M*A*S*H: I Think The Show Got Better As It Went On.

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Mr. Bandora, Aug 18, 2016.

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  1. Mr. Bandora

    Mr. Bandora Active Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    I think you guys are caring too much about a laugh track. I don't pay laugh tracks any mind when watching the show. It's a laugh track. You can tune it out.
     
  2. adm62

    adm62 Senior Member

    Location:
    Ottawa, Canada
    Not me. I watched the show originally in the UK as it went out which had no laugh track. If I come across an episode these days with the laugh track I switch channels. An abomination. Alda and other series creators were always against it.
     
  3. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    I don't think the debate is so much about whether it's plausible for a career officer to be anti-war, as it is about whether it's plausible for Margaret in particular to change from being pro-war to anti-war in the relatively short time her character would have been in Korea.
     
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  4. ohnothimagen

    ohnothimagen "Live music is better!"

    Location:
    Canada
    Once I got the DVD sets with the "no laugh track" option, I've used it ever since. I always found the laugh track annoying. They show M*A*S*H in our neck of the woods two episodes a night on the History Channel, but we never watch it due to the laugh track and equally annoying syndication cuts (of which for some episodes, particularly the earlier ones, there are plenty)
     
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  5. Fastnbulbous

    Fastnbulbous Doubleplus Ungood

    Location:
    Washington DC USA
    You've got to be kidding. And I thought the US History Channel had gone to ****...
     
  6. ohnothimagen

    ohnothimagen "Live music is better!"

    Location:
    Canada
    You bet. The History Channel up here in Canada has shown M*A*S*H for years...a couple times a year they even do day long "M*A*S*H Marathons" where they show most of the key episodes ("Abyssinia Henry", "Welcome To Korea", "Goodbye Radar," "Fade Out/Fade In" etc) and usually finish it off with the final episode. But, again, they're the syndication versions that tend to cut out anywhere from five to ten minutes an episode. When I got to see the series uncut on DVD after all those years of the syndication versions it was like seeing it for the first time again.
     
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  7. redsmith7887

    redsmith7887 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Philadelphia, PA
    I thought it was pretty strong, albeit different, for most of its run. The last three seasons however are difficult to watch.
     
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  8. Fastnbulbous

    Fastnbulbous Doubleplus Ungood

    Location:
    Washington DC USA
    I guess a 70s sitcom about the Korean War has about as much to do with history as "Ice Road Truckers", but it's depressing how little actual history that channel offers anymore.
     
  9. GodShifter

    GodShifter Forum Member

    Location:
    Dallas, TX, USA
    Sign of the times. Produce original programming not related to the original premise of the network itself or die.
     
  10. smilin ed

    smilin ed Senior Member

    Location:
    Durham
    I also saw it in the UK without a laugh track. I don't need to be encouraged to laugh if the material is good - which it was. Now, it's broadcast on some minor channel with a laugh track and it's painful.
     
  11. GodShifter

    GodShifter Forum Member

    Location:
    Dallas, TX, USA
    Laugh tracks suck. Who came up with the lame idea that people needed to be prompted to laugh at lame jokes? Like the majority of the populace is too stupid realize a zinger?
     
  12. seed_drill

    seed_drill Senior Member

    Location:
    Tryon, NC, USA
    Burns was so inept, that it was funnier/easier for the others to pile on, but Winchester had smarts and depth that Frank lacked.
     
  13. seed_drill

    seed_drill Senior Member

    Location:
    Tryon, NC, USA
    I like all kinds of Dolly Madison neat to eat treats.
     
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  14. GodShifter

    GodShifter Forum Member

    Location:
    Dallas, TX, USA
    Yeah, ZingersĀ© are pretty good.

    (PS All other Dolly Madison products suck -- fact)
     
  15. Mr. Bandora

    Mr. Bandora Active Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Agreed. It was too easy for them to pile on Burns. With Winchester it wasn't so easy and it was much more satisfying watching him go back and forth with them.
     
  16. HGN2001

    HGN2001 Mystery picture member

    The producers of M*A*S*H were always against the laugh track for the series, but the network (CBS) wouldn't hear of a sitcom without a laugh track, so a compromise was reached where in the US, the show would have a laugh track except for those scenes in the operating room. This of course, led to them doing an entire show in the operating room, I suppose just to prove a point.

