Redartz: Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of "TV Guided". For this installment, we will remember one of the most outstanding series ever to appear on broadcast television. M*A*S*H was a rare blend of comedy and drama that really worked, and worked well. The show was popular enough to run for 11 seasons, from 1972 to 1983. Yet it also raked in loads of awards and critical praise from Golden Globes to Emmys to the Peabody Award. And the final episode of the series, broadcast in 1983, remains one of the most-watched television programs of all time.
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| Mclean Stevenson (Col. Henry Blake) |
Set against the backdrop of the Korean War, the show was derived from the theatrical film of the same name, and reflected the anti-war sentiments of the Vietnam era. Yet it was far more than that; the show conveyed many messages and themes over it's lifetime. It played with the medium itself, with such experiments as a black-and-white episode, press interview episode, and many more. The show could be achingly poignant. One such episode was that in which Col. Henry Blake (Mclean Stevenson) was given a festive send off home. The absolute silence in the operating room, after it wasannounced that Blake's plane had been shot down with no survivors, spoke his loss eloquently.
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| Wayne Rogers (Trapper John) and Alan Alda (Hawkeye Pierce) |
M*A*S*H was also, of course, a great source of humor (although I always felt the laugh track was unnecessary and somewhat intrusive). There was Corporal Max Klinger (Jamie Farr) and his eternal schemes to be sent home, Hawkeye (Alan Alda) with his wisecracks (he seemed to channel a bit of Groucho Marx), Major "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Loretta Swit) and her shaky relationship with Major Frank Burns (Larry Linville). And that's only the tip of the iceberg; M*A*S*H found innumerable ways to find laughs amid the horrors of war.
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| Harry Morgan (Col. Potter) and Gary Burghoff (Radar O'Reilly) |
Yet he show's greatest strength, in my opinion, was the cast. M*A*S*H was positively blessed with an abundance of talent, from it's first season to the last. Characters came and went; Hawkeye's nemesis Burns was replaced by the patrician Charles Emerson Wincester (David Ogden Stiers). After Col. Blake's death, command went to Col. Sherman Potter (wonderfully played by Harry Morgan).
However, one thing that never changed was the sheer magnitude of talent offered by one of television's greatest ensemble casts.
Some vintage television programs tend to suffer a bit after the years pass: some seem dated, some appear rather low budget and even cheesy. Some seem oddly naive. M*A*S*H is not one of those. The show still hits you with highs and lows, even thirty (!?!) years after going off the air. I watched a couple episodes just prior to writing this, and the show was as powerful as ever. I don't know if I'd call it the best show in television's long history, but it would surely be a candidate. I will say that M*A*S*H was a part of many 'must see' evenings of television. And that final episode: I still recall watching it among 20 or so fellow students in the lounge at our college photo lab. Now that was event tv.
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| Early seasons: Larry Linville, Loretta Swit, Alan Alda, Mclean Stevenson, Wayne Rogers, William Christopher, Gary Burghoff, Jamie Farr |
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| Later seasons: Jamie Farr, Loretta Swit, David Ogden Stiers, Harry Morgan, Mike Farrell, Alan Alda, William Christopher |
