Trapper John McIntyre
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Trapper John McIntyre, also known as John Francis Xavier McIntyre, is a character in Richard Hooker's M*A*S*H novels.
"The only man who ever took a piece in the ladies' can of a Boston & Maine train", McIntyre was depicted by
- Elliott Gould in the film M*A*S*H,
- Wayne Rogers in the television series M*A*S*H, and
- Pernell Roberts in the television series Trapper John, M.D.
In the book and the film, Trapper John is a thoracic surgeon and the 4077th's Chief Surgeon. In the film, he had a very dry, sardonic deadpan sense of humor, while in the M*A*S*H TV series he was something of a class clown. Trapper spent much of his time on the series playing Ethel to Hawkeye Pierce's Lucy, partaking in playing practical jokes on the two majors, Frank Burns and Hot Lips Houlihan, and fraternizing with the nurses, even though Trapper apparently did love his wife and two daughters. In one episode, Trapper is attacked by home sickness and a longing to see his family and, after getting drunk, he packs up his duffle bag and tries to go AWOL, even knocking Hawkeye, who apparently is much weaker than Trapper physically, to the ground with his duffle bag, but Frank shows up and the slightly drunk Trapper gets caught up in lampooning him. At one point Trapper tried to adopt a Korean orphan, and was slightly crushed when he found out that the boy's mother was still alive. On two separate occasions when Hot Lips was drunk she came on to Trapper, drunkenly professing how appealing his sturdy frame and crooked smile are to her. After the first incident, he teased her at breakfast by telling her that "last night" (when he and Hawkeye were sobering her up in the shower) meant a lot to him and he wanted to know she wasn't "playing games".
Wayne Rogers was told when he accepted the role of Trapper for the TV series that Trapper and Hawkeye would be equally important, almost interchangeable, but that changed radically when Alan Alda was cast as Hawkeye. By the end of the third season Rogers was fed up with the fact that Trapper was being treated as a sidekick instead of an equal, though the latter half of the third season started to flesh him out a bit, and he left the series.
In the period between the two television series, the character matured considerably, becoming a more sedate part of the medical establishment. Much of the story line of Trapper John M.D. revolves around the relationship between the Korean War veteran Trapper John and Dr. George "Gonzo" Gates, who had served in a MASH unit in Vietnam and exhibited some of the personality traits Trapper John had had when he was younger.
External links
- Finest-Kind.net - M*A*S*H website with character profile
- Best Care Anywhere - M*A*S*H website with character profile