More than 50 years after that very first teddy bear appearance, “M*A*S*H” fans continue to talk about the significance of the stuffed animal in the Korean War-set series. Head writer and co-creator Larry Gelbart even responded to questions about the bear in a “M*A*S*H” discussion group in 2000. But his feelings about the bear weren’t what you might think.
In a post to the altv.tv.mash group, Gelbart wrote, “I have to confess that while I thought giving Radar a teddy bear as a form of security blanket, I think we went too far with it and it got awfully coy … When we allowed him to go public with it to everyone in the camp, I think we went too far, the device becoming far too coy.” In another post, Gelbert referred to Radar’s “immature need for his security bear.”
But Gary Burghoff embraced his character’s childlike side — and he claimed Gelbart did, too. In response to a question on TV comedy writer Ken Levine’s blog, Burghoff praised Gelbert for helping him mold company clerk Radar into a “more innocent, naive character” in contrast to the rest of the show’s cast. Burghoff also noted that Gelbert once said Radar was his favorite to write for because the others, many of them doctors and medical personnel, were too intellectual, saying, “I think he liked the fact that the character lacked guile and he could write from his own honest ‘child’s-self’ as opposed to having to create ‘clever’ intellectual hyperbole.”
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