M*A*S*H (TV series)

Through changes of personnel M*A*S*H maintained a relatively constant ensemble cast, with four characters – Hawkeye, Father Mulcahy, Margaret Houlihan, and Maxwell Klinger – on the show for all 11 seasons. Several other main characters departed or joined the program during its run, and numerous guest actors and recurring characters were used. The writers found creating so many names difficult, and used names from elsewhere; for example, characters on the seventh season were named after the 1978 Los Angeles Dodgers.[1]

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  Publicity photo of the cast of M*A*S*H shot just prior to the production of Season 2, 1974 (clockwise from left): Loretta Swit, Larry Linville, Wayne Rogers, Gary Burghoff, McLean Stevenson, and Alan Alda
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  The cast of M*A*S*H from Season 6, 1977 (clockwise from left): William Christopher, Gary Burghoff, David Ogden Stiers, Jamie Farr, Mike Farrell, Alan Alda, Harry Morgan, Loretta Swit.
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  The cast of M*A*S*H from season 8 onward (clockwise from left): Mike Farrell, William Christopher, Jamie Farr, David Ogden Stiers, Loretta Swit, Alan Alda, and Harry Morgan

As the series progressed, it made a significant shift from being primarily a comedy with dramatic undertones to a drama with comedic undertones. This was a result of changes in writing and production staff, rather than the cast defections of McLean Stevenson, Larry Linville, Wayne Rogers and Gary Burghoff. Series co-creator and comedy writer Larry Gelbart departed after Season 4, the first featuring Mike Farrell and Harry Morgan. This resulted in Farrell and Morgan having only a single season reading scripts featuring Gelbart's comic timing, which defined the feel and rhythm of Seasons 1–4 featuring predecessors Rogers and Stevenson, respectively. Larry Linville (the show's comic foil) and Executive Producer Gene Reynolds both departed at the conclusion of Season 5 in 1977, resulting in M*A*S*H being fully stripped of its original comedic foundation by the beginning of Season 6 — the debut of the Charles Winchester era.[2]

Whereas Gelbart and Reynolds were the comedic voice of M*A*S*H for the show's first five seasons (1972–1977), Alan Alda and newly promoted Executive Producer Burt Metcalfe became the new dramatic voice of M*A*S*H for Seasons 6–11. By the start of Season 8 (1979–1980), the writing staff had been completely overhauled, and with the departure of Gary Burghoff, M*A*S*H displayed a distinctively different feel, consciously moving between comedy and drama.

The end of the Vietnam War in 1975 was a significant factor as to why storylines become less political in nature and more character driven. Several episodes experimented by going outside the sitcom format:

• "Point of View" – shown from the perspective of a soldier with a throat wound
• "Dreams" – an idea of Alda's, where during a deluge of casualties, members of the 4077 take naps on a rotation basis, allowing the viewer to see the simultaneously lyrical and disturbing dreams
• "A War For All Seasons" – features a story line that takes place over the course of 1951
• "Life Time" – a precursor to the American television series 24, it utilizes the real time method of narration[2]

Another change was the infusion of story lines based on actual events and medical developments that materialized during the Korean War. Considerable research was done by the producers, including interviews with actual MASH surgeons and personnel to develop story lines rooted in the war itself. Such early 1950s events as the McCarthy era, various sporting events, and the stardom of Marilyn Monroe were all incorporated into various episodes, a trend that continued until the end of the series.[2]

While the series remained popular through these changes, it eventually began to run out of creative steam. Korean War doctors regularly contacted producers with experiences that they thought might make for a good storyline, only to learn the idea had previously been used. Harry Morgan admitted that he felt "the cracks were starting to show" by season 9 (1980–1981).[2] Alda wished to make season 10 (1981-1982) M*A*S*H's last, but was persuaded by CBS to produce a slightly shortened 11th season, coupled with a farewell movie finale, at CBS' request. In the end, season 11 had 15 episodes (although six had been filmed during season 10 and held over) and a ​2 ¹⁄₂-hour movie, which was treated as five episodes and was filmed before the nine remaining episodes. The final episode produced was the penultimately aired episode "As Time Goes By". The series finale movie, titled "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen", became the most watched U.S. television broadcast in history at that time, with 106 million viewers.[2]

M*A*S*H site in Malibu Creek State Park. Hulk of a Dodge WC54 ambulance. Copy of the original M*A*S*H signpost was installed on the site in 2008.

