To many, M*A*S*H was the television show of the eighties; to David Ogden Stiers, it was simply “the green show.”

Stiers, who began starring in the popular show during its sixth season, explained that as one of the actors who experienced the show firsthand, he had a different perspective on the series.

“Everything is green - the tents, the vehicles, the hills, the food, sometimes the faces,” said Stiers during an interview with the Standard-Speaker, explaining the nickname.

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Stiers starred as Major Charles Emerson Winchester III until the show ended in 1983. Much like his character, Stiers was straight-laced and always looking for a new way to challenge himself.

“Major Winchester is the astringent, not really a heavy,” said the actor. “It’s all right to play an Iago, but not week after week in a series. He is partly foil, partly precipitator, not entirely passive. At his best, he is fully a member of the swamp. His obstinacy is unassailable, and then out of the mahogany woodwork comes an act of decency, which he usually seeks to conceal.”

But perhaps Stiers was such a good actor that he had convinced audiences that he actually was his character.

“What is curious about this show is the reaction it seems to have on doctors,” said Stiers. “I will be stopped, say, at an airport by several physicians who recognize me as the Army doctor on TV. They act as though I had really gone to Harvard Medical School, asking my opinion on surgical techniques. They seem to be quite serious. Don’t they know they’re talking to an actor who can do a Spike Jones routine in pantomime?”