Why did they change his name?
I'm surprised no one has mentioned this. On MASH, his name was John Francis Xavier McIntyre. On TJMD, the plate on his door said John T. McIntyre.
shareThe official answer was he was based in the movie mash not the tv show, to get around paying both the movie and tv producers royalties.
The funny thing the tv producers would do is send a script with message that trapper john died, then when trapper john producers would call they would say it was the tv version not the movie one and the audience would understand