Dear Dad Dear Dad "Dear Dad" was the 12th episode of the first season of the TV series "M*A*S*H". It originally aired on December 17, 1972 and was repeated on May 20, 1973. This was the first episode to use an epistle as part of the narrative, a device that would be used in later episodes. Hawkeye writes home to his father during the Christmas season, relating a number of amusing and personal anecdotes including Radar's effort to mail home a jeep piece-by-piece, the monthly morality lecture, Trapper's local medical philanthropy, and the ongoing non-secret relationship between Frank and Hot Lips. Hawkeye
Private Pike with his Home Guard uniform, which supposedly prevents him from getting croup, even though only infants and (apparently) chickens are supposed to get it ("Menace from the Deep"). Despite all this an army doctor certifies him healthy when he receives his call-up papers, though having a rare blood type excludes him from military service. Pike is a fan of the cinema and narrates the plots of films that relate to the platoon, even if the relationship is vague. When the film example does mirror reality, he picks scenarios which end in death. Pike makes pointless comments while trying to help: