When I first started buying M*A*S*H DVDs in the early 2000s, I was in high school and that was how I connected with the series. I had watched it on TV for years, but the DVDs were a way to physically own the show and watch it when I wanted. The thought of owning something that was used on set never crossed my mind. But in 2007, I bought a set of scripts, and that opened a whole new world of possibilities. I was suddenly interested in scripts, press materials, cast gifts, etc. The things that were used on set and were used to produce and/or promote the show. Fast forward 15 years, and I had put together quite a collection, with scripts being the primary focus. A few years ago, however, there was an auction for something I never expected to see, let alone own. The object? A set of blueprints for the Swamp from M*A*S*H. My mind was blown, and I was determined to own these blueprints (within reason). I ended up being the highest bidder, and here they are…a set of blueprints for the Swamp. Let’s take a closer look!
Looking at the specifications section, I did initially have a few concerns. The first being that the blueprint said “Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp.” M*A*S*H was produced by Twentieth Century-Fox Television, not the movie production company. However, the date on the blueprint, April 16, 1982, checked out with M*A*S*H. I did a little research, and things started to make sense. The Fox lot in Century City was owned by Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp., and the lot was used to film movies and television shows. The outdoor sets of M*A*S*H were also reused (but reconfigured) from the Robert Altman film. So the pieces fell into place.
Taking a deeper look at the specifications, the date of April 16, 1982 would place this blueprint between the tenth and eleventh seasons. The document also says that the blueprint was for both the Swamp setup on Stage 9 and at Malibu Creek State Park (formerly the Fox Ranch). There are two names listed on the drawing as well. The “Drawn By” credit goes to Harold Fuhrman, who has several set designer credits in both television and film. However, he does not have any M*A*S*H credits. The Art Director, however, does have M*A*S*H credits! John Leimanis was credited as the art director for the series for both seasons ten and eleven, and he was also the art director for the first season of AfterMASH. The reason all of this research was important was because there were two Swamps. One used in Altman’s film M*A*S*H, and one used in the series. I wanted to be sure that this was the blueprint for the Swamp we see in the series, not the movie.
Before I begin to discuss the details of the Swamp, I want to give some scale of this blueprint. It is 36 inches (91 cm) by 18 inches (46 cm), so it is not small. And the specifications section indicates that it is drawn at a scale where 1/4 of an inch equals 1 foot in life. Because of this, we can see some details of the exterior and interior that I had never noticed before. On the outside, the blueprint shows that the height of the tent’s walls are five feet, five inches, and the doorframe is six feet, two inches tall. Mike Farrell, for example, was about six feet, four inches tall, and this is why we see him and several other actors duck each time they walk inside the tent. The peak of the tent’s roof added another six feet to the height, which made it fairly easy for people to stand up in the middle of the tent once they were inside.
The exterior drawings detail what the tent walls look like with both the tent flaps down and tent flaps up. When they are down, there are a few built-in, plastic windows that allowed in some light. This would have been on the back on the tent, and since we rarely see the back wall of the Swamp, I don’t recall seeing these windows from the inside. When the tent flaps are up, the frame of the tent is exposed with screens. This would allow air to flow through the tent on hot days, but the screens would keep out insects. The tents used on the series were Army tents, and this contributed to the authenticity of the show. It would have also made the job of the set designer both easier and harder. Easier because they didn’t have to reinvent the wheel and could use Army surplus tents. Harder because they were forced to work within the confines of the small tents. Scenes inside the Swamp were filmed with the tent flaps pulled up for the camera to see in, so what you see on camera is a group of actors inside a 256 square foot tent!
The outside drawings are interesting, but the inside details are incredible. Not only do these blueprints callout the dimensions of the Swamp (only 16 feet by 16 feet), but it also includes the arrangement of all the furniture inside. The outline of the Swamp’s floor and walls in the overview includes the placement of the tent wall supports, the door frame, and the rope supports that went on the outside of the tent. The furniture is drawn out in great detail including the cots, the stove, tables, bookshelves, checkerboard, and the infamous still! Everything was well planned. From above, another thing that I notice are the areas that the actors would have had to walk. There are a few, open walking paths from the door and in between the cots. We see this quite a bit in the series as the actors walk inside the Swamp and head to a chair or cot to sit. It was important to have cleared paths for walking but also for the camera to follow the actor throughout the shot. There isn’t a lot of tall furniture on the back wall of Swamp for this reason.
I am often asked what the favorite object in my collection is, and this blueprint of the Swamp ranks pretty high up on the list. Seeing the level of detail and planning that went into this single location of the set makes me want to find blueprints for other locations on set including the O.R., Potter’s office, the Mess Tent, Officers’ Club, etc. It unlocks the detail, but it also provides a sense of scale on that set. Imagine trying to film a scene in a 236 square foot tent with four cots, tables, chairs, and tent pole in the middle! But, for me, that realization goes beyond the series M*A*S*H. Because the Swamp was an Army surplus tent, imagine living in a 236 square foot tent with three other people in the middle of a war zone. If the Swamp feels cramped on television, that was all by design. Larry Gelbart and show’s producers wanted M*A*S*H to feel real, and using real tents was a big part of that strategy. Seeing these blueprints doesn’t just give me a new level of appreciation for the actors, set designers, and creators of M*A*S*H, it gives me a new level of respect for the MASH doctors, nurses, and corpsmen who lived through the real thing.
The M*A*S*H Historian 