We were all sitting there on that stage for the reunion, and they started projected these old production stills on the big screen behind us.

Most of them were the usual shots of us leaning against the Swamp or standing by the signpost.

But then, this one photo pops up of the Operating Room.

You could see the sweat on our brows and the heavy canvas of those surgical gowns.

The audience laughed because we looked so miserable, but I just felt this phantom heat hit my neck all over again.

Alan looked over at me and just started shaking his head because he knew exactly what I was thinking about.

People always ask us what it was like filming those surgery scenes.

They see the drama and the blood and the tension on the screen, but they don’t realize that by hour twelve, we were basically a group of overgrown children in a very expensive sandbox.

The OR was where the show found its soul, sure, but it was also where our sanity went to die.

It was about 11:30 at night, and we were filming a scene that was supposed to be one of those “heavy” moments.

I was playing Henry Blake, the guy who was supposed to have all the answers while the world was falling apart around him.

We had been in those masks for so long that the elastic was starting to permanently indent our ears.

The air conditioning on the Fox lot was a joke, and the lights were pumping out enough heat to cook a Thanksgiving turkey.

I remember looking across the table at Alan, and I could see that look in his eyes—the one where he was just one breath away from losing it.

We were working on a particularly difficult shot where the camera had to move between three different tables in one continuous take.

If one person messed up a line at the very end, we had to reset the whole thing, mop the “blood” up, and start over.

I had this long, technical medical speech about a fragment near a patient’s heart.

I had rehearsed it a thousand times, but my brain was starting to turn into mashed potatoes.

I leaned down over the “patient,” who was actually just a very tired extra who had been lying still for four hours.

I felt this sudden, mischievous urge to see if I could make the “wounded soldier” break character.

I leaned in really close to the extra, so close that my mask was almost touching his ear.

The script called for me to say, “I’ve got the fragment, let’s get some suction in here.”

But instead, I leaned down and whispered, as quietly as a ghost, “Did you remember to turn the oven off before we left the house, Harold?”

The extra’s eyes snapped open for a split second, and his chest started to heave.

He was trying so hard not to laugh that he looked like he was having a genuine medical emergency on the table.

I didn’t stop there, though.

I looked up at Alan, whose eyes were wide above his own mask, and I decided to double down.

Instead of calling for a clamp, I reached out my hand and very professionally demanded, “Scalpel… and a side of cole slaw, easy on the mayo.”

Alan’s eyes crinkled.

I saw his shoulders start to jump up and down.

He tried to turn it into a cough, but it came out as this high-pitched wheeze that sounded like a tea kettle going off.

Then Loretta, who was always the most professional person in the room, realized what I had said.

She let out this “honk” of a laugh that echoed through the entire silent soundstage.

That was the end of it.

Once Loretta went, the whole room just detonated.

The director, Gene Reynolds, shouted “Cut!” but he wasn’t even mad yet.

He was just standing there with his hands on his hips, watching his entire cast collapse into the fake blood and gauze.

The “patient” on the table finally let out this roar of laughter and sat bolt upright, which looked terrifying if you weren’t in on the joke.

He was gasping for air, pointing at me and trying to tell the crew what I’d whispered to him.

We spent the next twenty minutes trying to get our faces back together.

Every time Gene would yell “Action,” I would look at the extra’s ear, and I would start shaking all over again.

I’d see Alan’s eyes, and I’d know he was thinking about the cole slaw.

It got so bad that we had to actually clear the set for a “cool down” period.

The crew was leaning against the cameras, wiped out, just watching us act like idiots.

The cameramen were literally wiping tears from their eyes because they’d been watching the whole thing through the lens, seeing our eyes dart back and forth.

Gene eventually came over, put his arm around me, and said, “McLean, I love you, but if you mention side dishes one more time, I’m going to have you court-martialed for real.”

That was the magic of that set, though.

We were telling stories about a horrible war, and we were surrounded by “injured” people all day long.

If we didn’t have those moments where we absolutely lost our professional dignity, I don’t think we could have made it through three seasons, let alone eleven.

We used the laughter to keep the darkness at bay.

When I look at those old photos now, I don’t just see a surgical scene.

I see a group of friends who were desperately trying to keep a straight face while I was being a complete nuisance.

I think the audience sensed that, too—that we actually liked being in each other’s company, even when we were miserable.

That’s why the show still works today.

It wasn’t just acting; it was a group of people who found the funny in the middle of the mess.

I wouldn’t trade those long, hot nights in the OR for anything.

Even if it meant we never actually found out if Harold turned the oven off.

Have you ever had a moment at work where you just couldn’t stop laughing at the absolute wrong time?