We were sitting in this quiet, dimly lit podcast studio in Midtown Manhattan, and the host, a young guy who clearly knew his television history, leaned in and asked a question I hadn’t heard in years. He didn’t ask about the heavy, anti-war themes of the show or the grueling night shoots in the Malibu dust. Instead, he asked about the “corpsing”—the moments where we simply could not keep a straight face, no matter how much the scene demanded it.

I laughed, and immediately, the image of Alan Alda’s face flashed into my mind. It was triggered so vividly that I could almost smell the antiseptic on the set. It’s funny how a single prompt can peel back forty years of history. I told the host that while we were incredibly disciplined about the medical accuracy of the show, there was a specific afternoon during a late-season filming session where that discipline completely evaporated.

We were filming a scene in the Post-Op tent. It was supposed to be one of those quiet, transitionary moments. The script called for BJ and Hawkeye to be moving between beds, checking pulses, and sharing some weary dialogue about the heat. We had been filming for nearly twelve hours, and that particular brand of set-fatigue had started to settle into our bones.

In those moments, Alan and I were dangerous. We had developed a shorthand of humor that was almost telepathic. If one of us caught a glint of mischief in the other’s eye, the take was usually doomed. On this specific day, the atmosphere felt particularly brittle. The crew was tired, the director was checking his watch, and we were determined to nail the scene in one shot so we could all head home.

But I had noticed something earlier during the lighting reset. I saw Alan whispering to one of the prop masters, a man who usually took his job with the solemnity of a high priest. They were huddled near the surgical trays, and Alan had this look on his face—that specific, tucked-in grin that usually meant someone was about to be the victim of a very long, very elaborate setup.

As we took our positions, I felt a strange prickle of anticipation. The extras playing the wounded soldiers were lying perfectly still. The lighting was dimmed to simulate a late-evening ward. The cameras began to roll, and the director called for action. Alan and I started our walk down the narrow aisle between the cots, our stethoscopes swinging in rhythm.

The dialogue was going perfectly. We were hitting every beat. Alan reached for a medical chart at the end of the bed, his back to the camera, and I could see his shoulders start to vibrate ever so slightly. He wasn’t supposed to be doing anything but reading the chart.

I moved closer to him to deliver my next line, my eyes fixed on his profile. I saw the muscles in his jaw tighten. He was fighting something back. I glanced down at the medical chart he was holding, expecting to see the usual prop notes about blood pressure or pulse rates.

And that’s when it happened.

Alan didn’t have a medical chart in his hands. He had managed to switch the prop with a series of incredibly detailed, hand-drawn caricatures of the director and the executive producers, all depicted in ridiculous, compromising positions. But that wasn’t the kicker. The real punchline was that he had rigged a small, hidden “whoopee cushion” device inside the folder that was activated by a tiny hidden string.

As he handed me the folder to “consult” on the patient, he gave the string a sharp tug. A loud, resonant, and unmistakably flatulent sound echoed through the deathly quiet Post-Op tent. It was so loud it actually registered on the boom mic.

I froze. My mouth was open to deliver a line about morphine dosages, but nothing came out. I looked at Alan, and he was staring back at me with the most somber, professional expression I have ever seen on a human being. He looked like a man who had just delivered a terminal diagnosis.

Then he leaned in, as if to whisper a medical secret, and pulled the string again.

The first person to break wasn’t even an actor. It was the boom operator. We heard this muffled “Gark!” from above us, and the long microphone arm started to dip into the frame, shaking violently. That was the end of any pretense of professionalism.

Alan finally let out this high-pitched, wheezing laugh that he used to get when he was really far gone. I dropped the folder, and the caricatures spilled out onto the floor. When the director, who was known for being a bit of a stickler for the schedule, walked over to see what the hold-up was, he caught a glimpse of the drawing of himself.

He didn’t yell. He didn’t get angry. He just looked at the drawing, looked at Alan, and then sat down on the edge of an empty cot and laughed until he was crying. The extras, who were supposed to be unconscious or in pain, were now shaking under their blankets, trying to suppress the giggles. One of the guys playing a patient actually fell off his cot because he was laughing so hard he lost his balance.

The crew had to stop everything. We couldn’t film for forty-five minutes. Every time we tried to reset, Alan would just look at me and make a faint “pffft” sound with his mouth, and we’d be gone again. The director eventually had to leave the tent and pace around outside just to compose himself.

The prop master, the one I’d seen Alan whispering to earlier, was standing by the equipment trunks with his arms crossed, looking incredibly proud of himself. He’d helped Alan rig the whole thing. It became one of those legendary stories on the Fox Ranch. For years afterward, whenever someone was getting a little too serious or the tension on set was getting too high, someone would inevitably find a way to replicate that sound.

It was the perfect “MAS*H” moment, really. The humor was a release valve. We were telling stories about a horrific war, surrounded by simulated blood and real emotions, and sometimes you just needed to hear a fake fart to remember that you were still human.

The podcast host was laughing along with me, and it made me realize how lucky we were. We had a cast that genuinely loved each other enough to be that ridiculous. We weren’t just colleagues; we were a family that knew exactly how to make each other lose it.

Looking back, I don’t remember much about the dialogue in that scene. I don’t even remember if we finished that take before sunset. But I remember the way the air felt in that tent when everyone was laughing together. It was the sound of a group of people who had found a way to survive the darkness with a little bit of well-timed nonsense.

Funny how the most unprofessional moments are often the ones that keep a production together.

Do you have a favorite “B.J. and Hawkeye” moment that felt like the actors were genuinely having the time of their lives?