There's a hidden M*A*S*H reference in one of the most popular video games of the past year
Did Henry Blake somehow end up in the Wild West?
Henry Blake loved to fish. He was a fishing fanatic. As the commanding officer of the 4077th M*A*S*H unit in Korea, he often wore a bucket hat covered in fishing lures. (Though, that fashion choice did cause him pain once when he saluted and put his hand into a fishhook.) He was even known to kick back at his desk and tie fishing flies.
Margaret once called him a "mealy-mouthed, fly-fishing imposter," to which Hawkeye clarified Henry was a "genuine mealy-mouthed fly-fisher."
His fishing fanaticism made his demise all the more tragic. When Henry Blake leaves M*A*S*H at the end of the third season, the view expects him to head to a retirement filled with casting lines in creeks. Instead, he perishes in a plane crash. Would he have run a bait and tackle shop had he retired?
Well, the makers of the video game Red Dead Redemption 2 think so.
Rockstar Games, the publisher behind the massively successful and influential Grand Theft Auto series, released its Western epic Red Dead Redemption 2 a year ago, in October 2018. The cowboy adventure has since become one of the best-selling console games of 2019. Some consider it one of the greatest video games ever made.
And there is a M*A*S*H reference hiding in it.
Saint Denis is the largest city in the world of Red Dead Redemption. Hats off to Reddit user kpcnsk, who shared a discovery of a "H. Blake Fishing Tackle Maker" shop in Saint Denis.
If you think this is mere coincidence, consider that the first Red Dead Redemption, released in 2010, featured a character named Charlie Mash. Here he is:
Charlie Mash? H. Blake Fishing Tackle? Some Rockstar developer has been watching classic television.