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Harry Morgan's final acting role reunited him with an old M*A*S*H friend — and it never aired
We never got to see Potter and Winchester together one last time.
Harry Morgan made his screen debut as a soldier. Back then, he was billed as Henry Morgan, before he decided to change his name to avoid confusion with the comedian and I've Got a Secret panelist Henry Morgan. The Morgan you know best, the Harry Morgan of M*A*S*H, landed his first acting gig as "Mouthy" in To the Shores of Tripoli, a 1942 motion picture about the Marines.
Morgan would go on to star in one of the first sitcom spinoffs in television history, Pete and Gladys, a show built around his character on the hit Fifties series December Bride. He provided early on that he could do humor as well as hard-boiled characters, like his Officer Bill Gannon of Dragnet.
He put all those skills to use as Col. Sherman T. Potter of the 4077th. He carried that character over to another spinoff, AfterMASH, and for the rest of his life and career became associated with the horse-loving, painting, hard-on-the-outside-soft-in-the-inside Potter.
You might wonder how he bowed out of entertainment. The actor passed away in 2011 but gave his final Hollywood performance a dozen years prior. Unfortunately, nobody got to see it.
CBS came up with a handful of hits in the 1999–2000 television season. At least when it came to reality TV. Survivor and Big Brother both kicked off. The eye network struggled with its new comedy offerings. Work with Me and Love & Me lasted mere weeks. The latter at least had an excuse, as it was buried on Friday evening, shoved between Kids Say the Darndest Things and the science-fiction drama Now and Again.
Like many flops, in hindsight, Love & Money put together an impressive cast. David Ogden Stiers and Swoosie Kurtz played the millionaire parents of Paget Brewster, whose character decides to go against her family and marry a blue-collar worker. Brian Doyle-Murray played that guy's dad. Judy Greer was "Puff," a spoiled rich girl.
Anyway, that is not so important. We're here to talk about the ninth episode, "Career Daze." That just so happened to feature Harry Morgan as a guest star. Morgan played the elder patriarch of the wealthy Conklin family. He was cast as the father to David Ogden Stiers.
Yep, M*A*S*H fans, Potter played Winchester's pop! There is just one catch — CBS canceled Love & Money after five episodes, leaving eight finished episodes in the can. Indeed, "Career Daze" was one of these unaired episodes. Audiences never got to see this M*A*S*H reunion! That would explain why we had to Photoshop in an image of Harry Morgan from a 1997 3rd Rock from the Sun episode above. That actually ended up being his final appearance on television.
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