- For the film version of Major Frank Burns, see here.
| “ | The way I see it, unless we each conform, unless we obey orders, unless we follow our leaders blindly, there is no possible way we can remain free. | „ |
| ~ Frank Burns being his usual self during "The Novocaine Mutiny". |
| “ | Well, my morale's fine. I love it here. | „ |
| ~ Frank proving that he's more crazier than Klinger during "Dear Peggy". |
Major Franklin "Frank" Burns was a major antagonist in the first five seasons of the war-comedy drama TV series, M*A*S*H. He is a surgeon and medical officer in the Korean War, serving in the United States Army as second-in-command of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital.
He was portrayed by the late Larry Linville.
Biography[]
From the very first episode, Burns was a chronic annoyance of both the acerbic Hawkeye Pierce and the much put-upon CO, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake. There was almost no action anyone could take, silly or serious, that did not end up in one of his reports. He was, in fact, a pain on many levels, the saddest of which was his less-than-stellar surgical skills and almost non-existent devotion to his young wounded charges. Burns was a firm believer in military discipline and continues to fancy himself a superior surgeon, but his actions invariably reveal his incompetence and require one of the other surgeons to prevent him from making fatal mistakes.
Though by military rank Burns is second-in-command of the unit, he is outranked in medical matters by Hawkeye, who reluctantly accepts appointment by Colonel Blake as Chief Surgeon. Burns longs for command of the 4077th himself and resorted to underhanded means in attempting to achieve this end, such as filing misleading complaints about Blake and unsuccessfully preventing Hawkeye and Trapper from testifying in Blake's defense, with Hawkeye and Trapper blackmailing him into dropping the charges. When Burns is left in command of the unit (per military regulations), he generally micromanages camp operations, just for the sake of being in command but demonstrates a profound lack of military competence as well. In an early episode, however, before his character becomes more of a buffoon, he demonstrated himself to be an efficient, though again micromanaging, commander. Burns was also M*A*S*H 4077's Physical Fitness instructor, Food Procurement Officer, Food Inspector (where he came down with a case of food poisoning), and Sanitary Disposal Officer; positions normally filled by a much junior officer. Every Friday he gave boring and nonsensical lectures to the enlisted personnel about why the United States was in the Korean war. Burns is also revealed to have have been in practice for 12 years before going to Korea in 1950. Based on his age and how long he had been in private practice before he was drafted, Burns appears to be an immigrant to the United States from some unnamed country, stating his family had come to America in 1927. (an ironic twist given his bigoted stance on foreign cultures).
A borderline-incompetent surgeon (he twice failed the medical exams and only passed by buying the answers the third time - even so it took him seven years to complete medical school), his reputation for incompetence has spread even to the South Korean Army. He also failed to become a male nurse when he couldn't fold bed sheets with hospital corners, and in his hometown the local funeral director sends him Thank You cards every Christmas. In one episode, one of Burns' patients had to have emergency surgery because Burns was too lazy to properly sterilize the patient during an operation. Potter referred to Burns as a "head twerp"; Hawkeye tells how they became enemies when he remarked Burns lost more patients than food poisoning; Trapper John sneers Burns couldn't cut salami without bungling it; B. J. remarks that Burns became a surgeon after washing out of embalming school. Burns likewise grew to hate and despise Pierce after the latter stuck a live turtle in Burns' shorts. The MASH surgeons likewise got a big laugh when they saw a film of his wedding - even then Burns couldn't hold a knife while cutting his wedding cake. Hawkeye remarks, "Watch the cake die of malpractice!"
Burns was on the receiving end of some borderline-cruel pranks and remarks, but even if these were somehow disproportionate, he was not a man to draw out people's better natures. He was short with the enlisted personnel and treated them shabbily, while his barking at the nurses sometimes made the sexist banter of Pierce and Trapper John McIntyre seem tame by comparison. His treatment of the nurses was enough to even make one of them; Ginger Bayliss, cry after surgery was completed. His open contempt for Colonel Blake regularly topped both the war itself and Pierce's escapades in making the CO's day difficult. Blake once said that Burns went over his head so often, his scalp had blisters. His rotten bedside manner also once got him taken as a hostage in the shower by a battle-fatigued soldier he had mocked and derided for not wanting to go back to combat. Once, when Corporal Max Klinger belted Burns after a confrontation, everyone in the Post-Op Ward—nurses, corpsmen, and patients—erupted in cheers.
