It all started by a book written by Dr Richard Hornberger as he sat waiting for patients at his offices in Bremen, Maine. Using the pseudonym Richard Hooker it was a fictional account of his years at the 8055 Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in Korea. He based Hawkeye on himself (though he said he never liked Alda's portrayal of the character). Hornberger wrote a number of books featuring the same characters but non were as successful as the first.

The movie rights were bought for $10,000 and went on to be a huge success. It also feautred the hit song 'Sucide is Painless'. t was William Self (the president of Twentieth Century Fox) who turned the movie into a television series. With the movie set still available and with Fox owning the rights to the story he knew the series  would be inexpensive to produce. He hired Gene  Reynolds to produce (Reynolds had himself been a  child actor), who in turn contacted his friend Larry
 Gelbart to write a script for the pilot show (Gelbart had visited Korea while working as a gag writer for Bob Hope). Reynolds then hired Burt Metcalfe as associate producer and casting director.

The first to be cast was Gary Burghoff, who was the only actor from the movie asked to repeat his role. McLean Stevenson was cast as Henry Blake, although he had  originally wanted to play Hawkeye. The role of Hawkeye was the last character to be cast, apparently Alan Alda was reluctant to commit to a show that could have a long run.