Where Was MASH Filmed? (TV Series)

Have you ever noticed something odd about the MASH 4077 camp? In the outdoor shots, during the daylight, with the mountains and chopper pads in the distance, the camp seems large and more spread out than in the other close-in shots, such as most night-time shots and shots inside tents. The camp is suddenly more cramped and more cozy. This isn’t an illusion. It’s the reality of shooting the show in two different locations. The sound stage assigned to MASH was much too small for their needs. How did all this occur? Where was MASH filmed?

labelled still shot of MASH filming location, the Fox Ranch camp in Malibu

Two Filming Locations of MASH (TV Series)

As stated, the MASH TV show was filmed in two different locations. Wide outdoor action shots were filmed at the Fox Ranch in Malibu Creek State Park. This set was especially used for helicopter scenes and anything that took place in the bright daylight, including when the characters were traveling in vehicles. The interior shots, like inside the Swamp or mess tent, were filmed at 20th Century Fox Studios in Sound Stage 9. Many “outdoor” scenes in the compound were filmed here too, as a painted backdrop and special lighting were used to simulate an outdoor setting.

At the Fox Ranch in Malibu, the MASH showrunners inherited the setup that was left from the original MASH movie. Not much was changed about this camp, although the tents were modified for the show. The hospital building remained pretty much as it had been. Although most interior scenes were filmed on the soundstage, certain interior tent scenes were filmed at the outdoor Fox Ranch camp, such as in Dear Dad when Hawkeye is writing his letter in the Swamp and the outdoors are visible, showing the rugged landscape in the distance and the size of the compound. Some mess haul scenes were similar.

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The Problem With Sound Stage 9

Sound Stage 9 at the Fox Studios presented a problem. It was the smallest sound stage available. Gene Reynolds expressed his frustration that he had not been present when this stage was assigned! It caused a disparity between how the camp looked when scenes were filmed at the Fox Ranch in the mountains, and how it looked when filmed in the soundstage. The tents were closer together, and everything was just smaller. Once you’re aware of this, you can easily tell where scenes were filmed! There was also an echo that caused sound problems in the sound stage, and of course, there was a floor instead of dusty ground. ¹ Sure, they could put dirt and sand on the floor, but it was slippery and also made noise, such as when Klinger was walking in high heels. This made filming certain scenes a bit more difficult.

You will also notice that shots filmed on the sound stage, while purportedly in “daylight,” had a grayness to them. While the availability of brighter lights had enabled daylight shots to be filmed indoors, the lights still were not sufficient to create a convincing illusion of daylight. Today, powerful lights are used, set at precise locations, color temperatures are carefully manipulated, and many other technical tricks are used to create a convincing illusion of daylight on indoor sets.

The operating room in the sound stage was also considerably more cramped than the one in the “hospital building’ at the Fox Ranch location. This caused a lot of problems and is a source of visible discrepancy when operating room scenes switch between one location and the other.

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The Outdoor MASH Set Is Much Smaller Than It Looked

This is not to say that the 4077 camp at the Fox Ranch location was realistic in scale. Everything about it was miniaturized compared to an actual MASH unit in Korea. The units had hundreds of personnel and many more tents, spread out over a large area. And the tents were not small individual tents, or even medium-sized tents. They were long rows of tents placed together into longer tents, and then arranged in long rows or U-shapes. Hospitals, including the receiving, pre-op, the O.R., post-op, and holding, were just such a series of tents arranged in a giant U.

In contrast, the MASH 4077 camp was actually tiny. They tried to film it in ways to make it look bigger, but if you watch closely, especially in the opening credits, you can tell how small and close together all the tents and buildings are. There are several episodes with scenes that will give you a better idea of how small the camp really was. Below are some examples:

Season 3, Episode 17 (The Consultant): This is perhaps the best episode for getting a feel for the closeness of the camp from a ground view. At the beginning of the episode, Radar drives up to the main hospital building, which is the tin-sided building. Henry Blake comes out of the building and tells Radar to drive over the the swamp. Radar says, “Yes, sir” and comically drives to the Swamp before Blake can actually get into the jeep, and then sits there while Blake has to run over. As Blake arrives at the jeep having “run” this supposedly long distance, the camera pans around and you can see the main tin hospital building behind, showing that the distance between the first shot and the second shot is negligible, at best.

