M*A*S*H 4077 camp maps?

[137th Gebirg]

^^^ Yes, regarding pre-op I thought the same thing as well. In fact, in my "Version 1" picture of the hospital interior, I had that entire section, including the OR rotated 180 degrees. It made more "logical" sense, but there were other things that were not reconciled. I remember there was one episode (couldn't tell you which one) where the doors out of Radar's office were opened, and you could see the OR through them, oriented in the way that I have it displayed. I used that one reference to finalize the configuration that you see there now.

The thing that always bothered me, on the far end of the OR, there was this extra wall jutting out next to the exit doors that made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Here's a pic of it:

http://mashcaps.insanitysandwich.com/3.23/323mashcaps(75).jpg

It's completely inconsistent with the Malibu Creek exterior of the same wall:

http://mashcaps.insanitysandwich.com/1.01 Pilot/101/101mashcaps(108).jpg

And I've never been able to find an on-screen reference for what was supposed to be behind that wall, which is why I have it labeled as "Unknown Area (?)" on my map. It has mystified me for decades. I would give my eye-teeth for a quick look at an original Stage 9 layout blueprint. I think I'm pretty close overall, but there are just some things that I cannot figure out.

 

[Christopher]

What I have trouble reconciling is my mental image of the interior of the clerk's office with the idea of the angled doors. Could someone provide a relevant screencap from an interior scene?

 

[137th Gebirg]

Not a very good one, but Klinger is standing in front of the interior of this door with the Post-Op doors to the left on the back wall:
http://mashcaps.insanitysandwich.com/3.03/303mashcaps%28297%29.jpg

Update - better one, with Hawkeye, again with the PO doors along the back wall:
http://mashcaps.insanitysandwich.com/3.03/303mashcaps(281).jpg

Here's another good one, with the camera on the same angle as the door in question, with the CO office on the left and Radar emerging out of the Post-Op ward from the middle-right:
http://mashcaps.insanitysandwich.com/3.14/314mashcaps(503).jpg

To help get your bearings, the camera in all of these shots is looking "south" and "south-east" in reference to my maps above, and the olive-drab green container with the ribbed shell appears in all the shots to give a good reference point. Radar's bunk is immediately behind that on the long wall that extends back to the wall with the doors to Post-Op. The wood stove that I have on my map at that location appears in later episodes. Hope this helps!

 

[Christopher]

Well, whaddaya know, it is at an angle. I guess the memory plays tricks.

 

[M'Sharak]

I seem to remember two or three years back that one of the members on this forum posted a terrific set of maps/diagrams he'd worked out of the layout of the M*A*S*H camp -- both the outdoor version and the soundstage sets, all laid out in detail. Multiple versions, even, as he reviewed various episodes and drew different conclusions about where the floating walls went, etc.

I loved those maps, and participated in the discussion at the time, but the search engine doesn't turn them up anywhere now, so perhaps they were lost in the wilds of the site database at some point. Unfortunately, I don't even recall who the original poster was.

I'm asking now because I've recently recovered from a hard drive failure in which I lost (among quite a lot of other stuff) the copies of those maps I'd saved for future reference. Does anyone recall this thread? Is the original poster still around? Does he perchance have those maps still accessible somewhere online?

Any clues would be much appreciated!...

I think 137th Gebirg may be your guy. There's probably still a thread from a couple of years ago.

Edit:

Here's one thread, (the maps are reposted in post #14) but it seems to refer to an earlier one, as well.

Edit, again: I've had no luck finding the earlier one. It's probably gone for good.

