M*A*S*H- a season by season discussion!

Without doubt. The three holdovers from MASH were designed to be supporting characters, and they did not have the depth or potential to be fleshed out into more than that. Potter and Mulcahy were created as authority figures whose job it was to react to the things done by the Swampmen, not to be the focus of stories. Klinger was a one-joke, one-dimensional character who by then had lost his only dimension. None of those three actors had the charisma to carry a series. I imagine the egos involved prevented Gelbart and Co. from introducing a new lead until the end of the first season, by which time it was too late. That's why I wish they could have gotten Wayne Rogers. The show had great writers (a far better team than MASH had in its latter seasons) and there was nothing wrong with the premise... there's been many successful comedies set in hospitals. It just was a doughnut, a supporting cast with no star and no focus. MASH needs a rebellious anti-authority figure at its center or it doesn't work.

In the second season, they desperately tried to help Klinger regain some of his appeal with a misguided storyline in which he gets into legal trouble and winds up pretending to be mentally ill to escape jail time. So we get Klinger back in a dress and doing bizarre things but by this point he is married and a father (and Jamie Farr is obviously middle-aged) so it seems really pathetic.

 

One of the problems with Snap Judgment, is no one is buying that Klinger actually was a thief. So that takes all the suspense out for me.

 

Here I am, trying to psych myself up to tackle an episode of After M*A*S*H on You Tube...posts like this aren't helping the cause! The show simply sounds flawed in execution despite their good intentions.

Speaking of You Tube, I tried to see if there were any House Calls episodes kicking around there- there was only one, split into three parts and the quality seemed so bad (old VHS recording or something) I said to hell with it after about three minutes.

Not only that, but you knew damn well they weren't gonna throw Klinger -one of the most popular characters on the show- in the stockade. That was as obvious as Charles making an ass of himself as Klinger's defense attorney

 

True, but similar episodes like "The Trial of Henry Blake" and "The Novocaine Mutiny" show these kinds of stories can work if well done...it's rarely the premises of the later years that are the issue, it's the execution.

 

Making my way through season 8. Just said goodbye to Radar .. or was that Radar's dad in those last couple of episodes?

"Guerilla My Dreams" was an episode I remembered vividly. I had an impression of it from when I was a teenager that I thought would change on renewed viewing, but it didn't. I wonder if the writers intended the meaning I drew from the episode - which, to me, was showing Hawkeye and BJ (expected) and Margaret and Potter (perhaps unexpected) having a naive and unworkable understanding of war - right to the end. So Hawkeye's dramatic profane line is not effective in the manner one might expect - it's effective in showing that he just doesn't get it in this one particular case. Or maybe I've personally embellished.

 

You son of a bitch!

 

It is indeed flawed. But I can't imagine someone who's as big a MASH fan as you wouldn't want to check out a few episodes. I'd recommend watching one from season two to see how they ultimately wound up tweaking the series. I've linked the last episode below to make it easy for you. As you can see, Dr. Boyer has been inserted as the lead and pseudo-Hawkeye, though the problem with his character is that he has two much of the bitter, serious Hawkeye and not enough of the funny Hawkeye. As a way to try to distinguish him from Hawkeye, they've given him an anger management problem and a chip on his shoulder. And they've also introduced a naive young doctor who's basically Radar in a lab coat.

 

This was a good episode. It helped that Potter's wife and Soon-Yi weren't in it. Moved along, snappy pace. The antagonistic characters were allowed to do their bit without getting lectured. Really a throwback to early season M*A*S*H, including wiseacre Klinger. Which would have been fine with this show, it's a MASH product, go with your best. Too bad this one never aired in the USA because the series had already been cancelled!

 

He had such a good time on R & R it aged him ten years!

