In the 255th episode of M*A*S*H, “As Time Goes By,” the cast buried a time capsule. While this was the second-to-last episode of the series, it was actually the last one that the cast filmed. And as it turns out, it gave the cast some major inspiration.
Jamie Farr (who played the iconic dress-wearing Corporal Maxwell Klinger) explained the premise of the episode in an interview for the Television Academy Foundation: “We decided that we were going to take some of our memorabilia, our things that we had, and put it in a box. A water-tight box. And bury it so that anybody that came to Korea someday might find it. Find our little notes that we wrote, and everything else.”
But the time capsule story didn’t end there. Inspired by the M*A*S*H script, Farr had an idea. “I said, ‘Hey, guys. Why don’t we take some of the things that we have for real, put it into one of these water-tight Red Cross boxes and bury it on the lot at 20th Century Fox. And maybe 25, 30 years later, tell everybody about it. It would be a great story.'”
The cast and crew were on board and hot to work. Farr revealed, “So they said, yes, you’re right. So what do we do? We’ll figure out what we want to leave in this box. And we’ll do it at nighttime after everybody’s left the studio, and we’ll dig a hole, and we’ll bury it there.”
Photo credit: © 2008 Joe Martinez/Picturelux / MEGA
In the darkness of night, the now-iconic M*A*S*H cast crept onto the 20th Century Fox lot, chose a space near the commissary and, with the help of the crew, began digging. According to Farr, Alan Alda’s wife Arlene Alda was there to document the event and photographed the entire process. As the cast dropped their memorabilia in and said some words, they broke out a bottle of champagne and toasted their time capsule.
While the actors assumed they’d wait decades to open the box, the studio had other plans. Shortly after burning the capsule, the powers that be decided to renovate the area and bulldozed through the lot. Farr revealed that the construction worker who found the box, “didn’t know what the heck it was and tossed it away.”
In another interview with the Television Academy Foundation, Alda shared that the worker actually contacted him about the box. “They started digging within a few months after we buried our capsule. And some construction worker called me up and said, ‘I got this thing, you want it?’ I said, ‘No, I don’t want it. It’s for whoever found it.’ He said, ‘Well, what’ll I do with it?’ It’s probably being sold on eBay right now for a fortune.”
That’s right, somewhere out there is a box of unopened M*A*S*H memorabilia that the actors left behind in 1983.
This story ‘M*A*S*H’ Stars Recreated the Show’s Time Capsule in Real Life, and It Could Be ‘Sold on eBay Right Now for a Fortune’ first appeared on Closer Weekly. Follow Closer Weekly on Yahoo so you don’t miss what’s coming next.