It is funny how a single question can just crack open a vault of memories you haven’t touched in decades.

I was sitting there on that stage for the Archive of American Television interview and the young man across from me leaned in with a bit of a smirk.

He asked me what the funniest day on the set of MAS*H was and my mind immediately went to the smell of latex and the heat of those studio lights.

You have to understand that filming the O.R. scenes was a special kind of purgatory that we all shared together.

Those sets were cramped and the lighting rigs were so low and intense that the temperature under those masks would climb to nearly a hundred degrees within minutes.

We were all wearing these heavy gowns and gloves and the masks meant you couldn’t really see anyone’s face except for their eyes.

On this particular night we had been filming for about fourteen hours straight and we were deep into a sequence of surgery scenes that felt like they would never end.

I was the old man of the group and I was feeling every single one of those hours in my bones.

The scene required me to be hunched over a patient who was played by a very patient extra and I had to perform some complex-looking maneuver with a pair of forceps.

I remember the director calling for a pause while they adjusted a lens and I found a very comfortable way to lean my forearms against the side of the table.

My head was bowed down just inches from the extra’s chest and the rhythm of his breathing was surprisingly steady and rhythmic.

The masks made everything feel muffled and private and the gentle hum of the air conditioning in the background started to sound like a lullaby.

I told myself I was just resting my eyes for the thirty seconds it would take to swap the film magazine.

I felt my weight shift forward just a tiny bit as I settled into the most comfortable position I had found all day.

Everything around me began to fade into a warm and hazy gray.

And that’s when it happened.

The first thing I remember hearing was a sound that didn’t belong in a mobile army surgical hospital or at least not coming from the surgeon in charge.

It was a deep and resonant rumble that started in the back of my throat and echoed right through my mask.

I had fallen into such a deep sleep that I had begun to snore with the enthusiasm of a man in his own bedroom on a Sunday afternoon.

Now in a normal workplace someone might have tapped me on the shoulder or cleared their throat to wake me up before the cameras started rolling.

But this was not a normal workplace and I was surrounded by Alan Alda and Mike Farrell who were essentially professional mischief-makers disguised as actors.

Apparently the moment the first snore escaped my mask Alan’s eyes went wide and he immediately held up a finger to his lips to silence the rest of the crew.

He signaled the cameraman to keep the film rolling and he whispered to the director to call “action” as quietly as possible.

The extra lying on the table told me later that he was absolutely terrified because he could feel the vibrations of my snoring through his ribs but he didn’t dare move.

Alan and Mike actually began to perform the scene around me as if nothing was wrong.

They were whispering their lines about sutures and blood pressure while I was essentially using the patient as a pillow.

I was completely oblivious to the fact that I was currently the centerpiece of a high-budget prank being captured on thirty-five millimeter film.

The humor escalated when Mike Farrell decided to improv a line about how the Colonel seemed to be “listening very closely to the patient’s heart.”

The crew was struggling so hard to stay silent that the camera operator was actually shaking and you can see the frame vibrating in the dailies from that day.

Finally the extra on the table couldn’t hold it in anymore and his chest began to heave with suppressed giggles which caused my head to bounce up and down.

I jolted awake with that sudden panicked realization that you’ve been caught doing something you shouldn’t.

But because I am an actor and my instincts are sometimes faster than my brain I didn’t immediately admit I had been asleep.

I kept my head down for a second and then I looked up at Alan with as much dignity as a man can muster while wearing a surgical mask.

I cleared my throat and tried to deliver the next line in the script which was something about a clamp.

The problem was that my voice was thick with sleep and it sounded like I had just crawled out of a cave after a long winter.

Alan just stared at me for three seconds with those twinkling eyes of his and then he let out a laugh that broke the dam for everyone else.

Within seconds the entire O.R. set was in total chaos.

The director was doubled over behind the monitors and the grips were leaning against the walls just howling.

I stood there with my forceps in the air feeling like a complete fool but I couldn’t help but join in because the absurdity of it was just too much.

Here I was the commanding officer of the unit the veteran actor who was supposed to be setting the professional tone for the youngsters and I had been caught napping on the job.

It became one of those legendary stories that the cast would bring up every single time we got together for a reunion.

Alan loved to tell people that I was the only actor in history who could perform surgery and get a full night’s rest at the same time.

It really spoke to the atmosphere we had on that show because nobody was offended and nobody felt like we were wasting time.

We were a family and in a family you don’t let a golden opportunity like a snoring Colonel pass you by without making a memory out of it.

That was the magic of MAS*H for me.

We dealt with such heavy subject matter and such long hours that these moments of pure silliness were the only things that kept us sane.

I look back on that footage now and I don’t see a mistake or a blooper.

I see a group of people who loved each other enough to turn a moment of exhaustion into a reason to laugh until our sides ached.

It reminded me that even in the middle of a simulated war or a grueling production schedule you have to find the room to be human.

And if being human means snoring on a patient’s chest in front of millions of future viewers then I wouldn’t change a thing.

What is the most embarrassing place you have ever accidentally fallen asleep?