MASH creator and writer Larry Gelbart once said he regretted being lazy about the character of Frank Burns. It was just too easy to make him dumb and silly. Attempts to make him “one of the guys” always failed because the writers couldn’t resist using his character as a vacuous and hypocritical foil. Fans never minded, though, because Burns consistently delivered some of the funniest, dumbest, silliest, and sometimes disarmingly clever lines of the show. Larry Linville’s brilliant delivery didn’t hurt! Let’s look at some of the best ever Frank Burns lines from MASH.
Speaking of Larry Linville, the most dedicated fans will understand that, perhaps more than any other MASH actor, a Frank Burns line didn’t have to be particularly funny in its own right to be a classic Burnism. Linville made things funny with his brilliant and crazy delivery. Some of the best ones cannot be described in black and white. You have to hear them to understand. I’m always saying “Very, very, very” the way Frank Burns said it when he had “heard something very interesting.” It’s not funny as a line. It’s funny because of the way he said it. With that, let’s get to the list.
I’ve used a combination of methods to collate this list. I’ve pored through episodes looking for the best Frank lines I remember. I’ve used the quotes list from IMDB. And, two other chief sources for this list, besides my own memory, are threads found here and here.
You’ll find many of the most famous Frank Burns quotes here, and you’ll also find many great lines that aren’t included in the various online lists. I’ve added some explanation and context (including surrounding dialogue) where warranted, and I’ve included the season and episode where each quote occurred, making this the definitive one-stop source for Frank Burns quotes on the internet!
Some Great Frank Burns Quotes
Season 1
Germ Warfare (Season 1, Episode 11)
Hawkeye and Trapper are pretending to think Frank looks ill and that they are concerned. They palpate his glands, etc. in the compound and pretend that they are swollen:
Frank: You guys are starting something.
Hawkeye: Frank, don’t be paranoid.
Frank: I’m only paranoid because everybody’s against me.
Love Story (Season 1, Episode 14)
Frank [to Hawkeye] Oh, nerts to you!
The Longjohn Flap (Season 1, Episode 19)
When Hawkeye wants to know where Frank got the longjohn underwear and Frank won’t tell him:
“Possession is nine-tenths of the law, Pierce. And I’m sleeping with a loaded baseball bat under my pillow, so don’t try anything!”
Season 2
5 O’Clock Charlie (Season 2, Episode 2)
Frank is trying to train a group of Korean soldiers to fire an anti-aircraft gun, as he intends to shoot down 5 O’clock Charlie:
Frank Burns: [to first Korean soldier] You will be platoon leader.
Korean Soldier: I thought you were the platoon leader.
Frank Burns: I am, but for purposes of our table of organization, I will be commander.
Frank Burns: You will be platoon leader.
Frank Burns [to second Korean soldier] You will be squad leader.
Frank Burns [to third Korean soldier] And you will be… the squad.
L.I.P. (Local Indigenous Personnel) (Season 2, Episode 7)
Frank comes into the Swamp:
Frank Burns: Disgusting! Why is whenever I come in here it’s disgusting?
Hawkeye: I think that says it all, Frank
The Sniper (Season 2, Episode 7)
Frank: Do you know how long it took me to become a doctor? Do you?
Hawkeye: I, I thought the usual time.
Frank: Twice as long. I flunked outta two med schools. I even thought of switching to male nurse but I could never learn how to make hospital corners.
Hawkeye: Frank, you really…
Frank: And during my internship the local undertaker used to send me Christmas presents and calendars! But I made it.
Deal Me Out (Season 2, Episode 13)
“There’s a war on, and we’ve no time for violence!”
Hawkeye and Trapper operate on a CID intelligence officer and another CID officer, whom Frank called in, expresses concern to Frank about the man being put under anesthesia:
Captain Halloran: Were you in the operating room with them?
Frank: No. I don’t like to be around when rules are broken.
