M*A*S*H
Mail Call
TV Flash files “Mail Call” as hour 47 of 251 in the TV Flash guide — M*A*S*H (1972–1983) on CBS, season 2, episode 23, aired 1974-02-23, 30 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S02E23: listed hour 47 of 251 in the M*A*S*H guide, hour 23 of 24 in season 2. It aired 1974-02-23 (30 min). The listed hour before it is “George” (S02E22). Next is “A Smattering of Intelligence” (S02E24).
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Mail call yields goodies like photos and cookies (Trapper) and a huge knitted sweater (Hawkeye) but Henry gets only canceled checks. Frank's stock portfolio doubled since the war began but when he tells the guys they are less than thrilled. Margaret takes it as a near proposal of marriage. Klinger's father is dying for the 18th time; his file is full of familial death and pregnancy.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Mail Call sit in the M*A*S*H guide?
S02E23 is listed hour 47 of 251 — hour 23 of 24 in season 2, season 2 episode 23.
When did M*A*S*H S02E23 air?
Mail Call aired 1974-02-23 and is listed at 30 minutes.
Where should I start if I cannot watch all eleven seasons?
Start with the 1972 pilot to learn the tent's manners, then jump to Sometimes You Hear the Bullet and Abyssinia, Henry. Those three hours teach the joke-to-wound contract better than a clip reel.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Eleven seasons of a network comedy that kept rewriting its own permission slip — Korea as the set, Vietnam as the aftertaste, and a goodbye still quoted whenever someone needs proof a sitcom can stop the country.
February 28, 1983, CBS did not program a sitcom. It programmed weather. Goodbye, Farewell and Amen ate the night, the morning papers, and a ratings myth executives still quote like scripture — a two-and-a-half-hour close on a Korean War tent America had been visiting since September 1972. The helicopters were already folklore. The laugh track, by then, had learned when to shut up. On the palate: canvas, cigarette haze, and a three-act clock that could turn a punchline into a casualty without changing the lighting.
Filed against
- Alan Alda as Capt. Hawkeye Pierce
Alan Alda defined 1970s television as Hawkeye Pierce on M*A*S*H, blending scalpel wit with antiwar ache until a two-and-a-half-hour goodbye stopped a nation. Actor, writer, and director of the series’ later seasons, he proved a sitcom…
- Loretta Swit as Maj. Margaret Houlihan
Loretta Swit’s Maj. Margaret Houlihan is the officer M*A*S*H had to let grow up — the Army nurse who started as a punchline and became a person inside CBS’s Korean War tent. Eleven seasons of gallows humor as appointment TV needed a…
- Jamie Farr as Cpl. Maxwell Klinger
Jamie Farr’s Cpl. Maxwell Klinger is M*A*S*H as a section-eight gag that grew a soul — dresses, Toledo longing, and wartime comedy that refused to leave him a punchline. Harry Morgan restabilized command; Farr restabilized the joke. On TV…
- Harry Morgan as Col. Sherman Potter
Harry Morgan steadied M*A*S*H as Col. Sherman T. Potter after the command shuffle — horse sense, heart, and wartime comedy craft. Dragnet-era roots as Officer Bill Gannon made him institutional memory on legs. On TV Flash he is the…
- Gary Burghoff as Cpl. Radar O'Reilly
Gary Burghoff played Cpl. Radar O'Reilly on M*A*S*H — the company clerk as the tent's nervous system, gallows humor that could hear the helicopters before the laugh track did. TV Flash files him as 4077th craft: the kid who made a war…