep with tears in his eyes.
• In the episode I Hate a Mystery, Henry is turning the Swamp upside down looking for stolen property. Turning up nothing, he comes to the stove and accusingly asks Hawkeye and Trapper what's in the stovepipe, to which Trapper replies, "Soot." Not believing him, Henry disassembles the pipe and looks into it—getting a face full of soot. It's a pretty standard slapstick cliche, but what makes it funny is that Hawkeye completely looses his shit: laughing harder and longer than I've ever seen anyone laugh on TV. Hawkeye finds it so funny that it's impossible not laugh with him.
  • Here it is.