Captain Halloran: A rough situation, Major. This man’s head’s full of intelligence.
Frank: That’s not my department, sir. Intelligence is something I try to avoid.
Captain Halloran: I can see that, yes.
Henry In Love (Season 2, Episode 16)
Frank is in command of the 4077 while Henry is on leave. He orders everyone to fall out in formation:
Frank: Radar, deform the men.
Frank [to the assembled personnel in the compound] As you all know, tonight Colonel Blake will resume his command after a week in Tokyo. Now, unless I made a few remarks about my recent stint as your temporary supreme commander, I would be derelict in my “officiousness.” I think you’ll all agree that by trying to introduce more discipline, more order, I have hopefully made this a more enjoyable war for all of us. Leadership is a lonely business. Your Napoleons, your Kaisers, your Attilas the Hun… were all alone there in the front office as I have been this week. I have thought of you, and I know you have thought of me… But some of the notes in the suggestion box were really below the belt! I mean, why drag my mother into this?
“It’s nice to be nice… to the nice!”
For Want of a Boot (Season 2, Episode 17)
Frank comes into the tent during a cold snap:
Hawkeye: Hi, Frank.
Trapper: Hi, Frank.
Frank: Is that supposed to be clever?
Hawkeye and Trapper give a surprise birthday party to Frank as part of a series of deals necessary for Hawkeye to get a new pair of boots:
Margaret: They love you, Frank.
Frank: It was their hatred that fooled me
Frank is buttered up by his surprise birthday party so Hawkeye and Trapper ask him to sign Klinger’s release papers. Frank seems willing, until he sees what’s written on the paper:
Frank: Never! You’re asking me to let a pervert out of the Army?
Operation Noselift (Season 2, Episode 18)
Some of the funniest Frank Burns moments take place in scenes between him and Radar. In these exchanges, it’s Radar’s responses that make the jokes:
Frank: [walking from Henry’s office into Radar’s office] What are you doing here?
Radar: I was drafted, sir.
Burns: Your nose is supposed to be broken
Radar: Uh, yes, well, Dr. Pierce said it was just a sprain and if I kept off it for a month I’ll only have to put liquids in it.
Frank: I’m a doctor, and that’s crazy!
Radar: I’ve heard that, sir
Crisis (Season 2, Episode 21)
The famous “lounge lizard at war” comment. Supply lines have been cut, meaning numerous items will not be sent to the unit. Hawkeye and Trapper are complaining:
Frank: I think HQ knows what it’s doing, buster!
Margaret: It’s galling to hear officers ridicule command.
Hawkeye: I’m not an officer. Two guys from the draft board caught me with a big butterfly net.
Frank: There you go: There’s your lounge lizard at war!
Trapper: Hold on. That one I gotta write down.
Frank: We’ve all had it too good, too long. What would have happened in 1776 if the minutemen on their way to Concord had stopped to worry about toilet paper?
Hawkeye: So we would have had Independence ten minutes later
Frank: [speaking of Klinger being in the Swamp] What’s he doing in here?
Hawkeye: Sharing our tent.
Frank: Not on your nellie. You won’t catch me sleeping with an enlisted man.
Hawkeye: Frank…
Frank: Hmm?
Hawkeye: Just wrap yourself in the flag and go to sleep.
Trapper: And don’t get in bed with that gun. That’s an order.
Frank: A captain can’t give a major an order.
Hawkeye: Then it’s a threat.
Frank: Well, that’s different. This was a great war until you guys showed up.
George (Season 2, Episode 22)
“Individuality is fine, as long as we all do it together.”
Mail Call (Season 2, Episode 23)
Frank gets good news from his stockbroker, telling him his investments have double since the war started and he now has $2000. Hawkeye is disgusted that Frank is profiting from the war, so writes a fake letter to his dad about a fake airline company called Pioneer Aviation. He includes fake “insider information” about a new government contract the company has procured and tells his father to sell all his shares and invest them in Pioneer Aviation. He “hides” the letter where Frank is sure to find it, causing Frank to send an urgent telegram to his stockbroker instructing him to sell his entire portfolio and invest everything in the nonexistent company:
Hawkeye: [explaining why he made up the fake airline company] To help you look foolish!