While not as hateful as some, Frank often also showed an astonishing amount of bigotry towards almost anyone who wasn't a match for his definition of a 'true American.' While his attitudes were likely historically correct for many people in the real world during this era, in the world of the 4077th, enlightened by the savagery of war, he was more than just a throwback. The views he held on Koreans and other Asians were almost neolithic, and all the various ethnicities within the camp staff felt the sting of his views, sometimes even Father Mulcahy (being of Irish descent). Even other cultures like those of Greek and Spanish countries were seen as "pagans" in Burns' eyes due to his xenophobic beliefs. Even animals like those kept by company clerk Walter "Radar O'Reilly weren't immune to his hate, as he disliked any animals that weren't used for medical experiments, mentioning he once owned a canary that never sang and bit him (likely due to his treatment of this pet bird). He was also quite derisive towards people who were of Native American descent, though Colonel Sherman T. Potter - himself 1/4th Cherokee - put a stop to this early on after replacing Henry Blake.
One of his biggest hypocrisies concerned his preaching about the sins of others, particularly the womanizing of his fellow doctors, while carrying on a relationship with Head Nurse Margaret Houlihan, at that time quite preachy herself—this despite Burns' having a wife, Louise Burns, and children stateside. While the very married Blake and McIntyre could be called on the same carpet, they at no time lied to the nurses whose company they kept, feeding them false promises of possible marriage, and still loved their wives, keeping their activities a secret for fear of hurting them, other consequences aside (in fact, Henry's wife also cheated on him while he was away, and Trapper's marriage dissolved post-war for unrelated reasons). Burns not only strung Margaret along with the possibility of him leaving his wife, but his was a loveless marriage where he lived in fear of his wife (or rather, the fear of losing her money, especially since his house and stocks were in her name), and likely had the disdain of both her and her family. Given how in Louise's only appearance (their wedding film), she remained stern and stoic, this is probably true to some degree. Besides Houlihan, Burns has had affairs with his housekeeper, his receptionist, and two nurses at the 4077th.
Frank's gung-ho attitude surprisingly did not gain him any friends, even among those military officials disturbed by the lack of proper discipline and the strange behavior of the 4077th staff. Even those repulsed by Pierce's anti-military attitudes and sometimes-childish escapades deeply respected his surgical prowess and deep commitment to the wounded soldiers. Burns and his constant snitching became so much background noise to them, and his endless reports were nearly disregarded, especially after his failed attempt to unseat Colonel Blake by going so far as to accuse him of lending aid and comfort to the enemy (when in truth, Blake had only given medical supplies to a nurse working with pregnant North Korean women to ensure their babies didn't die after being born). Frank's habit of snitching may have been the result of a strict upbringing; no one in his family was allowed to talk at dinner and speaking while eating earned him and his brother a punch in the throat, resulting in his desire to be a snitch just so he could have someone to talk to. One General (Brad Barker to be specific), irritated by Burns' antics suggested Blake give Burns a high colonic followed by sending him on a 10-mile hike, which Hawkeye suggested be increased to include a 50-pound pack. Blake indicated wanting to be rid of Burns on many occasions but cited paperwork and the challenge of finding another semi-competent surgeon to replace him. Even Colonel Potter decided against getting rid of Burns, saying there would be an inquiry if he took Hawkeye's suggestion to have Frank shot by a firing squad. Furthermore, everyone feared Burns' replacement by someone even more extreme. Additionally, Burns was such an incompetent physician that, despite being higher in rank, Blake made Pierce Chief Surgeon over him, a slight Burns never forgave. On more than one occasion, Burns' blindly cheerleading the Army's often circuitous way of doing things made various crises all the more aggravating. When Hawkeye, Trapper and later BJ Hunnicut (Trapper's replacement) also tried being friends with him briefly, Frank's attitude and irritating personality quickly got on their nerves and they inevitably went back to despising him.