The 4077th consisted of two separate sets. An outdoor set in the mountains near Malibu (Calabasas, Los Angeles County, California) (34°5′47.55″N 118°44′41.24″W) was used for most exterior and tent scenes for every season. This was the same set used to shoot the movie, although there were changes made to the positions of several tents for the TV show. The indoor set, on a sound stage at Fox Studios in Century City, was used for the indoor scenes for the run of the series. Later, after the indoor set was renovated to permit many of the "outdoor" scenes to be filmed there, both sets were used for exterior shooting as script requirements dictated (e.g., night scenes were far easier to film on the sound stage, but scenes at the helicopter pad required using the ranch).

Just as the series was wrapping production, a brush fire destroyed most of the outdoor set on October 9, 1982. The fire was written into the final episode as a forest fire caused by enemy incendiary bombs that forced the 4077th to move out.

The Malibu location is today known as Malibu Creek State Park. Formerly called the Century Ranch and owned by 20th Century Fox Studios until the 1980s, the site today is returning to a natural state, and is marked by a rusted Jeep and a Dodge ambulance used in the show. Through the 1990s, the area was occasionally used for television commercial production.

On February 23, 2008, series stars Mike Farrell, Loretta Swit and William Christopher (along with producers Gene Reynolds and Burt Metcalfe and M*A*S*H director Charles S. Dubin) reunited at the set to celebrate its partial restoration. The rebuilt signpost is now displayed on weekends, along with tent markers and maps and photos of the set. The state park is open to the public. It was also the location where the film How Green Was My Valley (1941) and the Planet of the Apes television series (1974) were filmed, among many other productions. Much of this location, including the signpost and markers, was thought to have been destroyed in the 2018 Woolsey Fire[3] but subsequently was determined to have survived the fire.[4]

The operating room set on display in the National Museum of American History as part of the "MASH: Binding Up the Wounds" exhibit in 1983.

The exhibit M*A*S*H: Binding Up the Wounds was at the National Museum of American History from July 30, 1983 through February 3, 1985. The exhibit was extremely popular, drawing more than 17,000 in a single week, a record for any Smithsonian display.[5]

On exhibit were The Swamp and Operating Room sets, one of the show's 14 Emmy Awards, early drafts of the pilot script, costumes from the show and other memorabilia. Sets were decorated with props from the show including the iconic signpost, Hawkeye's still and Major Winchester's Webcor tape recorder and phonograph. The exhibit also encouraged visitors to compare the show to real Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals of the Korean and the Vietnam Wars. [6][7]

Radar's teddy bear, originally found at the ranch set, was never on display at the Smithsonian. Following completion of production, the prop was kept by the show's set designer. It was sold several times including to Burghoff himself.[8] It was sold at auction on July 29, 2005 for $11,800, it sold again on March 27, 2015 for $14,307.50 after 19 bids.[9]

M*A*S*H was one of the first network series to feature brief partial nudity (notably Gary Burghoff's buttocks in "The Sniper" and Hawkeye in one of the "Dear Dad" episodes). A different innovation was based on the show's producers' desire not to have a laugh track, contrary to the network's desire to have one. They compromised by omitting laughter in the scenes set in the operating room. The DVD releases of the series allow viewers to select an audio version with no laugh track.

In his blog, writer Ken Levine revealed that on one occasion, when the cast offered too many nitpicking "notes" on a script, his writing partner and he changed the script to a "cold show" – one set during the frigid Korean winter. The cast then had to stand around barrel fires in parkas at the Malibu ranch when the temperatures neared 100 °F (38 °C). Levine says, "This happened maybe twice, and we never got a ticky-tack note again."[10]

Jackie Cooper wrote that Alan Alda, whom Cooper directed in several episodes during the first two seasons, concealed a lot of hostility beneath the surface, and the two of them barely spoke to each other by the time Cooper's tenure on the show ended.[11]

The helicopters used on the series were model H-13 Sioux (military designation and nickname of the Bell 47 civilian model). As in the film, some care seems to have been taken to use the correct model of the long-lived Bell 47 series. In the opening credits and many of the episodes, Korean War-vintage H-13Ds and Es (Bell 47D-1s) were used complete with period-correct external litters. A later (1954–73) 47G occasionally made an appearance. The helicopters are similar in appearance (with the later "G" models having larger two-piece fuel tanks, a slightly revised cabin, and other changes) with differences noticeable only to a serious helicopter fan. In the pilot episode, a later Bell 47J (production began in 1957) was shown flying Henry Blake to Seoul, en route to a meeting with General Hammond in Tokyo.[12] A Sud Aviation Allouette II helicopter was also shown transporting Henry Blake to the 4077th in the episode "Henry, Please Come Home".