Frank: I don’t need your help!
A Smattering of Intelligence (Season 2, Episode 25)
Two different intelligence officers, Colonel Flagg and Major Pratt, accuse Frank Burns of being a subversive and want to arrest him:
Frank: Arrest me? What for, for heaven’s sake?
Flagg: You’re a communist.
Pratt: He’s a fascist.
Frank: I’m not either. I’m nothing!
Season 3
Rainbow Bridge (Season 3, Episode 2)
During a debate about whether or not to go meet Chinese doctors to exchange wounded:
“When are you going to learn about Chinese treachery? Didn’t Pearl Harbor teach you anything?”
O.R. (Season 3, Episode 5)
“I’d squeal on anybody. Once, in school, I caught my best friend smoking. I didn’t report him. Later, I snitched on myself for not snitching.”
Springtime (Season 3, Episode 6)
Frank being romantic with Margaret:
“Funny thing, war… Never have so many suffered so much so so few could be so happy.”
Alcoholics Unanimous (Season 3, Episode 9)
This one is not really about Funny Frank lines, but it is a particularly amusing exchange between Frank and Radar. Frank, in temporary command, declares the 4077 “dry” and closes the Officer’s Club:
Frank: [barracading the officer’s club] Ahh, it makes it one hundred percent. This place is now bone dry!
Radar: Yes, sir.
Frank: The uh, men detest me, don’t they?
Radar: Oh no, sir.
Frank: No, you can tell the truth. They hate me, don’t they?
Radar: Just your guts, sir.
Frank: Well this is for their own good! They don’t have to love me.
Radar: Uh, I’m sure they’ll be very happy to hear that, Major.
Frank: Well, you don’t have to stand there talking to me… Go to sleep!
Radar: I can do both at the same time
Mad Dogs and Servicemen (Season 3, Episode 13)
Frank had been reading a recent medical journal in the Swamp, to the surprise of his bunkmates:
Frank: [about reading a medical journal] Well, the Travis case has convinced me that I should keep up with the latest medical practices.
Hawkeye: That’s very good, Frank.
Frank: For instance, this article says a surgeon should base his fee on 5% of the patient’s yearly income.
Hawkeye goes against Franks wishes and follows Sidney Freedman’s advice to treat a soldier who’s suffering from hysterical paralysis:
“Anyone who needs psychiatry is sick in the head!”
Private Charles Lamb (Season 3, Episode 14)
A wounded soldier tells Frank that he intentionally shot himself because he thinks Frank is the chaplain:
Frank: You little scum, you! Shooting yourself. You oughta be shot for that!
Bombed (Season 3, Episode 15)
Frank complains about having to operate on a North Korean soldier. While he complains, the fearful and agitated soldier hits him in the face, causing Burns to outright refuse to operate on the “slant-eyed yellow devil. Hawkeye trades patients with Frank and while they are switching, Frank complains about the Costa Rican nurse who has been assisting Hawkeye:
Frank: Where’d that Costa-Rican nurse come from anyway?
Hawkeye: The U.N. The little place on the East Side?
Frank: Foreigners…why are there so many of them in a war?
Bulletin Board (Season 3, Episode 16)
Margaret tells Frank that her younger sister is getting married:
“Oh, marriage isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Let me tell you, honestly. No. Marriage is probably the chief cause of divorce.”
Margaret asks to borrow money from Frank, resulting in this hilarious exchange:
Frank: I just can’t do it. It rubs against the grain. ‘Neither a lender nor a borrower be.’ Polonius.
Margaret: ‘To give and not count the cost.’ St. Ignatius Loyola.