 

[MASHbookguy]

...these blueprints, while I just happened upon in killing time doing a Google Image search for shots of the interior MASH set, are phenominal. We (my co-author and I) did an over 800 page book on MASH, a couple years ago, and I wish I had know about this. Good shots of all 3 versions of the camp are very hard to find. There are a few in 2 previous books on the show from the 80's, and I've made many screen grabs of some of the best shots I can find. About 5 yeas ago, I missed out on an Ebay auction for over 1000 publicity still of the Malibu Creek State Park set. And for our book, Fox wanted $225 for each shot, plus a $50 finders fee. So, we mostly went with current shots of various people. Anyway, great job. I'm wondering how you were able to figure out the layout of much of the stage 9 hospital. Some rooms remained a mystery to me.
Anyway, not trying to add a cheap plug (especially since this appears to be a Star Trek site), but the book is, TV's MASH; The Complete Guide Book, by Ed Solomonson and Mark O'Neill(Me). Larry Gelbart wrote the forward, gave us TONS of info..plus actually wrote a great deal of new dialogue for us. Over 50 MASH alumni (writers, actors, stuntman, etc...) gave us commentary for the book. It's on Amazon. We did it as fans, for fans, to cover much info never in previous books. Ok, thanks. I'm going to try to contact the guy who did the designs, now.

 

[MASHbookguy]

..welp, no way to contact him. Either that, or I'm more computer illiterate than I though.

 

[Christopher]

^Have you tried sending 137th Gebirg a private message through this board?

 

[Robert Maxwell]

He won't be able to since he's a mere Cadet.

Maybe you could send him a PM, Christopher? Point him back to this thread.

 

[137th Gebirg]

...these blueprints, while I just happened upon in killing time doing a Google Image search for shots of the interior MASH set, are phenominal. We (my co-author and I) did an over 800 page book on MASH, a couple years ago, and I wish I had know about this. Good shots of all 3 versions of the camp are very hard to find. There are a few in 2 previous books on the show from the 80's, and I've made many screen grabs of some of the best shots I can find. About 5 yeas ago, I missed out on an Ebay auction for over 1000 publicity still of the Malibu Creek State Park set. And for our book, Fox wanted $225 for each shot, plus a $50 finders fee. So, we mostly went with current shots of various people. Anyway, great job. I'm wondering how you were able to figure out the layout of much of the stage 9 hospital. Some rooms remained a mystery to me.
Anyway, not trying to add a cheap plug (especially since this appears to be a Star Trek site), but the book is, TV's MASH; The Complete Guide Book, by Ed Solomonson and Mark O'Neill(Me). Larry Gelbart wrote the forward, gave us TONS of info..plus actually wrote a great deal of new dialogue for us. Over 50 MASH alumni (writers, actors, stuntman, etc...) gave us commentary for the book. It's on Amazon. We did it as fans, for fans, to cover much info never in previous books. Ok, thanks. I'm going to try to contact the guy who did the designs, now.

Hi there and thanks for the kind words!

Fortunately, I'm pretty regular here and I also happen to subscribe to all threads I post in, so it was easy for me to see this quickly and respond.

How did I get the layout, you ask? Well, several years ago I got the complete M*A*S*H series DVD box set for Christmas and I - literally - went through every episode and mapped it out from as many angles as I could find, watching every scene and hitting the pause button quite frequently. The research took me a couple of months to complete and was definitely a labor of love. This was as the only way, as I'm sure you probably realize, source reference material on this particular subject has always been extremely sparse. Weird thing about those shows from the 70's and 80's - they didn't seem to care much about documenting and archiving the nuts-and-bolts of production, nor did they pay too much attention to internal continuity with set dressings & props, etc. References on set design are virtually impossible to find, sadly. So, the "brute force" method was all I had to go on. I'm pleased to hear that it sounds like I got quite a bit of it right from someone who researched the show like you did.

Yes, I found the hospital to be somewhat paradoxical in its layout - sometimes having walls in one episode and switching over to simple curtains in another episode to separate the rooms. I'm convinced that most of the walls in Radar's office in the middle were movable (or flying) walls that changed on almost an episode-by-episode basis, depending on the shots and angles. And, of course, the original hospital at Malibu creek had an even different layout (albeit a little more fixed) from the stage version - a project that I never got a chance to work on due to the even more sparse nature of visual evidence from the original movie.

