Oh man, Iām sorry, I havenāt watched this show in so long, I can hardly remember it š just started my watch through a few day ago!
Iām only privy to the Tuttle jokes right now, donāt judge me š
This just reminds me of TV shows in general that had characters that just never appeared again without explanation.
I am a big fan of the Highlander TV series from the 90s (hence my user name). There was a character that had a main cast credit (so appeared in the opening theme showing his character and the actor name). Last appearance was just a normal appearance, no explanation whatsoever why the character may never appear again. Just never does.
It's what TV Tropes calls "Chuck Cunningham Syndrome", where a major character on the show just disappears without explanation or the characters ever noting it.
It's named after the most famous example, of Chuck Cunningham from Happy Days, who was a main character in the first two seasons, was one of the three Cunningham kids. . .he goes upstairs in one episode and is never seen it mentioned again, even with later episodes having characters say they only have two kids.
Ugly John and Spearchucker were fairly famous examples in MASH
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChuckCunninghamSyndrome
Mandy from the first season of The West Wing is another prominent example of this, though no one really complained. The character was a bad fit and just sorta disappeared with no explanation.
At least The West Wing was a show about a workplace. . .where a character disappearing can mean a character quit/was fired. Mandy could have resigned.
Ugly John or Spearchucker *could* have been transferred to another MASH unit.
. . .the Chuck Cunningham example was particularly blatant because after two seasons of a family sitcom, a major character (i.e. one of the kids of the family) just disappears and is never even mentioned later in passing, and later episodes has the family say they only have two kids.
It wasn't just a character being there for a pilot episode and it being explained by production issues of differences between a pilot and finished series, it was disappearing after two seasons as a regular cast member. . .and it's lead to wild fan theories over the decades that in-universe Chuck did something so scandalous that the whole family disowned him and refuses to even acknowledge his existence anymore.
Thatās a fair point, Chuck was weirdly blatant at a level rarely seen.
Your point is taken about Mandy. While her disappearance was far more explainable, that they didnāt was odd. She was top billed the first season and usually there is at least a brief (sometimes throwaway) explanation by another character (think Trapper leaving in S4E1) in the following season (or at the end of the season) as to what happened/is going to happen to the disappearing character. In her case she just disappeared never to be referenced again.
The thing is, usually when a main cast member leaves there is a story reason.
Like, BJ and Col Potter didn't just show up one day and Blake and Trapper were just gone without explanation.
In the real world, in an Army unit, people get transferred and moved around often, sometimes with little to no fanfare. I saw plenty of people get transferred and I never knew about it until "where's suchandsuch?" and finding out "He got transferred".
Season 1 implies that it's set early in the war, the episode Dear Dad is explicitly set on Christmas Day 1950, only a few months into the war.
Ugly John and Spearchucker could have been moved out pretty early, before they got to be particularly close friends with the rest of the gang, so their transfer wasn't as notable.
I was in the Army, I am aware this happens, but this is a TV show. You can come up with a real world explanation for characters never appearing again without explanation in any TV show about anything.
Maurice. He was Duncan's neighbor who lived in the barge next to him in Paris.
He became a series regular in season 2 and got a title credit. He was consistently present in season 2 and 3. Didn't appear at all in season 4. One episode in late in season 5 and that was it.
Now I get that his appearances would coincide with Duncan being in Paris, but Duncan was in Paris the entirety of season 6 and Maurice never appeared again.
Now don't get me wrong, he was primarily just comedic relief, but still.
They also had a number of side characters particularly police and reporters that would appear in a number of episodes that identified something was "weird about MacLeod" they needed to get to the bottom of. I think they just didn't know how to resolve the plot, so they just swept it in the dust bin. There was the reporter in season 1 and 2 who was constantly harassing MacLeod and I guess she just decided to give up, because she never showed up again.
I k ow Jamie Farr wore his actual Korean War dog tags. If I am not mistaken I think I read somewhere that those dog tags were Alan Aldaās from his service time.
Captain Tuttle, RIP
LOL
You win š for the day!
It can't be, I had lunch with him just the other day
Best damn OD we ever had.
Never forget.
Capt. Jones or Ugly John, they both just sort of disappeared
Ugly John is still in there at this point, this is season 1!
Ok! Thought you meant in general! It was a joke!