The Jeeps used were 1953 military M38 or civil CJ2A Willys Jeeps and also World War II Ford GPWs and Willys MB's. Two episodes featured the M38A1 Jeep, one of which was stolen from a General by Radar and Hawkeye after their Jeep was stolen. Two of the ambulances were WC-54 Dodges and one was a WC-27. A WC-54 ambulance remains at the site and was burned in the Malibu fires on October 9, 1982, while a second WC-27 survives at a South El Monte museum without any markings. The bus used to transport the wounded was a 1954 Ford model. In the last season, an M43 ambulance from the Korean War era also was used in conjunction with the WC-54s and WC-27.

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  Bell 47G helicopter in MASH colours.
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  Burned Dodge ambulance at Malibu Creek State Park
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  Burned Jeep (most likely a CJ-2A) at Malibu Creek State Park

Series creators Larry Gelbart and Gene Reynolds wanted M*A*S*H broadcast without a laugh track. Though CBS initially rejected the idea, a compromise was reached that allowed for omitting the laughter during operating room scenes if desired. "We told the network that under no circumstances would we ever can laughter during an OR scene when the doctors were working," said Gelbart in 1998. "It's hard to imagine that 300 people were in there laughing at somebody's guts being sewn up."[13]

Seasons 1–5 utilized a more invasive laugh track; a more subdued audience was employed for Seasons 6–11 when the series shifted from sitcom to comedy-drama with the departure of Gelbart and Reynolds. Several episodes ("O.R.", "The Bus", "Quo Vadis, Captain Chandler?", "The Interview", "Point of View", and "Dreams" among them) omitted the laugh track altogether; as did almost all of Season 11, including the 135-minute series finale, "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen".[14] The laugh track is also omitted from some international and syndicated airings of the show; on one occasion during an airing on BBC2, the laugh track was accidentally left on, and viewers expressed their displeasure, an apology from the network for the "technical difficulty" was later released, as during its original run on BBC2 in the UK, it was shown without the laugh track. UK DVD critics speak poorly of the laugh track, stating "canned laughter is intrusive at the best of times, but with a programme like M*A*S*H, it's downright unbearable."[15]

On all released DVDs, both in Region 1 (including the US and Canada) and Region 2 (Europe, including the UK), an option is given to watch the show with or without the laugh track.[16][17]

"They're a lie," said Gelbart in a 1992 interview. "You're telling an engineer when to push a button to produce a laugh from people who don't exist. It's just so dishonest. The biggest shows when we were on the air were All in the Family and The Mary Tyler Moore Show both of which were taped before a live studio audience where laughter made sense," continued Gelbart. "But our show was a film show – supposedly shot in the middle of Korea. So the question I always asked the network was, 'Who are these laughing people? Where did they come from?'" Gelbart persuaded CBS to test the show in private screenings with and without the laugh track. The results showed no measurable difference in the audience's enjoyment. "So you know what they said?" Gelbart said. "'Since there's no difference, let's leave it alone!' The people who defend laugh tracks have no sense of humor."[14] Gelbart summed up the situation by saying, "I always thought it cheapened the show. The network got their way. They were paying for dinner."[18]

"Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" was the final episode of M*A*S*H. Special television sets were placed in PX parking lots, auditoriums and day rooms of the U.S. Army in Korea so that military personnel could watch that episode, in spite of 14 hours' time-zone difference with the East Coast of the US. The episode aired on February 28, 1983, and was 2​¹⁄₂ hours long. The episode got a Nielsen rating of 60.2 and 77 share[20] and according to a New York Times article from 1983, the final episode of M*A*S*H had 125 million viewers.[21]

When the M*A*S*H finale aired in 1983, more than 83.3 million homes in the United States had televisions, compared to almost 115 million in February 2010.[22]

"Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" broke the record for the highest percentage of homes with television sets to watch a television series. Stories persist that the episode was seen by so many people that the New York City Sanitation/Public Works Department reported the plumbing systems broke down in some parts of the city from so many New Yorkers waiting until the end to use the toilet. Articles copied into Alan Alda's book The Last Days of M*A*S*H include interviews with New York City Sanitation workers citing the spike in water use on that night. According to the interviews at 11:03 pm, EST New York City public works noted the highest water usage at one given time in the City's history. They attributed this to the fact that in the three minutes after the finale ended, around 77 percent of the people of New York City flushed their toilets.[23] These stories have all since been identified as part of an urban legend dating back to the days of the Amos and Andy radio program in the 1930s.[24]

The series premiered in the US on September 17, 1972, and ended on February 28, 1983, with the finale, showcased as a television film, titled "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen", becoming the most-watched and highest-rated single television episode in US television history at the time, with a record-breaking 125 million viewers (60.2 rating and 77 share),[25] according to the New York Times.[21] It had struggled in its first season and was at risk of being cancelled.[26] In season two, M*A*S*H was placed in a better time slot by CBS (airing after the popular All in the Family); the show then became one of the top 10 programs of the year and stayed in the top 20 programs for the rest of its run.[26] It is still broadcast in syndication on various television stations. The series, which depicted events occurring during a three-year war, spanned 256 episodes and lasted 11 seasons. The Korean War lasted 1,128 days, meaning each episode of the series would have averaged almost four and a half days of real time. Many of the stories in the early seasons are based on tales told by real MASH surgeons who were interviewed by the production team. Like the movie, the series was as much an allegory about the Vietnam War (still in progress when the show began) as it was about the Korean War.[27]

The episodes "Abyssinia, Henry" and "The Interview" were ranked number 20 and number 80, respectively, on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time in 1997.[28] In 2002, M*A*S*H was ranked number 25 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.[29] In 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked it as the fifth-best written TV series ever[30] and TV Guide ranked it as the eighth-greatest show of all time.[31] In 2016, Rolling Stone ranked it as the 16th-greatest TV show.[32]

M*A*S*H was nominated for over 100 Emmy Awards during its 11-year run, winning 14:

• 1974 – Outstanding Comedy Series – M*A*S*H; Larry Gelbart, Gene Reynolds (Producers)
• 1974 – Best Lead Actor in a Comedy Series – Alan Alda
• 1974 – Best Directing in Comedy – Jackie Cooper: "Carry On, Hawkeye"
• 1974 – Actor of the Year, Series – Alan Alda
• 1975 – Outstanding Directing in a Comedy Series – Gene Reynolds: "O.R."
• 1976 – Outstanding Film Editing for Entertainment Programming – Fred W. Berger and Stanford Tischler: "Welcome to Korea"
• 1976 – Outstanding Directing in a Comedy Series – Gene Reynolds: "Welcome to Korea"
• 1977 – Outstanding Directing in a Comedy Series – Alan Alda: "Dear Sigmund"
• 1977 – Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series – Gary Burghoff
• 1979 – Outstanding Writing in a Comedy-Variety or Music Series – Alan Alda: "Inga"
• 1980 – Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy or Variety or Music Series – Loretta Swit
• 1980 – Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy or Variety or Music Series – Harry Morgan
• 1982 – Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series – Alan Alda
• 1982 – Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy or Variety or Music Series – Loretta Swit

The show won the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series (Musical or Comedy) in 1981. Alan Alda won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Television Series (Musical or Comedy) six times: in 1975, 1976, 1980, 1981, 1982, and 1983. McLean Stevenson won the award for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Series in 1974.

The series earned the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a Comedy Series seven times: 1973 (Gene Reynolds), 1974 (Reynolds), 1975 (Hy Averback), 1976 (Averback), 1977 (Alan Alda), 1982 (Alda), 1983 (Alda).

The show was honored with a Peabody Award in 1975 "for the depth of its humor and the manner in which comedy is used to lift the spirit and, as well, to offer a profound statement on the nature of war." M*A*S*H was cited as "an example of television of high purpose that reveals in universal terms a time and place with such affecting clarity."[44]

Writers for the show received several Humanitas Prize nominations, with Larry Gelbart winning in 1976, Alan Alda winning in 1980, and the team of David Pollock and Elias Davis winning twice in 1982 and 1983.

The series received 28 Writers Guild of America Award nominations – 26 for Episodic Comedy and two for Episodic Drama. Seven episodes won for Episodic Comedy in 1973, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1980, and 1981.