No, yer not wrong. I've read a few negative comments online over the years regarding "Guerilla My Dreams" as a fine example of how Hawkeye tended to sympathize with the North Koreans moreso than the South Koreans, or, indeed, even the U.S. Army. When you think about it, Col. Flagg's contention that Hawkeye was a Communist sympathizer in "Rally Round The Flagg Boys" holds some water and possibly even did warrant some sort of an investigation (Flagg probably wasn't the guy to do it though). Compare "Guerilla My Dreams" with "Officer Of The Day"- in both episodes Hawkeye is compelled to work on a patient whom he knows will end up, at best, a prisoner of war, or more likely dead. In "Guerilla My Dreams" (not one of my favourite episodes, it should be mentioned) Hawkeye and BJ really don't "get it" -as you put it- until Mako has to point out that the female prisoner really would just as soon kill the doctors as anything- she really is one of the enemy. IMO it's one more case where Hawkeye's self righteous sanctimony overtakes his common sense, and it isn't pretty, especially considering how he drags most of the other principals in the cast into his crusade. Still, Hawkeye did get that infamous "S.O.B." line in there, a bit of a shocker at first, though IMO his "Don't let the b-stard win!" rant in "The General's Practitioner" from season 5 is more effective when it comes to using that saltier language. When he called Sydney an s.o.b. in the final episode I rolled my eyes though...

Well, it's another six day work week for me so if I have a chance on Saturday night, I'll check it out.

 

Promo for the season 10 premiere episode in this bunch:

 

A HOUSE CALLS promo in this network promo:

 

A commercial break for 'Dark Night of the Scarecrow." - one of my favorite scary TV movies!
Now back to M*A*S*H...

 

Would love if someone could post the opening from when MASH reruns were part of the "CBS Late Movie"

 

Yeah, by that point they'd righted things with the format about as well as they could, putting the three MASH supporting characters back into supporting roles where they belong. If the series had started out like this, it might have had a better chance of success. Still, it's definitely got a feeling of too much familiarity about it... a sense of "we've seen this all before." Particularly in the Hawkeye/Radar dynamic they create with Boyer and the new doctor.

And the ongoing Klinger storyline is pretty distasteful and silly, really. Klinger has gotten himself psychiatrically committed to the VA Hospital to avoid charges for punching a crooked real-estate agent. It's one thing to pretend you're insane to escape a war zone, but another to do it to avoid taking responsibility for your actions like that. One wonders what his end strategy was? Did he plan to pretend to be crazy indefinitely, while his wife struggled to make ends meet and raise their infant by herself? This did not make Klinger look very admirable. It also strained credibility to believe anyone would be deceived by schtick like "hey, today I'm Noah." Obviously the behind-the-scenes reason for this storyline was that they were desperate to have Klinger act crazy again because they knew he was otherwise a pretty uninteresting character. But it's ham-fisted way to do it that does not work well.

 

Season 10 you say...

M*A*S*H In Real Time - The Original Airings of M*A*S*H, 1972-83.

Season 10.

The telecast of the 10th season of M*A*S*H was dotted with questions about how and if the show would return for an 11th season. With CBS and the show itself thinking about the future, let's look a bit at the then current state of CBS.

The 1980s were definitely upon us, and new programming was taking shape on Thursday and Friday nights. Thursdays had Magnum PI early and Knots Landing late. In between was the Michael Learned (Ma Walton) vehicle Nurse. By the next year that time slot would be filled by a Tuesday night show, Simon And Simon.

On Fridays The Incredible Hulk was followed by The Dukes Of Hazzard and Dallas. Hulk would be cancelled early in the year, and the other two shows moved up for a new soap, Falcon Crest. Soaps and light adventure shows were heavy staples of early and mid 1980s TV. All of the above shows had some years left in the tank.

The CBS sitcoms were another matter. CBS had a two hour block of sitcoms on Sunday night, that performed very well in 1981-82. But the youngest of those shows, Alice, was already in its sixth season. WKRP was only in its fourth season, but its ratings weren't great, and this season would prove to be its last. And on Mondays, the elderly M*A*S*H held forth, but for how long?

The start of the 1981-82 season was again delayed by a strike. This time it was the writers. The strike delayed the premiere of Season 10 into late October. Season 8 would become the last M*A*S*H season to air new episodes in September.

