I was sitting there, just the other day, looking at some old production stills from the set of MAS*H.

It’s funny how a single image can pull you back forty years.

I was doing a little interview for a retrospective documentary, and the producer held up a photo of Colonel Potter’s desk.

You know the one.

It had the pen set, the little horse I carved, and that silver frame with the picture of Mildred.

My dear, sweet, fictional wife.

I looked at that frame and I just started chuckling to myself.

The interviewer asked me what was so funny about a picture of a nice lady in a frame.

I told him, “Well, it wasn’t always a nice lady in that frame.”

We were filming in Stage 9 at Fox, and it was one of those long Tuesday afternoons.

We had been doing scene after scene in Potter’s office.

It was a heavy episode, lots of dialogue about the weight of command and the letters I had to write home.

Now, Mike Farrell and Alan Alda were notorious.

They were like two schoolboys let loose in a candy store, only the candy was psychological warfare against their fellow actors.

They lived to make me break.

They knew I took a lot of pride in my discipline.

I had come from a background of very professional, old-school acting.

You hit your mark, you say your lines, and you don’t mess around when the red light is on.

But those guys… they saw my professionalism as a personal challenge.

They wanted to see the “Colonel” lose it.

We reached a point where I had this very emotional beat.

The script called for me to pick up the photo of Mildred and look at it with a profound sense of longing.

I reached out my hand to the frame, turning it toward my face for the close-up.

And that’s when it happened.

I turned the frame toward my eyes, expecting to see the lovely face of the actress who played Mildred.

Instead, I was staring directly into the eyes of Mike Farrell.

But it wasn’t just Mike.

The boys had taken a photo of Mike in full, hideous drag.

He was wearing a wig that looked like it had been wrestled off a dead poodle and more blue eye shadow than a Vegas showgirl.

He had this incredibly sultry, pouting expression on his face.

And right across the bottom of the photo, in beautiful cursive handwriting, they had written: “To my dearest Sherman, come back to the hive, your little bee is waiting.”

The silence in the room was absolute.

When we were in the middle of a take, especially a dramatic one, you could hear a pin drop.

The lighting was focused entirely on my face, capturing every subtle shift in my expression for the audience.

I looked at “Mildred-Mike” and my entire face just froze.

I felt the first bubble of a laugh starting in the very pit of my stomach.

I tried to swallow it.

I tried to turn it into a cough, or maybe a sob of grief to save the shot.

But the image was too much.

The sheer effort Mike must have gone through to get that photo taken, developed, and slipped into the frame without me seeing was staggering.

I looked up, trying to find a neutral spot on the wall to save the take.

And there, just off to the side of the camera, I saw Alan Alda.

He wasn’t doing anything.

He was just standing there with his arms crossed, watching me with this tiny, mischievous smirk.

He knew.

Then I looked at the camera operator, and I could see the rubber eyepiece on the camera shaking.

The poor man was vibrating because he was trying so hard not to laugh out loud.

I looked back down at the photo of “Honey-Bee Mike” and that was the end of it.

I let out a sound that I can only describe as a pressurized teakettle whistle.

The laugh just exploded out of me.

I collapsed forward onto the desk, burying my head in my arms, and I just lost it.

I was shaking so hard the pens were rattling in their holder.

Once I started, the rest of the room just went up in flames.

I heard Gene Reynolds, our director, let out this huge guffaw from behind the monitors.

Usually, Gene was the one trying to keep us on track because we were always behind schedule.

But he was gone. He was doubled over.

The grips were laughing. The script supervisor was crying.

Mike Farrell suddenly appeared from behind a flat, looking very proud of himself.

He leaned over the desk and asked me if I liked his “new look.”

I couldn’t even answer him.

I was pointing at the photo and gasping for air.

We must have sat there for ten minutes just trying to catch our breath.

Every time we thought we were ready to go again, someone would catch a glimpse of that silver frame and we’d start all over.

The director finally had to call for a “five-minute” break which turned into twenty.

He said he couldn’t film me because my face was too red from laughing and my eyes were streaming.

I looked like I’d been through an emotional wringer.

That was the thing about that set.

We were telling stories about a miserable, cold, bloody war.

We spent our days covered in fake mud and stage blood.

The subject matter was often so grim that if we didn’t have that kind of release, we probably would have gone crazy.

The “Mildred” prank became legendary among the crew.

They actually kept that photo of Mike in a drawer for years.

Whenever a guest actor came on the show and started acting a little too “serious” or pretentious, someone would find a way to show them the Mildred photo.

It was a reminder that we were a family, and in this family, no one was safe from a good ribbing.

It taught me a lot about the balance of the work.

You can be a professional and still have a heart full of mischief.

In fact, I think I played the Colonel better after that.

There was a little more life in my eyes because I was always wondering what was waiting for me in the next folder or under the next surgical tray.

It’s those moments that make a decade of work feel like a weekend with friends.

I still think about that photo sometimes when I’m feeling a bit too serious about life.

It’s a good reminder to turn the frame around and see if there’s a bearded man in a wig waiting to make you laugh.

Looking back, I wouldn’t trade those interruptions for a thousand perfect takes.

The mistakes were where the real magic happened.

What’s the funniest prank you’ve ever witnessed in a professional setting?