Then, Radar drives Hawkeye and Trapper to the chopper pad (Blake rides along), as they are leaving for a medical conference in Tokyo (this is completely unrealistic). We are supposed to believe that Radar drives a fair distance down a road, and the when filmed from the ground, the chopper pad usually showed with the mountains in the background. But when the chopper takes off, we can se that the MASH camp is basically right there, just at the bottom of a small hill or crest and is not more than perhaps 100 feet away if not 200. The road is just a circle leading from one edge of the chopper bad and around in a circle back to the camp just below the small hill.

Season 6, Episode 22 (Potter’s Retirement): when a Helicopter is landing you can see how close it actually is to the camp, although they usually tried to make the distance seem further and the camp much farther.

Season 7, Episode 11 (Point Of View): In this groundbreaking episode, we view the entire show through the eyes of a wounded solider, Private Billy Rich. He’s hit in the neck by shrapnel and transported to the MASH 4077 by helicopter. Since when the helicopter approaches the camp, the shot is filmed from the helicopter itself, it’s a good way to see the size of the camp from a more realistic perspective. The filming style made it hard to make things look more spread out than they actually were at the Fox Ranch.

During the approach, a complete view of the camp is possible. You can see doctors and personnel running up the steps to the upper chopper pad. These steps are quite wide and awkward, making running up them uneasy.

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Why Two Locations?

Why didn’t they just film everything at the Fox Ranch in the mountains? Fair question! The reason is that it was completely impractical. The Fox Ranch was around 30 to 45 minutes away from the studios. Filming scenes there required several buses to be filled with equipment and crew. It cost money and it took time. Once there, it was often scorching hot and uncomfortable. Larry Gelbart explained (²):

It’s in a place called Malibu Canyon, so you have to transport everybody there. It’s not like everybody driving to the studio and parking their car. They would have to come to the studio and you would have to provide transportation and take them out there and you would have to feed them… – Larry Gelbart

To make this clearer, the cast not only did not drive to the Malibu location, they were forbidden to do so. According to Gary Burghoff, the nearest place to make a phone call was a payphone at a gas station around 30 to 45 minutes away. If a cast member wanted to make a phone call, they would have to be driven by teamsters to the gas station, where they would make their call. ³

Even if the Malibu mountains filming location wasn’t such a logistical problem, it is not practical to film a television series entirely outdoors. You can’t control the weather, so if it rains or there is heavy wind, filming has to be delayed. In an indoor soundstage, weather can be “created” as needed. So, in other words, a primary reason that MASH wasn’t filmed entirely at the Fox Ranch is the same reason most television shows are not filmed entirely outdoors. Keep in mind, when I say outdoors, I mean not in a sound stage rather than without buildings. Then again, most of the MASH buildings were only tents.

At some point, if they filmed outdoors entirely at the Fox Ranch, they would lose the light and have to move indoors, anyway. Depending on the season, they would lose the light sooner. At some point, they would lose the light completely and have to stop filming sooner than desired. MASH was filmed for over 12 hours at a time. I seem to recall cast and producers saying they had 15-hour days.

Regardless, the showrunners would try to film at least once at the Fox Ranch for every episode and while there, the showrunners would go ahead and film as many other scenes for other episodes as they could, as long as the daylight held out. Of course, any shot with choppers, vehicles, etc. had to be shot outdoors, so it was always impossible for MASH to be shot entirely indoors. It was a show set in a war zone, after all. But due to the logistics, lighting, and other constraints, they had neither the time nor the budget to shoot more at the Fox Ranch.