Frank: ‘The holy passion of friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last throughout a whole lifetime… if not asked to lend money.’ Mark Twain.
Margaret: ‘Blow it out your ear!’
House Arrest (Season 3, Episode 18)
An important high-ranking nurse is visiting the 4077 and is attempting to come on to Frank in Margaret’s tent:
Colonel Reese: I, um… I hear your marriage isn’t all beer and skittles.
Frank: Uhm, Louise. She has no sense of order. She’s always getting into my drawer and mixing up my marbles.
Aid Station (Season 3, Episode 19)
Frank is happy that Margaret is back from her stint at the Aid Station with Hawkeye and Klinger:
“I missed you so. I slept with one of your boots under my pillow, honest, really. I wrote you the longest love letter of my life. It takes up almost a whole roll of toilet paper.”
Abyssinia, Henry (Season 3, Episode 24)
Frank: I just wish I’d taken R.O.T.C. in school. I wasted so much time in the stamp club.
Margaret: I thought you were president.
Frank: Well, that wasn’t leadership. They needed someone to lick the stamps, and I had the biggest tongue.
Season 4
Welcome to Korea (Season 4, Episode 1)
Frank is driving a jeep that Hawkeye, B.J., and Radar stole from a general. Naturally, the MPs assume Frank stole it:
Hawkeye: I’d vouch for this man’s character, Lieutenant, but he doesn’t have any.
Frank: Snot! Snot! Snot!
Change of Command (Season 4, Episode 3)
Frank believes he is now permanently in command of the 4077 after Henry’s departure and tragic death. He reads one of his new regulations to Margaret:
Frank: Under no circumstances will enlisted men use the officer’s latrine…they’ve been sneaking in at night, you know?
Margaret: How can you tell?
Frank: One knows where one’s own kind has been.
Colonel Potter arrives to take over command, and Frank is AWOL. The crew hides this from Potter when Margaret asks them to. Franks finally shows up and reports to his new commander, a bruise on his face from stumbling around in the dark:
Colonel Potter: That’s a nasty bruise, Major.
Frank: Pain is no stranger to me, sir
“War…God help me I love it.”
“I’ll teach those dirty little enlisted rats to love me!”
Dear Peggy (Season 4, Episode 11)
Frank has been trying to teach a group of South Koreans English, having them repeat ridiculous anti-communist slogans like “better dead than red” and “get us out of the U.N.” Frank complains about Hawkeye taking so long to relieve him, saying he’s been there an hour:
Frank: We made progress.
Hawkeye: I can tell. You gotta Korean accent.
Frank: Stink fish pot!
Soldier of the Month (Season 4, Episode 12)
Klinger [referring to the bait Frank is using in his mouse trap] Sir, this stuff is really barf-making. Do you think the rats will go for it?
Frank: That happens to be my wife’s fruitcake, Corporal, of which you should be well-acquainted since you are one yourself!
“I wouldn’t mind being a doctor if I didn’t have to be around sick people.”
Frank is sick with Hemorrhagic Fever, and Margaret is taking care of him. He thinks he is going to di,e but Margaret tells him he’s not going to:
Margaret: Frank, have you made out a will?
Frank: Will? Why do I need a will if I’m not going to die?
Margaret: Everybody has to die sometime, Frank.
Frank: Well, you’d think they’d give officers a break.
Frank is delirious with fever:
Frank: Margaret, if I should go before you, look for me when you get there. I’ll be waiting for you on the other side.
Margaret: Frank… darling.
Frank: But, if I’m standing by my wife, pretend you don’t know me.
Frank, afraid he is may die from hemorrhagic fever, and at Margaret’s urging, decides to make his last will and testament. Margaret enlists Father Mulcahy to make out the will:
Father Mulcahy: Oh. But he does have the fever, and a person is supposed to be of sound mind.
Frank: Oh, it’s okay, Father. I don’t think my mind was any sounder when I was well.