This is not to say that Burns never showed any humanity. There are scant few instances of this, including one in which he did not attack Pierce for a surgical error after Pierce had done so to him many times. Frank only rarely ventured into monster status, and never into complete-monster territory. Another time Burns showed a rare display of humanity was when he learned of Henry Blake's death, as we can see him freeze up and start to cry with the rest of the cast.
Additionally, Frank was exceedingly greedy, gullible, cowardly and childish; he falsified his income taxes regularly and was involved in a prescription kickback racket, and had all his stocks, house and money in his wife's name to avoid getting caught. He had likely married his wife for wealth-related reasons and only talked her down from divorcing him due to the fact he wanted to remain in his father-in-law's will. Frank was also dumb enough to believe that the Corps of Engineers would make MASH units amphibious. When passed over for command of the 4077 in favor of Colonel Sherman T. Potter, he also had an extremely childish tantrum and ran away until he got tired, cold and hungry and rarely gave out blood willingly due to his squeamishness, often running away like a little kid in tantrum-laden panic. He always fell victim to pranks and was paranoid enough to believe his toothpaste was full of explosives and that a family of Koreans who were burying kimchi (pickled cabbage) to ferment it were burying a bomb, a fact that exacerbated by his belief that there were Korean spies everywhere looking to eliminate him. Examples of his cowardice under fire were common, and he would quickly turn into a dithering, spineless wreck when there was a huge inflow of wounded soldiers or when the 4077 was attacked by artillery or snipers, even fainting once at the idea of having to disarm an unexploded bomb. He was also extremely contradictory at times when he got caught in the moment, saying bizarre things like "Marriage is the chief cause of divorce", "Anyone who needs psychiatry is sick in the head", and "Marriage is the headstone of American society". BJ also mentioned that Frank once rigged the toilet seats to rise to attention for inspection whenever Frank entered the latrine for inspection, causing BJ to lose faith in his commanding abilities very quickly. Despite also twice applying for the Purple Heart (for being "wounded in combat" after hurting his back while in a secret intimate meeting with Margaret, and getting eggshell fragments in his eye) (, Frank's medals were always stolen by Hawkeye, who gave one to an underage soldier in the Marines, while the other went to a Korean mother who was wounded when about to give birth.
After Henry's departure from the 4077th, Burns' tenure as Commanding Officer did not last very long at all. Within a week, he was replaced by Regular Army (non-draftee, non-ROTC, long-serving) Colonel Sherman T. Potter. If nothing else about Burns ever really changed, one thing did: Potter, no-nonsense and respected by his fellow officers, got no reports written about him. Still, Potter was unable to lance that boil entirely. Stinging from being replaced, Burns made disrespectful and pejorative comments about Potter's age to his face, and even more contemptuous ones when he wasn't around. In return, Potter told Burns exactly how little regard he held for him. In one instance, Burns' ineptitude as temporary CO led to him flailing about and getting himself knocked out cold. He then accused Pierce of outright mutiny, a court-martial offense punishable by firing squad In the season four episode "The Novocaine Mutiny". Here, Burns was left in temporary command when the 4077th is inundated with a deluge of casualties. Burns and Hawkeye recount different versions of the events during a Court Marshall in which he accused Hawkeye of treason. Burns claimed that he was performing superior work, even going so far as to donate blood to a critically wounded soldier in between treating patients and completing the Last Rites benediction in Latin for the deceased after Father Mulcahy passed out from exhaustion. Burns further asserted that the other surgeons could not keep up with him and complained that he was pushing them too hard. In Hawkeye's presumably far more accurate account, Frank was borderline hysterical and performed his triage duties with singular incompetence, which resulted in the near-deaths of multiple casualties. After being confronted by Hawkeye, Burns was knocked unconscious by the operating room door. Once more, the preponderance of evidence had the army siding with the irreverent Pierce rather than the gung-ho Burns., commenting that if he weren't already a doctor, he would be a pastry chef in the Army instead.