However, 20th Century Fox insisted that the Fox Ranch be used for shooting the show. They had owned and used the land since 1946. Many classic and iconic movies and TV shows have been filmed there. Watch the original Planet of the Apes and you’ll recognize the scenery of MASH, not to mention Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Rifleman, The Chase, and even Kung Fu! It was also where they filmed the miniature skyscrapers for the Towering Inferno.

MASH TV series filming location at Malibu Creek State Park, area where mess tent stood, picnic tables covered by camouflage netting

Harsh Conditions On Set

The harsh conditions at the Fox Ranch are often the subject of cast stories. While most cast members consider the harsh conditions to have been useful, putting them in conditions similar to what those stationed at real MASH units during the Korean War must have experienced, others were not so fond of it. It is claimed that the extremes of temperature were one reason that McLean Stevenson, who played Henry Blake, decided to leave. In the morning, temperatures could be freezing, and then by the afternoon, rise to over 100°F.

Alan Alda, who played Hawkeye, talked often about the rats, although I was never sure if he was talking about the mountains or the sound stage. Chances are, rats were present at both locations. Wayne Rogers, who played Trapper John McIntyre, said he didn’t recall there being any rats but said there probably were, since anywhere there were humans, there are rats! Yep!

However, Alan Alda was in MASH for many more years than Wayne Rogers, so, as those humans worked in and inhabited those locations for those many years, more rats would have congregated. Therefore, both are probably correct.

Malibu Creek State Park

There is a widespread misconception that the area where MASH was filmed in the Malibu mountains became a public park after MASH went off the air. In reality, Fox sold the land to the state of California in 1974, and it became a public park in 1976. Through some kind of deal, MASH was able to keep filming at the Fox Ranch camp for years beyond this. A security guard was posted at the camp when no filming was happening, but it was possible for park visitors to walk right up to the MASH set and take a look around. The guard would make sure they didn’t pilfer anything, though!

MASH Set Burns Down

On October 9, 1982, the Gypsum Canyon brushfire occurred, caused by a downed power line. Just as filming was beginning for the finale episode, the fire reached the set and reduced everything to ashes. The fire was incorporated into the story, in fact. Filming had to be completed at Sound Stage 9 and, as I understand it, some filming was done at a rebuilt outdoor set in another location. Once the area at Fox Ranch was considered safe, they were able to film some scenes amidst the burned-out wreckage.

Sadly, nothing was left of the iconic setting of MASH, and neither Fox nor anyone else deemed it worth saving. However, fans showed continued interest in seeing where it all happened, and eventually, in 2007, a project was authorized for a “partial reconstruction.” One of the ambulances left by the studio, by that time, was so grown over by brush that visitors didn’t even know it was there.

The area was cleaned up and overgrowth was cleared, mostly so that visitors could see where everything had been located. The vehicle road to the helipad was restored, and some exhibits were built. A ceremony was held at the location to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of the show. Today, hundreds of fans from all over the world visit the area in Malibu Creek State Park to see the old filming location of MASH. ⁴,⁵

Keep in mind that if you want to visit, you are not going to see tents, or huge exhibits, or anything that looks like the old set. There are some rusted-out trucks, a signpost that looks like the one from the show, camouflage netting, and some plaques marking where things were in the camp. That’s about it.

But the landscape will be familiar, and you can get a good idea of where everything happened, including where the chopper pads were. There are picnic tables under the camouflage netting in the area where the mess tent used to be.

The main entrance is at 1925 Las Virgenes Road in Calabasas, California. This is about a 30-mile drive from the studio, which, since we’re talking about Los Angeles, means you’ll be able to get there by next Christmas if you leave now. You park your car in a parking area and pay a fee to enter. Then, it’s about a five-mile hike to the old filming location.

There is only one sign along the way, but you will pass the filming spots of other famous films or TV shows. They are not marked or commemorated in any way, though. There is a shorter route to the camp along the Cistern Trail, beginning off Mulholland Highway to the west of the park. This hike is only around 3.5 miles, but it’s tougher, going up and down hills and with much less shade. ⁶