I did have a few real "ah-ha!" moments - particularly with the X-ray room and the O.R. Originally, I had the OR reversed, which I quickly corrected after conferring with some other M*A*S*H-heads online, and was able to get the layout on almost everything. My only concern was the space I named "Unknown Area" of the hospital interior. I honestly don't know why that piece juts out like it does away from the scrub/dress-out/lab area and I've never figured out what's behind it. I'm hoping you have some insight on this from some of your research. I'd love to get a hold of some production stills of the back-stage areas to help accurize the layouts.

In case you're interested, I posted these pics originally over on MASHtalk Forums before I brought them here - there were some pretty knowledgeable folks there who helped me flesh out the designs in the early days of this project. This was the original thread I was working in. Guess my involvement there goes back about 5 years now. Time flies!

Thanks for the info on your book, BTW. I've added it to my "Wish List" on Amazon for later purchase. Definitely something I am interested in getting. M*A*S*H was one of my early favorite non-sci-fi shows when I was younger. Glad to still there are still a lot of people interested in it. Thanks again!

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

One of the things that always bothers me is, from inside the post-op ward looking outside through the door (screen left), I've seen "outside" and I've seen what looks like another room.

 

[137th Gebirg]

^^^ I think that might be looking back into Radar's central office. This is evidenced by the area of the wall sticking out into post-op that matches the glassed-in shelving in the CO's office on the other side of the wall. The door on the other side of post op points out to Potter's/Blake's tent in the compound.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

^ It's definitely the door that would be to the left of your screen (away from the office, which had the curtains near that door) and I don't think they ever changed the point-of-view in the post-op camera.

I'll try to look at some episodes to reference what I'm remembering.

 

[Kail]

Great maps, thanks for sharing!

 

[RJDiogenes]

How did I get the layout, you ask? Well, several years ago I got the complete M*A*S*H series DVD box set for Christmas and I - literally - went through every episode and mapped it out from as many angles as I could find, watching every scene and hitting the pause button quite frequently. The research took me a couple of months to complete and was definitely a labor of love.

And a fantastic job you did. Very admirable. I'm impressed.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Thanks all for the kind words. Much appreciated.

Maybe I'll finally be motivated to try to do the movie version of the hospital interior (Malibu Creek set). Don't know how successful I'll be, though. Wasn't much footage of it at all.

 

[MASHbookguy]

...the blu-prints are phenominal. And I don't know that I could add anything to your layouts, as you did them so well.
You're right about the flying walls, and sometimes we would actuall get to see a view of the office that was rarely shown...such as the wall where Radar's desk faced, and that same wall in Henry's office.
And yeah, they certainly changed the scenery outside of Blake's/Potter's office, several times...sometimes within the same episode.
One of the things I've always wondered is, where is that background painted scenery they used for stage 9. A couple years back, Joan Van ARk, the very first person to contact me about doing an interview for the book, emailed me about how they were going to reconstruct the Fox Ranch set for an accoasion. I got all excited, half ready to make the trek from CT to CA to see it. But, really all they did was rope off where the set structures were.
The best shots of the Fox Ranch set I've ever been able to find on the DVDs for screen grabs are 1) at the beginning of Bombed (season 3), halfway through Henry Please Come Home (1), and a few others..I wish I could post somewhere. I've posted one montage I created on the Facebook MASH page, and I'll post the various set shots (screen grabs) there too.
Did you ever see Making MASH, by PBS from 1981? It has alot of great shots of stage 9 from behind the scenes filming. I keep petitioning them to get it out on DVD.
Great, great work you did.

 

[Winterwind]

I've always loved the show. If only I could get my girlfriend into watching it. Living together, I'd prefer we watch things together but I've tried a couple times and she just doesn't care for it.

Regarding the maps, they are of course fabulous. I'll always wonder where all the enlisted slept though. And how Klinger rated getting his own tent at his rank.