I was sitting in the studio for an interview a few years ago, just having a standard conversation about the old days.
The podcast host was going through the usual list of questions.
You know the ones.
What was it like to wear those heavy boots?
How hot was the Malibu ranch during the summer?
But then he leaned into the microphone and asked something completely unexpected.
He wanted to know who was the absolute most dangerous person to share a scene with if you were trying to keep a straight face.
I didn’t even have to think about it.
I just laughed and said one name.
McLean Stevenson.
McLean played Colonel Henry Blake, of course, and he was an absolute genius at comedy.
But he had one glaring weakness as an actor.
He absolutely despised memorizing his lines.
He just wouldn’t do it.
Instead, he developed an entire system of cheating.
He would hide cheat sheets everywhere on the set.
He taped them inside his hat.
He taped them behind coffee mugs.
He would even tape his dialogue to the backs of other actors if the camera angle allowed for it.
But there was one specific day at the outdoor compound that perfectly captured the glorious chaos of working with McLean.
We were filming a scene right outside Henry’s office.
It was supposed to be a busy, fast-paced walk-and-talk.
Gary Burghoff, playing Radar, had to rush up to Henry with a stack of military reports.
McLean had cleverly taped his entire block of dialogue straight onto the top page of Gary’s clipboard.
The cameras rolled.
Gary rushed in.
McLean looked down at the clipboard and started delivering his dialogue perfectly.
He sounded commanding, authoritative, and completely in control.
The scene was going flawlessly.
The pacing was spot on.
I was standing just off-camera, waiting for my cue to walk into the frame.
Everything was flowing beautifully.
And that’s when it happened.
Gary finished his side of the exchange.
According to the script, Radar was supposed to take the paperwork back and run off.
Gary did exactly what he was hired to do.
He tucked the clipboard under his arm and started power-walking away.
The only problem was that McLean wasn’t done talking yet.
He still had an entire paragraph of military jargon left to deliver.
And his cheat sheet was currently walking away from him at a brisk pace.
I watched from the sidelines and saw the panic register in McLean’s eyes.
His face just completely dropped.
He was mid-sentence, pointing a finger in the air.
But the words just evaporated from his brain.
He stared at Gary’s retreating back, his mouth opening and closing silently.
For a split second, he tried to play it off.
He started babbling complete nonsense, trying to sound vaguely military.
He mumbled about jeeps and requisition forms, but nothing made sense.
Gary realized what was happening, but he was a total professional.
He knew he couldn’t break character while the camera was still rolling.
Gary kept walking, keeping his back to McLean, his shoulders shaking slightly.
McLean realized his only hope was to physically retrieve the script.
He dropped his authoritative posture and started jogging after Gary.
He was doing this awkward, shuffling run, trying to casually catch up to his own dialogue.
He reached out to grab the clipboard.
Gary instinctively pulled it away, thinking Henry was done with it.
It turned into a bizarre game of tug-of-war right in the middle of the shot.
Our director, Gene Reynolds, was sitting behind the monitor.
Gene was usually very strict about staying quiet during a take.
But this was too much.
Gene let out this loud, wheezing laugh.
That was the breaking point for the rest of us.
I was leaning against a wooden post and lost my footing from laughing so hard.
The camera operator tried his best to keep the shot steady.
On the raw footage from that day, the frame starts bouncing.
The operator was chuckling so hard his shoulders were heaving against the rig.
We had to cut the scene.
The second they yelled cut, the entire outdoor set erupted.
The sound technicians pulled their headphones off, wiping tears from their eyes.
The lighting guys up on the scaffolding were howling.
McLean finally managed to pry the clipboard away from Gary.
He just stood there in the dirt, clutching his cheat sheet to his chest, looking completely defeated but smiling.
Gary turned around, grinning from ear to ear, and apologized.
He said he was just following the blocking they had rehearsed.
McLean shook his head and said he was never trusting a clerk with his lines again.
It took us another twenty minutes to reset and calm down enough to shoot the scene properly.
Every time Gary would hand McLean the clipboard on the next few takes, a wave of giggles would ripple through the crew.
McLean had to grip the edge of the board with a white-knuckle hold just to make sure Gary didn’t walk off with it again.
That incident became a legendary piece of lore around the production lot.
Whenever a guest actor would come in and ask about memorizing the heavy medical or military dialogue, someone from the crew would always give them a warning.
They would say, whatever you do, don’t tape your lines to Radar.
Because Radar will take them with him to the motor pool, and you’ll be left stranded on camera.
It was moments exactly like that one that made the long, exhausting days in the California heat manageable.
We were filming a show about heavy, often tragic subject matter.
We were wearing thick army fatigues in the middle of the scorching summer.
But the constant underlying current of humor kept us grounded.
McLean was the heart of so much of that joy.
He didn’t mind being the butt of the joke if it meant the crew got a good laugh.
He understood that comedy is often just a matter of letting things go spectacularly wrong and leaning into the chaos.
I look back on those dusty afternoons with such overwhelming fondness.
The mistakes were often far better than what was written on the page.
I still wonder what McLean was actually trying to say in that scene before his words walked away.
Do you think you could have kept a straight face working with someone as wonderfully unpredictable as him?
