For the M*A*S*H cast, working 12 hours a day brought them closer together

12-hour days turned the M*A*S*H cast into a tight-knit bunch!

The Everett Collection

Just like the characters on the show, the cast of M*A*S*H were thick as thieves — and that’s something we can all celebrate.

Much like the members of the 4077th were brought together by chance, so were the cast members of M*A*S*H, who used their time together to forge lasting friendships behind the scenes.

In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, David Ogden Stiers said that during the filming of the show, more often than not, the cast was together.

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"We’ve been together twelve hours a day!," Ogden Stiers said. "It’s rather like being on a Greyhound bus tour for ten years. You check into the same motel, go to the same restaurant, get drunk with each other, then pack your bag and climb back on the bus with the same people."

All that proximity allowed the co-stars to get to know each other very, very well.

"I know things about Alan’s and Mike’s personal attitudes and cares and character that I wouldn’t feel free asking about if they were members of my own family," Ogden Stiers said. "And I know things of them I wouldn’t want to know about a family member."

While the friendships of the M*A*S*H cast seemed almost inevitable, he was aware of how rare such a relationship could be.

"Something like M*A*S*H might happen," Ogden Stiers said. "I’m not closing the door on the possibility. But the odds against it are pretty high. Ballplayers say that everything in life is seven-to-five against. That’s about what we’re fighting in whatever circumstance we go to when this is over."

For a cast that spent so much time together, it’s no surprise that the friendships ran deep. After all those long days, M*A*S*H became more than just a show — it became a shared chapter in their lives.