In the movie MASH, Hawkeye Pierce (Donald Sutherland) calls male friends "babe" several times. An example:

Duke Forrest: I think we've been had, Hawkeye.

Hawkeye Pierce: I think you're right, babe.

I always assumed this was a quirk with the character, but then today on Reddit I saw an Apollo 11 transcript about a floating poop and one of the astronauts said "Well, babe, if it was me . . ."

So it seems to me that this was a common thing for men to say to other men around 1969/1970, sort of like guys use "man" or "bro" nowadays. Does anyone know when it became common and when it stopped being used? I can't imagine men using it often nowadays, so obviously something changed at some point.