When Louise found out about his affair with Margaret, Frank lied to her to keep her from divorcing him so he could keep his money, even calling Margaret "an old war horse" and an "army mule with bosoms", as a means of placating her, leading to a falling out with Margaret, seemingly repaired within the next episode but never forgotten, as he would later discover Margaret returned from Tokyo after a medical conference engaged to be married to Lieutenant Colonel Donald Penobscot. After Margaret becomes engaged, he nearly blows himself up with a grenade in an attempt to prove himself courageous by capturing war prisoners. This leads to him "capturing" a Korean family and their ox, and almost fires his carbine in Potter's office at the suggestion that he is heading for a Section Eight discharge. Distraught and exhausted, Burns, speaking on the telephone to his mother, tells her that Major Houlihan had just pretended to like him, "like Dad used to." At this point, what was left of Frank's world crumbled apart so hard and so fast even Pierce and his new cohort Captain B.J. Hunnicutt showed sympathy and backed off. Sharp exchanges between the former lovers left Frank in an ever-greater spiral. Frank ended up providing the push that got Margaret's foot-dragging fiance to the altar, but right after the newlyweds left, he fell completely apart. Going AWOL from a leave in Seoul that had expired, Frank engaged in a campaign of drinking, unbecoming and inhospitable behavior, and chasing everything female and blonde that resembled his lost love. After harassing a general and his wife in a public bath in a drunken stupor, Frank was at last arrested and subjected to psychiatric observation. Burns was additionally permanently transferred away from the 4077th, to which Hunnicutt exclaimed that it reduced the enemy to just North Korea.
In one last phone call with the 4077th, Frank revealed that the army had cleared him of the charges, promoted him to Lieutenant Colonel, and sent him to a VA hospital back in his native Indiana. Pierce reacted to this news by throwing the phone equipment out the door of Radar's office. Of course, Burns was known for gross exaggeration when it came to his personal life, so all of this could have been his deluded imagination, though Hawkeye's reaction to the news apparently indicates that Frank's promotion was indeed real.
Frank is last referred to in the second-to-last episode of the 11th and final season, "As Time Goes By", where the question is asked by Major Winchester if anything that was put in the 4077th's time capsule belonged to Burns. Hawkeye says he'd thought about putting in a scalpel but decided not to, reasoning that a later civilization might consider it a weapon.
Larry Linville played Frank Burns one last time, at least in name, in a parody on The Howard Stern Show. Burns was the central character in MASH's arguably worst episode, Major Fred C Dobbs, in which, in order to avoid the chaos caused by Burns' and Houlihan's demanded transfer, Pierce and McIntyre tricked the pair into thinking there was gold in the campgrounds. Cited by critics and the show's own staff as their weakest entry, the need for a good villain was demonstrated by the out-of-character actions of Henry, Hawkeye, and Trapper in keeping Burns around.
Like many show alumni, Burns was referred to but never appeared, in the very brief sequel series, AfterM*A*S*H.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- When asked who he based the Burns character on, the character's late actor Larry Linville (1939 - 2000) would often say he based Burns on every idiot he had ever known. Linville was admired for creating a classic combination of neuroses in one meltdown of a man. "A dangerous little man with a scalpel" was not a jibe from Burns' nemesis Hawkeye Pierce, but the opinion of Linville himself.
- Larry Linville described Frank Burns as a dangerous character because he couldn't grasp the outcome and ramifications of all the things he was trying to accomplish, likewise noting how many people there are in real life who are Frank's equals in this regard in offices, the military, the school systems, and society in general.
- As with Colonel Flagg and his actor, Edward Winter, Linville was well-liked by his castmates and the writers. He was especially close to Gary Burghoff (Radar O'Reilly). Unlike Burns, Linville was a highly intelligent man, who knew the intricacies of Egyptian pyramids and once built his own working airplane.
- Linville decided not to renew his contract at the end of the fifth season. He left the series when he could see no way to have Burns break out of being a caricature in any way that made sense. Also with Burns and Houlihan no longer being a couple, Burns bore the brunt of the insults. Linville became so tired of being the butt of all the jokes, he stopped attending dailies.
- When asked why the writers didn't make Burns more sensitive and friendlier, Linville often responded by asking what they wanted, if they wanted to turn Burns into Hawkeye Pierce.
- Larry Linville was originally supposed to have had a big farewell for the character of Frank Burns when he left the series, but Linville ultimately declined.