During the strike M*A*S*H was sometimes pre-empted by movies, but three re-runs of Season 9 episodes did air. Somewhat surprisingly, the network for once chose to air episodes that had not already been re-run. The Life You Save, A War For All Seasons, and Death Takes A Holiday were aired. Cementing Relationships, never a fan favorite, remained unaired in re-run form.

Again after the strike, shows trickled back on the air. Monday night competitor Little House On The Prairie had already aired several new shows, and M*A*S*H lead-ins Private Benjamin and The Two Of Us (both shows debuting in 3 episode April "teasers" the prior season) were on their third episodes each by the time of the one our That's Showbiz premiere on October 26th.

M*A*S*H again opted to air a post-Christmas special episode in the former "dead week", with the Boxing Day themed 'Twas The Day After Christmas airing on December 28th. The entire CBS Monday night lineup aired new shows that week. A re-run of Death Takes A Holiday aired December 21st. This was the first time that CBS pulled a holiday themed episodes from a prior year to air at the appropriate time in a later season, something that was not all that uncommon at the time for other shows.

Things were starting to stir with M*A*S*H's Monday night companions. In mid January The Two Of Us would be moved to Wednesday nights to join WKRP there. Private Benjamin was moved to 8:30. Coming over from Wednesdays was a new show, Mr. Merlin. This show started Barnard Hughes of the 1970s sitcom Doc as Merlin, an immortal wizard. Clark Brandon, who'd been on the Fitzpatricks a few years earlier, played his apprentice. Brandon was apparently regarded as a male teen heartthrob at the time. He never made it big. Neither did this show.

Of perhaps greater concern were the shows following M*A*S*H. Co-star Lynn Redgrave would leave the popular House Calls in disputes over her breastfeeding practices. She was replaced by Sharon Gless. Gless was under a long term contract to CBS, and the network was looking for vehicles for her. This wasn't it; the chemistry wasn't the same. The show tanked so badly that the final two new episodes of the series were burned off in September of 1982. House Calls would be gone.

Also in its final season was long time 10:00 companion Lou Grant. That show lasted for five seasons. Some blamed Ed Asner's union activities for the show's departure. The ratings were also down.

Again, CBS opted to run re-runs in spot weeks as the season wore on. January 25th featured a rerun of Rumor At The Top; March 8th had identity Crisis. March 29th featured a genuine pre-emption as the finals of the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament aired. Michael Jordan and North Carolina beat Patrick Ewing's Georgetown Hoyas in a thriller.

By April 5th two new episodes remained. CBS again opted to use the episodes to try out a couple of new shows. Mr. Merlin and House Calls were removed from the schedule, and Private Benjamin moved back to 8:00. In the 8:30 slot was Report To Murphy. Michael Keaton starred as a parole officer. Sounds fun! Keaton had been bopping around TV for a few years, including the Norman Lear flop sitcom All's Fair and Mary Tyler Moore's bomb of a variety show. This show lasted six episodes. Keaton became a movie star about 5 seconds after this show went off the air. Oh well.

Airing at 9:30 was Making The Grade. James Naughton (brother of David "Dr. Pepper" Naughton) played a high school teacher. George Wendt, who you may remember from having a billiard ball stuck in his mouth on M*A*S*H, played a gym coach. He was on another sitcom later on , Skoal! or something like that. I'm sure somebody knows. This was a Gary David Goldberg show. Also lasted six episodes before going six feet under.

For the summer, WKRP was brought back to Monday nights for no particular reason to finish out its run of repeats. In its place on Wednesdays aired Walter Cronkite's Universe, a science themed news show that was a CBS summer replacement for a few years.

M*A*S*H re-runs would be pre-empted July 26th for the Miss Universe pageant. CBS made one more stab at new programming for Mondays for this season. A show called Filthy Rich had been in development for a while. Slim Pickens played a deceased billionaire who would make his purported heirs jump through hoops via a videotaped will each week. Two pilots were made, one an hour long, one a half hour. The hour long pilot was split in two and the show aired for three weeks in August. Surprisingly, the shows were #1 in the ratings for August.

