The Longjohn Flap autobiography, "Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: and Other Things I've Learned", Alan Alda says that for this episode, he borrowed the structure from "La Ronde". "In my version, the object that's passed from couple to couple is a pair of long johns during a cold spell in the Korean winter." The Longjohn Flap "The Longjohn Flap" was episode #19 of the first season of the TV series "M*A*S*H". It originally aired on February 18, 1973 and was the first episode of "M*A*S*H" to be written by series star Alan Alda. In the middle of a cold snap, Hawkeye receives a
Alan Alda patients being treated for childhood cancer at Saint Jude. Alda and Marlo Thomas had also worked together in the early 1970s on a critically acclaimed children's album entitled "Free to Be You and Me", which featured Alda, Thomas, and a number of other well-known character actors. This project remains one of the earliest public signs of his support of women's rights. In 2005, Alda published his first round of memoirs, "Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: and Other Things I've Learned". Among other stories, he recalls his intestines becoming strangulated while on location in La Serena, Chile, for his PBS show