The classic sitcom “M*A*S*H” had a pretty sprawling cast as it followed the service members assigned to the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, and the main cast had some big changes over the years. In fact, only Captain “Hawkeye” Pierce (Alan Alda) appeared in every episode. Both Wayne Rogers, who played Hawkeye’s roommate and BFF Trapper John, and McLean Stevenson, who played camp commander Colonel Henry Blake, left the show after the third season largely because they felt they were playing second fiddle to Alda, and that meant replacing their characters in some way. Both Trapper and Colonel Blake were sent home by the army (although Blake’s plane was shot down en route, upset some viewers), and that meant the 4077th needed two new surgeons.
Enter Captain BJ Hunnicutt, a good-natured Californian wifey boy who becomes Hawkeye’s new roommate and soon his soulmate new best friend, played by Mike Farrell. It must be scary to join the cast of a successful sitcom with three seasons under your belt and even more scary to replace a beloved character, and in an episode of the interview web series “It’s classic!,” Farrell explained that while everything worked out for the best, joining “M*A*S*H” was initially a “scary” experience.
Farrell was worried the actors and audience would reject him
When asked how it felt to sign on for “M*A*S*H,” Farrell admitted it was “nerve-wracking” and elaborated:
“It was terrifying. (…) I admired the show so the opportunity to be a part of it was this phenomenal kind of dream because you know I mean the show was already running when I admired it. But yeah what I knew from being in television for a while was that if this show crashed in its fourth season I would wear it around my neck for the rest of my life (…) I also had to be worried just from reading stuff that they had a very nice kind of interpersonal relationship and a kind of family on the set and I was like, “God, you know what if the crew and the company and the cast all think of me as an intruder?”
There would be other departures from “M*A*S*H” soon after, i.a series co-creator Larry Gelbart and Larry Linville, who played cartoon villainous Major Frank Burnsbut Wayne Rogers was early and probably felt pretty massive to mid-1970s audiences, so Farrell had reason to be nervous. Not only that, he didn’t want to be alienated from the cast. Thankfully, he said everyone was very welcoming on set and he really didn’t have anything to worry about when it came to the audience, because BJ quickly became loved.
But he needn’t have worried—BJ became a fan favorite
Although BJ is almost a little for perfect sometimes (other than when he cheated on his wife Erin), Farrell plays him with so much friendly charm that it’s hard not to love him. He and Alda have incredible on-screen chemistry that makes it so BJ and Hawkeye’s friendship is one of the best pairings on screen of all time, and he even gets to act out his fears (in character) in an episode where BJ feels jealous when he hears too many stories about how great Trapper’s pranks were. BJ ended up staying with the series until the very end, often serving as the straight man to everyone else’s shams, and it’s hard to imagine “M*A*S*H” without him.
The early seasons of “M*A*S*H” are good, but the later seasons are good, and while there are a number of reasons for that, at least some of the credit has to go to Farrell, who works as the perfect match for Alda’s Hawkeye, who shares his sense of humor and attitude toward the military without fighting him over dates with nurses or trying to be the showrunner. It’s also impossible to imagine the series without BJ’s hilarious 1970s mustache which is quite out of place in the show’s Korean War setting, because just look at that thing. It’s lovely.
