It is funny how a single sound can bring it all back.

I was sitting in this small, soundproof studio doing a podcast a few years ago.

The host was great, one of those guys who really knew the show inside and out.

He asked me something I didn’t expect.

He didn’t ask about the ratings or the “goodbye” episode or the politics of the time.

He just leaned in and asked, “Wayne, what was the one time on that set where you genuinely thought you were going to be fired for not being able to stop laughing?”

I hadn’t thought about that particular day in decades.

But as soon as he said it, the smell of that dusty Stage 9 at Fox hit me.

I could feel the heat of those massive studio lights.

I could feel the sweat pooling under those heavy, olive-drab surgical gowns we had to wear for hours on end.

Those operating room scenes were the hardest part of the job.

They were cramped, they were hot, and they were supposed to be the emotional heart of the show.

You had to be serious.

The blood was fake, but the exhaustion we were portraying had to feel real.

On this specific afternoon, we were filming a particularly long sequence.

Larry Linville, who played Frank Burns, had this long, technical monologue.

He was supposed to be explaining a complex procedure while “operating” on a patient.

McLean Stevenson and I were standing right across from him, acting as his assistants.

Larry was a professional. He took those medical terms very seriously.

But McLean? McLean was bored.

And when McLean Stevenson got bored, something was bound to break.

I saw him reach into his surgical glove before the cameras rolled.

He caught my eye for just a second, and I knew we were in trouble.

The director yelled “Action,” and Larry started into his lines with that perfect, high-strung Frank Burns energy.

He was sweating, he was intense, and he was completely focused on the “incisions” he was making.

He reached out his hand and snapped, “Hemostat!”

McLean, without breaking character, reached over to the instrument tray.

But as his hand moved, a tiny, high-pitched squeak echoed through the silent OR.

It sounded exactly like a dog’s chew toy.

Larry froze for a split second, his eyes darting toward the tray, but he kept going.

“Sutures!” Larry barked.

McLean reached out again. Squeak-squeak.

I felt the first tremor in my chest.

I was wearing a surgical mask, which was my only saving grace, because my mouth had already dropped open.

I looked at McLean’s eyes. He looked like a man at a funeral. Completely somber.

Larry was starting to get flustered. He thought it was a floorboard or a loose piece of equipment.

“Now, we have to be careful of the peritoneal cavity,” Larry said, leaning in deep.

McLean leaned in right next to him, and as he adjusted his position, he let out a long, rhythmic squeak… squeak… squeak.

It sounded like he was playing a melody with his surgical glove.

Larry stopped. He looked at the director.

“Can we find that noise? It’s ruining the take,” Larry said, still trying to stay in character.

The director, Hy Averback, poked his head out from behind the monitor.

“I don’t know what it is, Larry. Let’s go again from the cavity line.”

We reset. The room was deathly quiet.

Everyone was on edge because we were already behind schedule.

Larry took a breath. “Now, we have to be careful of the—”

McLean didn’t even wait for the end of the sentence.

He squeezed his hand inside the glove and the toy let out a frantic, desperate series of squeaks.

It sounded like a frantic hamster was trapped inside the patient.

That was the end of it.

I didn’t just laugh; I folded.

I actually disappeared beneath the level of the operating table.

I was on the floor, shaking, trying to muffle my screams of laughter into the hem of my gown.

Then I heard it.

Alan Alda, who was at the next table, started making this high-pitched wheezing sound.

He was gone. He was leaning against the prop IV pole just to stay upright.

Then the crew started.

The camera operator, who had been trying to hold the shot steady, was shaking so hard the frame was bouncing up and down.

But the best part was Larry.

Larry Linville was the most disciplined actor I ever knew, but even he had a limit.

He looked at McLean, looked at the glove, and then looked at the “patient.”

He just sighed, put his hands on his hips, and started to chuckle that deep, low laugh of his.

“You’re an idiot, Stevenson,” Larry muttered.

McLean finally let the mask drop, revealing a grin that stretched from ear to ear.

He pulled the little rubber chicken head out of his glove and held it up like a surgical trophy.

“I thought the patient sounded a little congested, Frank,” McLean said.

The director wasn’t even mad anymore.

He was doubled over in his chair, waving a hand at us to stop.

We had to stop filming for twenty minutes because every time someone looked at a surgical glove, the laughter would start all over again.

Even the extras, who were usually so stoic, were wiped out.

It was one of those moments where the pressure of the show just evaporated.

We were making a show about a war, and sometimes the only way to get through a day of filming “surgery” was to be a complete child.

That was the magic of that cast.

We were like a family that was constantly on the verge of being sent to the principal’s office.

I think about that often when I see the old episodes.

I look at our eyes over those masks and I wonder, “Are we being serious here, or is there a squeaky toy hidden just off-camera?”

Most of the time, it was the toy.

It’s those little moments of shared insanity that kept us together for all those years.

We weren’t just actors; we were survivors of each other’s nonsense.

And I wouldn’t trade a single squeak for anything in the world.

What is the one thing from your workplace that always makes you laugh when you remember it?