This turned out to be the most important script of our career. It was our first MASH ("Out of Sight/Out of Mind") and it really put us on the map. I'd say honestly that 90% of our writer's draft made it to this shooting script.So here it is, in its original form. You can read it here.
Many thanks to friend of the blog, Matt Barnett for discovering and sharing this pdf file.
Oh, Ken. I love you and I love your blog. But it's heartbreaking to see you write "it IT'S original form" even if it is just a hyperlink and probably a typo.
ReplyDeletePLEASE change it to ITS. If we writers can't promote the proper use of the possessive versus the conjunction, what hope does it have in the world at large?
Dear Rob,
ReplyDeleteMight you have a speck of dust on your screen?
I don't see an apostrophe.
Love, Lauren
Actually Lauren, I changed it.
ReplyDeleteoh this awesome carrier, i really want to be an actor too.
ReplyDeleteHad to delete a comment. Please don't use this blog to have readers link to your script or your video. Write your own blog.
ReplyDeleteGreat story, I enjoyed it. I used to do the same thing in Vietnam -- that is, listen to AFR broadcasts live, in the middle of the night, then make bets the next day when the games were re-broadcast. I'd never take anyone's money tho, not when everyone was packing. Night Train? Can you hum a few bars, please? (I keep coming up with Bob Seger!)
ReplyDeleteKen,
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for posting this, and for your ongoing blog. I've quoted Hawkeye for years and at least twice from this ep alone ("Ah, Claude Rains" and "Not since I was two") but I never realized I was quoting YOU.
Many thanks!
Just two days ago we saw 'Out of Sight/Out of Mind' for the first time in years; we've been re-watching MASH seasons 1-5 on DVD the past few months. It's been fun revisiting the show which was a big part of my kidhood back in the 70s.
ReplyDelete(Hubby and I are wondering if the actor who played the eye doctor is the same guy who played (uncredited) a background corpsman/MP/etc. throughout the first 5 seasons of the show, and maybe longer.)
Great script. Should have made a perfect episode. Did it, Ken?
ReplyDeleteWas it as funny on the screen as on the page? Funnier?
MASH was "must see" TV for me back then, and this story seems familiar but I honestly don't remember it.
Really stupid question...was there a Yankees-Indians game that ended with that score? Was there a ninth inning home run (other than Bobby Thompson's) in a Dodgers-Giants game during the Korean War?
According to Retrosheet, the Yankees beat Cleveland 8-1 on July 22, 1952. But none of the Giants-Dodgers games match up to the call in the script. Retrosheet ruins everything!
ReplyDeleteWe totally made up the baseball scores.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much. This is a real treat.
ReplyDeleteI remember this from when it aired. I've recalled many times the "rain falling on the ground sounds like grilling steak" line. But I seem to recall a different tag. I recall Hawkeye going back in to the nurses' tent pretending to have had a relapse and peeking through the bandages. Did I dream that?
ReplyDeleteKen:
ReplyDeleteWhy in season five do the scripts still refer to Houlihan as HOT LIPS when by that time everyone was calling her either Margaret or Maj. Houlihan.
Dave
It is always fun to read a script of a show or movie you know by heart - and see what changes were made! I like the THEIR tag (Hawkeye feigning a relapse to get in the nurses tent) better than yours, sorry to say....
ReplyDeleteThanks Ken, its SO cool to see the original script for that excellent episode. Great writing from you and your partner.
ReplyDeleteThere's a baseball broadcast piped into OR in one episode, and I could swear the announcer--it was a Brooklyn Dodgers game--was Connie Desmond, who is often forgotten as the third guy working with Red Barber and, as Barber called his 22-year-old colleague, "Young Scully." I suspect it wasn't actually Connie, but, boy, it sounded like him.
ReplyDeleteMacGilroy--you are right...Hawkeye's supposed relapse was the original "epilogue" ending, long edited in reruns.
ReplyDeleteAnd remember Tom Straw was played by Tom Sullivan, actor/musician/writer...and blind since birth. His autobiography became a movie (IF YOU COULD SEE WHAT I HEAR).
ReplyDeletethis will be my night cap this evening. thank you so much for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing this. It's really nifty for a very, very, very amateur actor such as myself to see an 'actual' television script! I loved that episode, too.
ReplyDeleteDid you ever see that movie that was based on Tom Sullivan's life way back in the early 80's? Just curious.
I think about the only thing I can remember that's different from the version that was filmed is the tag is totally different-- the original draft is poignant; the tag in the final version is a better gag to end on.
ReplyDeleteBut I remember around that time they switched from a tag that was a slow fade out to a gag based freeze frame tag-- could that been why it was changed?
Thanks so much for sharing this with us. That is a tight, tight script. It's hard to believe it was your first MASH offering.
ReplyDeleteTD
Mr Levine -
ReplyDeleteI'm a high school student writing a paper on war in television, and was hoping I could use this script as a primary document to cite and such; however, the script is unfortunately no longer accessible from this link. If you could post a working version both I and my English teacher would very much appreciate it.
Thanks,
Ben