Released in 1981 from Milton Bradley, the M*A*S*H board game aimed to capture the spirit of the beloved television series, tasking players with the challenge of ushering the wounded to safety.
M*A*S*H was a critically acclaimed television series that aired from 1972 to 1983. The show was set during the Korean War and followed the lives of the staff of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, a medical unit stationed close to the front lines. The show balanced comedic escapades with serious examinations of the human cost of war, exploring themes of loss, trauma, friendship, love, and survival. Milton Bradley’s board game incorporated familiar elements of the series, including central characters Hawkeye Pierce, Major Margaret Houlihan, B.J. Hunnicutt, and Corporal Maxwell Klinger.
GAMEPLAY
The goal of the roll-and-move board game was to be the first player to bring a helicopter and six wounded to the surgical hospital’s chopper pad.
The board was divided into quadrants, each illustrated with one of the four M*A*S*H characters included in the game.
To start, each player chose a character and a plastic Jeep pawn. The pawn was placed on the quadrant with the character’s name. The M*A*S*H cards were shuffled and placed face-down on the board. The cardboard stretchers, which represented the wounded, were also placed on the board. The player with the highest roll of the dice started the game.
Players rolled the dice and moved their Jeep the corresponding number of spaces forward or backward along the board. There were four categories of stops along the board: M*A*S*H, Supply Depot, Fire Zone, and a safety region.
When a roll landed a player on a M*A*S*H space, a M*A*S*H card was taken from the top of the pile. These cards provided instructions for further play, such as collect the wounded, take a chopper part, transfer the wounded to or from an opponent, take a chopper part from an opponent, move to the supply depot, and visit a character’s tent.
Landing on a Supply Depot space gave a player the chance to acquire a segment of their chopper (choppers were assembled from three separate pieces: nose, middle, and tail). The Fire Zone meant a player lost a turn.
The safety region led to the final spot, the chopper pad. A player needed a complete chopper and six wounded to qualify for a landing at the pad.
The first player to acquire all their pieces and land at the chopper pad won the game.
IN THE BOX
A complete game included a game board, four plastic Jeeps (red, blue, yellow, and green), 32 M*A*S*H cards, 33 cardboard stretchers, and one dice. Instructions were printed on the underside of the box top.
COLLECTOR CONSIDERATIONS
Milton Bradley published a plethora of board games based on television shows, including Patty Duke Game from Milton Bradley (1963), I Dream of Jeannie Game from Milton Bradley (1965), The Wacky Races from Milton Bradley (1969), The Funky Phantom Game (1971), Scooby-Doo Where Are You! (1973), Land of the Lost from Milton Bradley (1975), and The Jetsons Game (1985). These games demonstrated the strong connection between television and the toy industry, often becoming sought-after collectibles.
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