White Gold (M*A*S*H) White Gold (M*A*S*H) "White Gold" is the 23rd episode of Season 3 of the CBS-TV series "M*A*S*H". The Army's supplies of penicillin are low, and thefts are high. For its medicinal value in treating infections, and because it gets top dollar on the black market, the drug has earned the nickname "white gold". A trio of soldiers dressed in spy gear is caught breaking into the 4077th's emergency ration. One is captured, who refuses to talk, and offers only a dog tag marked "Perkins" as identification. Radar O'Reilly traces the tag and learns it belonged to another soldier killed in
M*A*S*H (TV series) Larry Linville, Wayne Rogers and Gary Burghoff. Series co-creator and joke writer Larry Gelbart departed after Season 4, the first featuring Mike Farrell and Harry Morgan. This resulted in Farrell and Morgan having only a single season reading scripts featuring Gelbart's masterful comic timing, which defined the feel and rhythm of Seasons 1–4 featuring predecessors Rogers and Stevenson, respectively. Larry Linville (the show's comic foil) and Executive Producer Gene Reynolds both departed at the conclusion of Season 5 in 1977, resulting in "M*A*S*H" being fully stripped of its original tight comedic foundation by the beginning of Season 6 — the