Despite being over 40 years old, MAS*H is still considered to be one of most popular television shows out there. With memorable characters and surprisingly serious moments amidst the comedy. Though the comedic elements weren’t always great by today’s standards, it was a unique show that hasn’t truly been replicated since.
One particular sign of this show’s timelessness is the fact that there are memes based on the show. While most of them are geared toward fans of show, who either grew up with it or saw reruns on MeTV, they will certainly find these memes hilarious.
Checked By Radar
At a glance, what the road-sign in this meme claims sounds ridiculous and even creepy. But it’s made funny by the superimposed presence of Corporal “Radar” O’Reilly from MAS*H peeking out from behind the bushes near the road, making a pun out of the sign as a result. Though in reality, speed checks using radar scans aren’t entirely far-fetched.
According to Mental Floss, police officers will fly over stretches of highway in small aircraft and either “Use VASCAR systems” which are basically radar guns or stopwatches to clock a vehicle’s speed before radioing a ground officer to pull the vehicle over if it goes over the speed limit. Nevertheless, that hasn’t stopped the Internet from turning this concept into a hilarious meme.
Trying To Sleep
Being the company clerk for the fictional 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital stationed in South Korea during the Korean War, Radar had to keep track of a lot of things (which is another reason why the previous meme is funny). So naturally, he got easily worried and because he wasn’t the most self-confident character in the cast of MAS*H that made him susceptible to suggestions from more charismatic characters like Captain “Hawkeye” Pierce.
Hence, this meme is appropriately funny by having Radar personify a person trying to go to bed while Hawkeye is whispering something to him as the personification of the person’s inner fears about how everything can possibly go wrong. It’s not only fitting of their characters but their facial expressions fit the meme’s subtitles quite well.
Closed The Garage
In keeping with the theme of hilariously appropriate facial expressions, we’ve got Major Margaret Houlihan making this face which can only be described as being mildly confused yet clearly preoccupied about something. Hence, we have a tagline that seems like the most specific yet relatable scenario that would lead her to make this kind of expression thus making it funny.
Then like the previous meme, this one also fits Margaret’s character as she was arguably one of the most well-organized officers in MAS*H. This isdespite the fact that she was constantly flirted with by the guys and actively had an affair with a married man.
Let’s See
Aside from his charisma and tendency to make witty remarks, Hawkeye didn’t usually play by the rules at the 4077th MASH camp. In fact, he was even downright lazy at times as his facial expression in this meme indicates.
This notion is further assisted by the meme’s funny tagline which lists various chores that have to be done with an abrupt stop by the ‘Or’ part of the sentence. While it’s not explicitly implied what’s going to happen instead, it probably has to do with drinking since we see Hawkeye holding a full martini glass which makes sense as he had alcoholic tendencies in MAS*H.
Surgery Is Finally Over
Since Hawkeye was the 4077th MASH camp’s chief surgeon, he was almost always involved in most of the surgeries that happened when wounded and/or dying soldiers were flown in. Because surgery is an intensive and delicate process, it’s not only stressful but also exhausting.
So the joke in this MAS*H meme is that after Hawkeye performs surgery, he falls into a deep sleep. Then what makes the meme funnier is that the person featured in this meme is “Dan” Avidan from the two-man music group Ninja Sex Party and the increasingly popular YouTube video gaming channel Game Grumps, who was either sleepy or on the verge of sleep in several videos of Game Grumps.
Reposting
By its definition, a meme is an image that is repeated over and over again regardless of its original context. However, in an age where people’s attention spans are growing increasingly shorter a meme can become ‘old’ by Internet standards pretty quickly.
That concept in turn serves as the basis for the humor in this meme, which uses a notably hilarious still-frame from the third season MAS*Hepisode “Adam’s Ribs”. In it, Hawkeye gets fed up with the food served at the camp and starts chanting “We want something else!” making it the perfect metaphor for this meme’s tagline about what it feels like to see the same thing reposted multiple times.
Beaver Biscuits
Though Hawkeye was known to make sarcastic remarks that ultimately came off as hilariously witty in relation to the situation at hand, Colonel Sherman T. Potter often made exclamations that were funny in of themselves. An example is the one this meme uses, which sounds so strange on its own that it becomes funny in combination with Potter’s angry face.
Of course, this was just one of many hilarious exclamations that Potter used in duration of his time on MAS*H. After he replaced Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake as the 4077th MASH camp’s commanding officer, he quickly became one of the most popular characters on the show and his strangely funny exclamations may have had something to do with it.
I Am Hawkeye
Because Hawkeye is such a distinct name, it’s hard to forget. Yet who people associate it with has changed across several generations, as various characters in movies and TV shows of varying genres have been called Hawkeye. This meme highlights a few examples with Hawkeye from the 1992 remake of The Last of the Mohicans at the top, followed by the superhero Hawkeye from The Avengers, and then ending at Hawkeye from MAS*H.
The main humor of this meme comes from the subtitles, as each guy claims to be the ‘true’ Hawkeye with MASH’s Hawkeye pointing at himself and implying he’s the one the others got their name from. While this is true time-wise as MASH predates The Last of the Mohicans 1992 movie, let alone The Avengers, the book The Last of the Mohicans was based on was written in the 1800s making its protagonist Hawkeye technically older than the others. Still, this meme is funny for its references and truthfulness to an extent.
Ermahgerd
One of the Internet’s most popular memes, “Ermahgerd” is an exaggerated misspelling of the phrase “Oh my god” to coincide with the girl in the photo’s excited expression which is so cringe-worthy that it’s funny to look at. Now in the original meme, the girl was holding up books from the horror series Goosebumps with the tagline “Gersberms / Mah fravrit berks” according to Know Your Meme.
In this meme, though, the book covers have been replaced with MAS*HDVD covers. Yet the effect is the same as this meme’s tagline has the same exaggerated misspelled words as the original meme, and the girl’s face makes it all the more funny.
Scared, Potter?
Much like Hawkeye, the name Potter has changed in terms of association with different fictional characters among various generations of people. While most people today associate it with the titular protagonist in the Harry Potter franchise, Sherman T. Potter from MAS*H predates the former by at least two decades.
So the humor of the above meme comes from mixing the association of these two different characters by having a still-frame of the Dueling Club scene from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets intercut by MASH’s Potter making one of his weirdly funny exclamations. This in turn makes it hilarious for older and younger generations of MASH fans.