    In the UK, the show always played without a laugh track, and the DVDs give the option of one or the other. The laugh track is the default option, but you can go in and switch it to audio track 2, which is actually the British audio track.

    It always seemed to me that the DVDs sounded better without the laugh track - that is, the audio fidelity is better if you switch it to the non-laugh-track sound track. What's annoying is that if you use a Play All option, there are a couple of cases where the first episode on a disc doesn't have a laugh track by default, so when it gets to the second episode, up pops the annoying audience. Then you have to switch the track for the second episode.

    The show is anchored firmly on MeTV's nightly schedule at 7 and 7:30 Eastern and they show the syndicated. cut versions with the laugh track. An annoying part of MeTV is that the audio compression processing is cranked to the max so you always get the annoying laugh track at its absolute loudest volume.
     
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  17. dirwuf

    dirwuf Misplaced Chicagoan

    Location:
    Fairfield, CT
    My big question is when are we going to get to see the series in HD?
     
  18. Jayce

    Jayce Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Sure, it became a very different show - but some of those changes were for the better. I did not need it to be a brilliant satirical comedy every week. Sometimes just trying to be a comedy was hard (i.e., "Is that all you do. bird imitations?"). But there were plenty of great moments of thought provoking drama. I teach high school English, and I have used "M*A*S*H quite often in relation to literature we read. Two in particular are "Quo Vadis, Captain Chandler?" and "Death Takes a Holiday."

    On another level, I think the last few seasons in general were very unique in that they showed Hawkeye and B.J. as two men who could love each other and relate to each other how they felt -- without any of the lame fear of homosexuality or "wussiness" that exists so pervasively in our current immature "comedy" mindset. Hawkeye and BJ were two friends who were, for my developing self (I was around 9-14 during this run) role models of male friendship and love. How often in any of today's media are men allowed to be more than caricatures, or, if they are "human" or "fully rounded" characters, allowed to show real vulnerability, love, or tenderness? Such feelings are seemingly verboten in today's media world, which seems to operate at the level of 11 year-old boys - -and I'm not talking about the boys from "Stand by Me," either.
     
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  19. Tim S

    Tim S Senior Member

    Location:
    East Tennessee
    heh, you said fully rounded . . .
     
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  20. GodShifter

    GodShifter Forum Member

    Location:
    Dallas, TX, USA
    How does that improve anything really? What's the allure?
     
  21. dirwuf

    dirwuf Misplaced Chicagoan

    Location:
    Fairfield, CT
    Virtually all tv I watch is HD, and when I see something that isn't (especially a filmed show), it's distracting.
     
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  22. fmfxray373

    fmfxray373 Capitol LPs in the 70s were pretty good.

    A day or a minute could change anyone to anti-war in a combat environment. All it takes are a few mortar attacks and some severed limbs. A war environment is something that cannot be imagined to truly be understood. It has to be lived.

    The idea that being in the Korean War for just "a short time," suggesting something casual or normal, like studying overseas for a semester, is not really valid when discussing a terrible war. I don't think anyone who was in the Korean War would describe it as "just a short time."
     
    Luke The Drifter likes this.
  23. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Fair enough. You have a good point that the actual experience of war might profoundly turn someone's opinions. And I didn't mean to minimize the experience of war with the phrase "a short time" and I'm sorry if it came across that way.

    However, regarding Margaret's character in particular, I still don't think the change seems plausible. For the first few seasons she is quite pro-war... she is actively in danger and witnesses numerous horrors of war, yet that doesn't seem to impact her opinions in any way. And then about halfway through the series, she does a 180 in her attitudes for no particular reason... to my recollection, there is no precipitating incident that causes this. And my understanding is that the behind-the-scenes reason for the change was not because they thought it was a realistic character progression, but because of Loretta Swit's desire to no longer play an unlikable stooge.
     
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  24. Fastnbulbous

    Fastnbulbous Doubleplus Ungood

    Location:
    Washington DC USA
    My dad was a medic in Korea and didn't talk about it unless asked. All he had to say about the TV show was everybody was too young, and there wasn't enough snow. Folks froze their asses off there, he said, but you'd never know it by seeing the show.
     
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  25. GodShifter

    GodShifter Forum Member

    Location:
    Dallas, TX, USA
    I think the show conveyed how cold it could be in several episodes. Outside of that, I couldn't say.
     
    Grand_Ennui likes this.
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