M*A*S*H- The Ringbanger, Preventative Medicine, and the Infamous Tone Shift

Even if you have never seen the show if you have at least heard about M*A*S*H and its cultural influence you have probably heard a lot made about how the show saw a pretty drastic shift in tone. Many shows have made passing jokes about the first seasons vs the last, and it is something that is largely discussed. In all honesty I think it’s a bit overblown, even the earlier more zany seasons had serious episodes, and even the later seasons had episodes that were almost entirely silly. Still the shift is there, just to what extent is something that can be debated.

The show began in 1972, based on both the movie and novel. It started with Hawkeye and Trapper, and they were the main characters for the first 3 seasons. The end of season 3 was rather heavy, with (spoilers) a surprising killing off of a beloved character. Season 4 started without Trapper, him being replaced by Hunnicutt. Hunnicutt, like Trapper was Hawkeye’s best friend and partner in crime. But unlike Trapper he was a much more grounded character. A devoted family man that seemed a little less willing to lean into some of Hawkeye’s antics and ways of protesting. Though even when they did have disagreements Hunnicutt almost always came around. Almost.

The differences in between Trapper and Hunnicutt aren’t as stark as say Frank Burns and Charles, Hawkeye’s main foils. But they are still pretty representative of the often discussed tone shift.

Sorry, this is a whole lot of introduction to our main point. If you want a rather glaring example of the tone shift of M*A*S*H you can look no further than two episodes with extremely similar plots but drastically different lessons, “The Ringbanger” and “Preventative Medicine.”

“The Ringbanger” is the 16^th episode of the show overall. It stars Leslie Nielsen as Col. Brighton. Brighton and several of his men are brought to the M*A*S*H and after surgery he talks to Hawkeye and Trapper. The two men take an instant dislike to him. He is far too blasé about the causalities of war and self important. The name of the episode comes from the fact that Hawkeye notices he wears a ring that symbolizes his status and when he is talking to people he finds something to “tap” with his ring, thus calling attention to it and how important he is.

“Preventative Medicine” is the 23^rd episode in the 7^th season. Once again we have many men in surgery this time thanks to a Col. Lacy. Potter mentions that Lacy has more causalities than most other Col. in the army. He even mentions that the army considers Lacy aggressive, but Potter considers him reckless. Unlike our Col. Brighton, Lacy is more careful with how presents himself. He gives speeches about understanding how hard it is, acts as though he really cares about every single wounded solider. He even manages to get Radar on his side by telling him the both know who really makes things run.

Different presentations aside both episodes make it perfectly clear that both of these Colonels are indeed especially dangerous. And then both episodes treat the subject matter entirely differently.

In “The Ringbanger,” Hawkeye and Trapper decide to mess with Brighton to make him seem like he’s gone crazy in an effort to have him removed from combat. They do things like move his tent around. They will have someone deliver milk to him that he “forgot” he asked for. They also plant different reasons for him to feel paranoid and uncomfortable around Burns, Blake, and even Houlihan. Not only does this make him appear like he is losing it to everybody else, but has the side effect of making Brighton himself think something is wrong with him (gaslighting).

His frustration and paranoia finally snap, and Hawkeye and Trapper get what they were going for. Brighton is diagnosed with battle fatigue and pulled from duty. Not only does the entire episode treat the two messing with the Colonel as a joke, but the ending is considered a happy ending. Whether right or wrong – and I think you have a strong case to say it is wrong to mess with someone’s mind to that degree – the means are considered justified in seeking the end. He is a dangerous man who gets people killed because he cares about nothing but his own glory and must be stopped.

“Preventative Medicine” on the other hand goes in the opposite direction. Potter writes a letter telling higher ups that Lacy needs to be pulled. Hawkeye tries multiple times to get through to him. And after some mild flirting even Houlihan shows obvious distaste for the Colonel. It also seems like things will start to turn around. Lacy is given orders to not try to take a particular hill again because he has failed so many times before and the causalities are starting to add up.