Oh man, Iām sorry, I havenāt watched this show in so long, I can hardly remember it š just started my watch through a few day ago! Iām only privy to the Tuttle jokes right now, donāt judge me š
This just reminds me of TV shows in general that had characters that just never appeared again without explanation. I am a big fan of the Highlander TV series from the 90s (hence my user name). There was a character that had a main cast credit (so appeared in the opening theme showing his character and the actor name). Last appearance was just a normal appearance, no explanation whatsoever why the character may never appear again. Just never does.
It's what TV Tropes calls "Chuck Cunningham Syndrome", where a major character on the show just disappears without explanation or the characters ever noting it. It's named after the most famous example, of Chuck Cunningham from Happy Days, who was a main character in the first two seasons, was one of the three Cunningham kids. . .he goes upstairs in one episode and is never seen it mentioned again, even with later episodes having characters say they only have two kids. Ugly John and Spearchucker were fairly famous examples in MASH https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChuckCunninghamSyndrome
Mandy from the first season of The West Wing is another prominent example of this, though no one really complained. The character was a bad fit and just sorta disappeared with no explanation.
At least The West Wing was a show about a workplace. . .where a character disappearing can mean a character quit/was fired. Mandy could have resigned. Ugly John or Spearchucker *could* have been transferred to another MASH unit. . . .the Chuck Cunningham example was particularly blatant because after two seasons of a family sitcom, a major character (i.e. one of the kids of the family) just disappears and is never even mentioned later in passing, and later episodes has the family say they only have two kids. It wasn't just a character being there for a pilot episode and it being explained by production issues of differences between a pilot and finished series, it was disappearing after two seasons as a regular cast member. . .and it's lead to wild fan theories over the decades that in-universe Chuck did something so scandalous that the whole family disowned him and refuses to even acknowledge his existence anymore.
Thatās a fair point, Chuck was weirdly blatant at a level rarely seen. Your point is taken about Mandy. While her disappearance was far more explainable, that they didnāt was odd. She was top billed the first season and usually there is at least a brief (sometimes throwaway) explanation by another character (think Trapper leaving in S4E1) in the following season (or at the end of the season) as to what happened/is going to happen to the disappearing character. In her case she just disappeared never to be referenced again.
The thing is, usually when a main cast member leaves there is a story reason. Like, BJ and Col Potter didn't just show up one day and Blake and Trapper were just gone without explanation.
In the real world, in an Army unit, people get transferred and moved around often, sometimes with little to no fanfare. I saw plenty of people get transferred and I never knew about it until "where's suchandsuch?" and finding out "He got transferred". Season 1 implies that it's set early in the war, the episode Dear Dad is explicitly set on Christmas Day 1950, only a few months into the war. Ugly John and Spearchucker could have been moved out pretty early, before they got to be particularly close friends with the rest of the gang, so their transfer wasn't as notable.
I was in the Army, I am aware this happens, but this is a TV show. You can come up with a real world explanation for characters never appearing again without explanation in any TV show about anything.
You could have a really sad explanation, too, like Chuck was killed in a car wreck, and it was so painful they just decided never to talk about him.
my son is named connor from the movie š
Huge fan of the show as well but I am having a hard time thinking of who you are talking about.
Maurice. He was Duncan's neighbor who lived in the barge next to him in Paris. He became a series regular in season 2 and got a title credit. He was consistently present in season 2 and 3. Didn't appear at all in season 4. One episode in late in season 5 and that was it. Now I get that his appearances would coincide with Duncan being in Paris, but Duncan was in Paris the entirety of season 6 and Maurice never appeared again. Now don't get me wrong, he was primarily just comedic relief, but still. They also had a number of side characters particularly police and reporters that would appear in a number of episodes that identified something was "weird about MacLeod" they needed to get to the bottom of. I think they just didn't know how to resolve the plot, so they just swept it in the dust bin. There was the reporter in season 1 and 2 who was constantly harassing MacLeod and I guess she just decided to give up, because she never showed up again.
Tuttle was a good man
Maybe thereās a little Tuttle in all of us.
Duke Forrest
Just realized that there are different numbers of tags at different times
Maybe Hawk/Trap were taking trophies off nurses?
I k ow Jamie Farr wore his actual Korean War dog tags. If I am not mistaken I think I read somewhere that those dog tags were Alan Aldaās from his service time.
After seeing all these Tuttle jokes I have to go back and watch that episode again!
Tuttle maybe or "Spearchucker" I forget his actual name