Filthy Rich was produced by Linda Bloodworth-Thomasson. She wrote several episodes of M*A*S*H with Mary Kay Place, including Hot Lips And Empty Arms, which got her an Emmy nomination. Dixie Carter and Delta Burke were featured on Filthy Rich. The three of them would go on to Designing Women in a few years. Filthy Rich would go on to appear on the 1982-83 fall schedule, where it lasted for half a year.

CBS was seeming a little snakebit with its sitcoms by this point. Several of their failures had good people involved, they just didn't hit on the right formula. CBS needed a sitcom hit. Would they get one in 1982-83? Yes... but more on that later.

As far as M*A*S*H re-runs went, Follies Of The Living... (not typing that whole thing out), A Holy Mess, The Tooth Shall Set You Free, and Pressure Points were all re-run twice. That Darn Kid was not re-run, seemingly to universal acclaim!

 

As a bit of an aside, I will say that the M*A*S*H FAQ book is a bit of a disappointment- certainly in comparison to the other "FAQ" series books I've read (Steely Dan and The Beatles, both of which were a plethora of information and commentary). Very little of the book is spent discussing aspects of the TV series (for example if yer expecting an episode by episode breakdown -which I was- look elsewhere), and focuses more on the history of MASH units in the Korean War, Hornberger's book version (and the eighteen million ghostwritten 'sequel' books that followed), and the film version. Indeed, probably the coolest part of the book is a scene by scene comparison of Altman's film to Ring Lardner's original script (needless to say Altman's alterations made for a superior film though Lardner probably wouldn't agree). You also get bios of the principal actors on the show but not a lot of in depth discussion of the show itself. In hindsight I think I should have bought that Complete Book Of M*A*S*H coffee table nook my mum used to have instead...

 

Cementing Relationships was rerun on March 30, 1981 as a last-minute replacement for The Life You Save, due to the attempted assassination of President Reagan earlier that day:
Attempted Assassination of Reagan Pre-Empted M*A*S*H – MASH4077TV.com

 

Nice research!

I read that post, and I am still trying to work through how the network would do all of this. I realize that CBS probably got calls and letters about every single program they aired in their history. So they were always conscious of how programs might appear.

But this decision was made in less than a day's time, in response to an event (assassination attempt on the President) that is fairly rare. No doubt the episode was previewed by the network before air. But did someone slap a note on the file for the episode saying "sniper scenes, pre-empt if assassination attempt?" What department was responsible for the rare occurrences that entertainment programming might offend because of news events earlier in the day?

 

I vaguely remember Reagan getting shot, but I admit I have clearer memories of when Pope John Paul II got shot on my fifth birthday...

 

Boy do I feel old...

 

I was at work at the radio station listening to an ABC radio monitor when Reagan was shot. Quite a memorable day.

 

That was a shocking day, news spread quickly and there was huge concern with his age having had his long acting career then into politics. That day's outcomes reverberated for years for all involved.

This is an amazing thread, just spectator but have to say that there's nothing better than a M*A*S*H marathon to unwind on a weekend or holiday. Clearly remember more it's Monday night showings growing up as I had my basement tv for Monday Night Football while parents watched CBS. I need the uncut DVDs as when I see cut scenes sometimes shocking what was left out on reruns.

 

Don't feel bad, these days I feel old!

Getting the DVDs is like seeing the series for the first time all over again. Especially if you opt for the "no laugh track" option. But, yeah, some of the episodes are absolutely butchered in syndication- admittedly, some of the cuts I can understand (racy dialogue etc) but sometimes the cuts ruin the context of the episode. I noticed the same thing when I started buying the Simpsons DVDs, some of those shows weren't quite as cut as some of the M*A*S*H ones were but there are cuts in syndication just the same.

 

Just watched Tell it to the Marines from Season 9 and thought it was better than I remembered. Some good stuff between Hawkeye and Klinger, Hawkeye and BJ and Charles and Klinger.

 

"Colonel Cowpotter!"