Lacy’s response? He says he will start sending more patrols in the area hoping to draw fire and thus justify going around the orders. At this point Hawkeye has had enough. He invites Lacy back to the swamp and proceeds to poison him and diagnose him with acute appendicitis. Doing so means Hawkeye has to perform surgery and thus put Lacy out of commission, at least temporarily.

Only unlike in “The Ringbanger,” Hawkeye does not have his partner in crime to help him. In fact he and Hunnicutt have a rather intense (and extremely well acted) fight about it. Hunnicutt declares that it is wrong to cut open a healthy human and remove healthy organs. Hawkeye counters that doctors do it all the time back home, only they are doing it for money. Hunnicutt stands firm that that something are “just wrong” and leaves. He makes no further effort to stop Hawkeye or get him in trouble, but he completely abandons him to his attempts.

And then Hawkeye returns to The Swamp rather defeated. He doesn’t say so but when talking about how the appendix looked, healthy, there is clear guilt. Hunnicutt then delivers the final blow of there are wounded on the way, that Hawkeye did not stop the war machine.

Except neither episode is presented as stopping the war machine, only damaging a very important cog in it. Again Brighton and Lacy are presented as aberrations. War is terrible, the show holds no punches on that point, but Brighton and Lacy are especially bad. They get more people killed, they add more blood, and they both kind of delight in it. Taking out Brighton does not stop the war machine, it never was going to. But Hawkeye and Trapper are given a moment to celebrate that they did stop a piece of it and that they might have saved lives in so doing.

“Preventative Medicine" presents Lacy the same way that Brighton was but then goes in a completely different direction. Hawkeye cut into a healthy man, wrong. And doing so didn’t slow down the war… which was never the stated goal. Also if we want to get into it the consequences for Brighton are likely worse than Lacy.

Lacy goes to a hospital to recover then maybe a desk job or right back in it. Brighton has now been declared mentally unwell. Will he have a job in the future? What if while getting treatment he starts to explain what happened to him and they only assume he’s still delusional? Yes, I am overthinking a little, but if you are going to directly compare what Hawkeye and Trapper did to what Hawkeye did it’s not a cut and dry case that “Preventative Medicine” was worse.

The only reason it’s presented as being so different is season 1 was different than season 7. Trapper and Hawkeye could mess with a Colonel in a way that would get laughs and still make a point about all the people who make up wars and how some of them can truly be terrible people who make an already horrific thing a little worse.

There’s no funny way to present Hawkeye poisoning someone to perform unnecessary surgery while his partner in crime is yelling at him not to.

But the issue is, the message gets murkier than I think it is meant to. Try as I might, and try as the episode might, I don’t walk away from “Preventative Medicine” feeling like Hunnicutt was right. The episode really wants you to, but I don’t think it fully made the case. It spent too much time reminding me that Lacy was something unique. Instead I think to myself that for all I am a fan of the later seasons overall, “The Ringerbanger” got this one right.

Honestly, no matter where you fall on the discussion it is interesting to see the show take such similar plotlines and how truly different they were treated. For all I might say that I think people overstate the tonal shift, these two episodes really undercut my point.

If you are the type of person that a compare and contrast would appeal to you I cannot suggest these two enough. “Preventative Medicine” is the better episode. The story is better delivered, the acting is so well done, and while the B plotline hasn’t aged well and doesn’t exactly fit, “Preventative Medicine” is just a solid episode overall. “The Ringbanger”… it shows its age. The first season of M*A*S*H can be rough and not all the laughs really land. Also, sadly I think they wasted Leslie Nielsen who could have been a much better guest star. But for purposes of seeing how the show changed, they are great examples.

I am personally conflicted when I think about these two, but I also like that. Sometimes fiction needs to be an escape, but sometimes it’s good for it to challenge you and make you think. I think I will always remain a bit on Hawkeye’s side in “Preventative Medicine” and a touch disappointed they were so black and white in their conclusion, especially for an episode that was a lot of grey before that. Still though, it’s worth the watch and the thoughts after.