(*PERSONNEL FILE*) Maj. Frank Burns

One of the most underrated characters from the current fancy “TV-as-cinema” era is Pete Campbell, of “Mad Men.” On that show everybody is a villain in their own special way, but Pete’s way is the most entertaining: he’s a spoiled, sniveling, hissyfit-throwing worm. A good worm, spilling over with neurotic antipathy, can be an absolute boon to any TV series.

Frank Burns is such a worm.

Of the hospital’s main company, this is the only character we’re supposed to unequivocally hate. He is unpleasant in every situation, even during passionate hookups with Margaret, who we know he’d sell out in a minute to preserve his marriage back home. He’s a bad doctor, a pedant, a tattletale, a sneak, and a jingoistic blowhard. So why can’t I help but love him?

The answer is easy: Larry Linville. The one actor in the cast whose character was nothing like him (according to many accounts from his fellow cast and crew), Linville brought an enormous amount of commitment to this comic role, literally throwing himself into every pratfall. Frank’s face, too, is a masterful creation—a mask of permanent annoyance, usually locked into a frown, with narrowed eyes and the tiniest sneer. Psychosis is nakedly apparent. In MASH the movie, Robert Duvall played Burns as a dullard, which was bad enough. Linville went one better—worse, rather—by playing him as a needy little boy.

When he eventually left the series, after season 5, Linville decided not to renew his contract because he felt he’d reached the limit of exploration with Burns. Frank and Margaret had split when she got engaged; Frank was just hanging around, being thwarted by Hawkeye as before even after significant changes elsewhere in the group. The decision was made to write Burns out of service with a section 8, much like in the film—with the difference that this time it wasn’t a ruse; he really was driven mad. No fate more fitting, as it was plain to viewers he’d been cracked from the beginning.

To conclude, here’s a quote from Larry Linville in a book I have, The Complete Book of M*A*S*H by Suzy Kalter. Linville passed away in 2000 after a battle with lung cancer.

“If you look at Burns not as a cartoon, I think you’ll find some frightening and dark elements there. There’s a mind that’s stripped of its gears… And yet, he is functioning with a knife in his hands on other human beings. You’re not playing with cartoons there. Those are nasty and dangerous things. You can’t have the reality of MASH, which is people and bodies and blood and pain and agony, and have a maniac running around the operating room working on them and then come up and say that’s a cliché.”

An eerie addendum: Just now, as I was typing this up, I looked at Larry’s Wikipedia page to check something and discovered that today, April 10, is the anniversary of his death.

I’m a little belated in getting around to sharing this. The extremely talented @captaincaptaincupcakethings​ made this for me for Christmas and I think her talent needs to be shared. 

Plus, more M*A*S*H fandom content!!!

But… this showed up on my Facebook timeline and I’m dying…

Seems legit… LOL. 

My favorite Christmas gift this year. From my a. A special addition Life magazine all about M*A*S*H.