Frank dictates his will to Father Mulcahy:
Frank: My car, my house, all the money I buried in my backyard, goes to the only woman who ever really cared, ever really understood – my wife, Louise. She’ll have to thaw out the map; it’s inside some ground chuck in the basement freezer. My savings account passbook number is in the same bottle as my appendix.
Father Mulcahy: Appendix. Hmm…a-anything else?
Frank: For my children, all profits from my prescription kickbacks.
Father Mulcahy: Oh, dear.
Frank: These are recorded in my red ledger, not the blue one that I show to the government. And finally, to Major Margaret Houlihan, my friend, my comrade, my little soldier, I leave all my clothes.
The Gun (Season 4, Episode 13)
Frank steals a colonel’s prize handgun from the weapons locker. Margaret finds out and confronts him. She is mostly upset because he lied to her about the gun belonging to him and being sent from home:
Margaret: You lied to me Frank! That’s worse than stealing!
Frank: Well, I happen to think stealing is worse than lying.
Margaret: And you did both!
Frank: So I oughtta know!
Mail Call…Again (Season 4, Episode 14)
Frank is talking to his wife, who is asking for a divorce because she found out about his affair with Margaret. He denies it, describing Major Houlihan as an “old war horse” and an “an army mule with bosoms”:
Frank: Darling, you know that the moment I met you, I lost all interest in women.
The Price of Tomato Juice (Season 4, Episode 15)
“Courage is something you can’t be afraid to have.”
Frank is in line for chow in the mess tent, and Igor spills some applesauce:
Frank: Apples don’t grow on trees, you know!
This is an interesting exchange between Igor and Frank in the mess line, not only because it is funny, as their interactions always are, but because Frank calls Igor “Maxwell.” Jeff Maxwell is the real name of the actor who played Igor, but later we learn that the character’s last name is Straminsky. It appears that he may have been given the last name Maxwell (supporting characters are often given their own real names), and it was later changed, or the writers forgot! On the other hand, was it a blooper?
Frank: You’re going on KP, Maxwell!
Igor: I AM on KP, sir.
Frank: Well, the minute you come off, you’re going on!
Der Tag (Season 4, Episode 17)
In the Officer’s Club, with B.J. tending bar:
Frank: [handing a martini glass to BJ] Can I have another lemon squash?
B.J. Hunnicutt: Coming up, Tex.
Col. Potter: Best keep your wits about you, Major.
Frank: Oh, don’t worry about me, sir. I got a hollow head.
Some 38th Parallels (Season 4, Episode 19)
Col. Potter [to Frank]: Don’t be abusive!
Frank: I’m sorry, Colonel, it’s just my nature.
Col. Potter: Enlisted men have feelings, you know.
Frank: I keep forgetting that, sir.
The Novocaine Mutiny (Season 4, Episode 20)
Frank is talking to Colonel Potter, prior to the Colonel’s departing for six day R&R in Tokyo. Frank is gleeful and eager to take over. Potter tells him to take it easy and not do too much “second in commanding” while he’s gone, but Frank can’t wait to start bossing everyone around:
Frank: I think it was Napoleon who said, without discipline, an army is no more than a bunch of guys all wearing the same color clothes.
Col. Potter: Napoleon?
Frank: Might have been Mussolini
Frank has accused Hawkeye of mutiny and is testifying during the court-martial proceedings:
“Unless we each conform, unless we obey orders, unless we follow our leaders blindly, there is no possible way we can remain free.”
While searching Father Mulcahy’s tent for the missing money, Radar is surprised to see more than one collar in the father’s drawer:
Radar: Hey, he’s got extras.
Frank: What do you mean, extras?
Radar: I thought he had just the one collar.
Frank: Well, why should he have just one? What did you think he did when it got dirty or worn out? Converted?
