(afraid of catching mumps): If you get 'em as a kid, you don't get 'em as an adult. But if you get 'em as an adult, you don't get kids. Take that, you little homewreckers!
“Heal Thyself” · Season 8
In this episode: Colonel Potter (4), Charles Winchester (4), Hawkeye Pierce (1), Maxwell Klinger (1), Margaret Houlihan (1)
(looking at Potter's painting)
That is either a horse or the RCA building.
It's a horse. I'm about to paint his back end; fortunately, I have a live-in model!
Aha! If only your talent matched your callousness!
Major go about your business.
I have no business.
Take a nap.
I'm not sleepy!
Just listen to yourself yammer. That'll snap those eyelids shut in a flash.
NNewsome
(after walking out of OR and going into the tent): The blood won't come off. No matter what I do it just stays there. See? Never gonna go away. No matter how many times I wash or how much I scrub it's gonna stay there. Where do they come from? What do they expect me to do? I cant. I cant.
Let me get you to your tent.
I'd better warn you, Major, I get mighty crotchety when I'm battling a bug. And I make one ornery patient.
Well, I make one ornery nurse! Take it easy.
(Enter: Winchester)
Uh-- Colonel isn't it a bit early in the day to be, um-- how shall I put it-- bagged?
It's not booze that's got me in this shape, Winchester, it's mumps.
(laughs) I-- Forgive me, Colonel. It's just that it's a bit silly to find a childhood malady - afflicting a man of your advanced years.
Step aside, Major.
What's next for you, Colonel? Unsightly teenage blemishes?
Ah, between you and the mumps, Winchester, I'd prefer the mumps. At least I know they're going to go away.
(Hawkeye, with B.J. brings in Winchester, who HIMSELF has the mumps!)
But what can you give a man who has everything, including the mumps? - His very own roomie! - So here he is now Charles Emerson Winchester the puffed.
(looking at Potter's painting)
At least the other doctors have something to do. The only activity I am allowed is talking.
Winchester, the artistic temperament is a delicate thing. So clam up, you yahoo!
I do not understand why you are allowed your pleasures, and I am not allowed mine!
Because my pleasures are a little more on the quiet side!
Ah! That is either a horse or the RCA building.
It's a horse. I'm about to paint his back end; fortunately, I have a live-in model!
Aha! If only your talent matched your callousness!
Major, go about your business.
I have no business.
Take a nap.
I'm not sleepy!
Just listen to yourself yammer. That'll snap those eyelids shut in a flash.
Even the most despicable convict is allowed the basic pleasures of life. - But not I.
Don't rile me, Winchester. My face gets any redder, somebody's gonna get whopped.
Threaten all you want, I can't take anymore. I demand my rights. I'm going to play my music.
Don't touch that dial.
I need this music to nourish my fading hope that truth and beauty still exist. Viva Caruso-- [ Gags ]
I'm warning you. Eighty-six that Italian!
I have nothing left to lose!
(Caruso)
That tears it!
What are you gonna do?
I'll decide when I get there.
No, Colonel. - Oh, no!
Oh, yes!
(Potter yanks the Caruso record off the record player and throws it out of the tent, where it smashes against a jeep!)
(Winchester and Potter are playing gin, and are still at one another's throats)
Gin.
Again? Colonel, it hardly requires an advanced degree in differential calculus to master the numerical sequence of ace, deuce, trey. Fifty-four points, record.
Oh, shut up and deal. I can't remember the last hand I won.
Oh, really? Having won so few I should think they'd stand out in your memory.
On second thought, I think I'll read a little and then turn in. Some Zane Grey maybe.
(sarcastically) Ah, Zane Grey. Tolstoy with spurs.
He happens to be a great writer!
Colonel, what gin rummy is to games of skill Zane Grey is to literature. Therefore, I shall counter with something civilized-- Caruso.
En-riko Caruso? The singer?
Why, yes, I do believe he sings.
Nix on that. I hate opera!
Colonel, a closed mind is an empty mind. All I ask is that you listen, and I assure you you will be carried away on majestic clouds of musical rapture.
(Caruso Singing In Italian)
That guy sounds like a banshee in a bear trap. [Stops]
Sir! This man is one of the giants of serious music.
If I want music-- I'll send for my Tex Ritter 78s. If I want a giant, I'll send for Mel Ott!
Well, I don't know Mr. Ott's work but cowboy crooners, even one so noteworthy as ol' Tex can hardly be mentioned in the same breath with the immortal Enrico Caruso!
Oh, yeah? If you wanna match windpipes, can that Caruso guy yodel?
Not even at gunpoint!
These quotes come from Wikiquote's M*A*S*H pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.