A rare clever line from Frank. Zale lets slip to Frank that he lost 300 dollars. He actually lost the money to Radar while gambling and Frank, in temporary command, has banned gambling in the camp. Realizing his mistake, Zale explains that the money just went missing, poof! Frank assumes the money was stolen and starts searching for it. In Hawkeye’s court-martial proceedings, Radar admits that the missing money Frank was searching the camp for was inside his teddy bear:
Frank: I knew I should have ripped the stuffings out of the dirty little bugger when I had the opportunity.
Colonel Carmichael: Wouldn’t you have felt a little silly if that money hadn’t been inside that bear?
Frank: I wasn’t talking about the bear.
Deluge (Season 4, Episode 23)
Frank: I, for one, am glad the Chinese have finally gotten into the show. We’ll obliterate them all.
B.J. Hunnicutt: All 600 million, Frank?
Frank: Well, most of ’em don’t wanna be Reds anyway.
B.J. Hunnicutt: Then why kill ’em?
Frank: Well, they can’t have it both ways
The Interview (Season 4, Episode 24)
“I’m one of those who feels that marriage is the headstone of American society.”
Season 5
Bug Out (Season 5, Episode 1)
During a bug out Frank sees an enlisted man carelessly tossing a stack of toilet seats into the back of a truck:
Frank: If I get slivers, I’ll have your stripes.
Enlisted Man: I’m a private.
Frank: Don’t pull rank on me!
The building that Colonel Potter wants to use as the hospital at the new camp location is occupied by a group of prostitutes. While the colonel and B.J. are talking to the madame, Frank walks over and asks who the women are. Frank deserves some credit for this one. For someone who doesn’t know the expression B.J. uses, Frank’s guess is actually fairly lucid!
B.J.: The assistance league.
Frank: Assistance league?
B.J.: The oldest profession.
Frank: (looking puzzled for a moment) A bakery
Margaret’s Engagement (Season 5, Episode 2)
Margaret announces her engagement, and Frank is trying to get under her skin and make her jealous:
Frank: Listen, Pierce, why don’t you and I go out on the town tonight, hmm?
Hawkeye: Well, this is so sudden, Frank. I don’t have anything to wear.
Frank: Well, I mean, get a couple of nurses, go over to Rosie’s bar, have a little fun.
Hawkeye: Sounds good to me.
Frank: There’s this little redheaded nurse who’s had her eye on me. And tonight her wish will come true.
Margaret: Do you mean that new girl with the freckles on her nose?
Frank: Yes, that’s the one.
Margaret: She’s a little young for you, isn’t she, Major Burns?
Frank: Oh, I don’t know. I thought a little youth might be nice for a change.
Frank [in regards to Margaret’s fiancé, Donald Penobscott] What does he got that I haven’t got?
Margaret: Lips.
Frank: …Lips aren’t everything!
The Abduction of Margaret Houlihan (Season 5, Episode 6)
When Radar came to the Swamp looking for Margaret:
“Any mindless baboon can see she’s not here, including me!”
Frank accidentally shoots B.J. in the leg and is afraid Hawkeye and B.J. will report him:
Hawkeye: Frank, stop acting like a sniveling idiot!
Frank: I’m not acting!
Hawkeye promises Frank they won’t tell about him shooting B.J. in the leg and then immediately tells Col. Potter:
“Tattletale! Stool Pigeon! Fake Indian giver!”
“Pound it out your porthole!”
Dear Sigmund (Season 5, Episode 7)
[To Sidney Freeman] “I happen to believe in the sanctity of marriage, no matter how ugly or disgusting it gets.”
The Korean Surgeon (Season 5, Episode 9)
“That’s the way these yellow devils think. It’s burned into their brains. Kill Americans. Kill. Kill. They don’t respect human life the way we do. I’d like to take him out and shoot him.”
Hawkeye, Get Your Gun (Season 5, Episode 10)
“Blow it out your bagpipe.”
Movie Tonight (Season 5, Episode 22)
Hawkeye: Frank, go make yourself useful.
Frank: I’m a supervisor. I don’t have to be useful.
