The syndication history of M*A*S*H

I wish I could forget that episode... it's perhaps my least-favorite of the entire series. The way everyone piled on Hawkeye was ridiculous, since (given the fact that everyone drank and wounded could arrive at any time) what happened to him could have happened to anyone. I think if you're going to have an ongoing situation that's silly and completely unrealistic (such as four doctors being perpetually on-call 24/7) then the best thing to do is avoid drawing attention to it, rather than base an entire episode on its ramifications.

At any rate, there is a distinction between being too drunk to operate and too hung over to operate, and that's what I meant when I made my original statement. FWIW, no one was ever shown to be too drunk to operate.

 

Wasn’t MASH aired in the UK without a laugh track?

 

Quite a few with no reason to have one, intentionally or not.

 

That does not surprise me in the least... I haven't watched TV-Land in forever... What they are now is essentially a joke as far as what they originally were... Their programming now is a bunch of commercials with clips of old TV series in between... Example, they run "The Andy Griffith Show", a show that was originally a half hour, and they run it in a 37 minute time slot-Now you know they aren't showing the original, full-length episodes, so what they're showing are the cut episodes, and I wouldn't doubt they even clip out more tiny bits to cram in more commercials... But that's all really the subject for another thread... Anyway, I don't doubt that they're cutting off the tag of the "M*A*S*H" episodes to add in more commercials...

 

Yes, that's true... There's the famous story of the network over their airing an episode *with* the laugh-track and they were supposed to have been bombarded with calls/complaints about it...

 

I believe that was the clip show "Our Finest Hour" which was the sole episode edited on videotape, using U.S. show masters....

 

Though not Hawkeye's indiscretions, I HAVE seen MeTV bleep out some racial epithets in early episodes. (Let's call it the "g"-word.)

 

I think Paul is correct. The problem with just dropping out the laugh track is that now, you'll wind up with a long pause after a funny line, which will be awkward and weird. The pacing of the show was geared around the laugh track, and the timing for any comedy series has to be really tight in order to pull off the jokes.

What I can say is that many, many film comedy shows had 4-track 35mm magnetic soundtracks, with Dialogue, Music, Effects, and Laugh track (in that order). It would not be that hard technically to kill the laugh track, but the time gap would be (as I said) weird. What did happen after the show became very successful was that the producers fought to reduce the number of laughs, and that way they weren't as intrusive. I never found it objectionable, and to me, it represents what a TV show was like from that era.

 

I disagree. We watch the DVDs without the laugh track and there are no odd pauses. It plays more like a comedic movie without the laugh track, and indeed, sometimes you can hear and understand some follow-up lines that get buried with the laugh track.

 

That's the key, with the new HD/widescreen presentation, they are trying to make it fresh and contemporary, not a museum piece from another era. And I bet the laugh track is a turn-off for many perspective new fans...I know it is for my teen kids.

 

M*A*S*H Cast to Reunite on Alan Alda’s Podcast

 

It is depressing. I remember some documentary where Alda was discussing it. He cited the copious amounts of drinking that was portrayed without any serious consequence as inspiration.

Still, unless you knew with certainty that you would not be needed for the next 24 hours, I don't see how you could do it.

 

In my market during the 1980s, they showed it at breakfast time, late afternoon, and after the 11 PM news.

 

You Americans crack me up.

 

We aim to amuse...

 

Not to mention having a character called Spearchucker the first couple of years...

 

I think it's a turn-off because it's a period show about a time they know nothing about. If you killed the laugh track, it wouldn't make it funnier or more interesting to a 2018 audience who only knows what's come out in the last 20-25 years.

 

My 17 year-old daughter said she really likes the show, but can't handle the laugh track, and will only watch it without. My son is indifferent, but says the laughter is really annoying and reminds him of a Disney Channel show.

 

In Western MA we could watch it 5x/day across three different stations, and I frequently did.

 

BTW, the entire living cast of M*A*S*H is going to get together soon on Alan Alda's podcast and will be taking questions from fans:

Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

 

Larry Gelbart and Gene Reynolds were both quoted as saying that the laugh track was never considered in the performing or editing of an episode.

Us old farts are much more bothered by the laugh track being gone, because it's always in the back of our minds....younger generations don't have that baggage, and will savor the show much more without it.

 

They are mistaken. It was very much considered in the editing, because there had to be a pause of a certain amount of time in order for the joke to work. If the actors started talking too quickly after a punch line, you'd never hear the dialogue because it'd be covered up by the laugh. There's an art to doing this well, and I've worked with and admired many fine comedy editors who make this kind of work seamless. I was just telling a friend of mine the other day I think I've worked on roughly 400 episodic comedy series in the last 35 years. I only did color: the guys who worked the miracles, the ones who often were in charge of making the show funny, were the editors, working under the direction of the showrunners.

I have seen M*A*S*H without a laugh track, and (again) I mastered more than 100 episodes just of that particular show for the late-1980s home video release for Fox Worldwide. The show doesn't feel as funny to me without a laugh track. I don't think a laugh track is quite the villainous enemy a lot of people think they are -- I think they're a tool like anything else in putting a show together, like music or sound effects or transitions or titles or even a simple cut. There's a way to use them well, a way to use them almost subliminally, and then a point where the laugh track is intrusive, obvious, and annoying. The best shows I think are the ones that use actual laughs on the set, but they edit around them in ways where the laughs you hear are real, from a real audience on the stage, but not necessarily happening at that time. I also think there are single-camera sitcoms that can work great without laugh tracks, provided they're deliberately designed for that: Malcom in the Middle did it pretty well, and I think Curb Your Enthusiasm and Modern Family have been on for more than a decade, won tons of awards, and made many hundreds of millions of dollars. All classic single-camera shows, none with laugh tracks.

 

You say they are mistaken and then offer no proof other than your opinion.

 

I have watched the entire series many times and nearly always with the laugh track off. I can see Vidiot's point being true early on in the series, say seasons 1 and 2, maybe 3. There are definite pauses in the action where the laugh track would go. But later on in the series, I believe they didn't specifically time things for a laugh track, and the show plays more like a comedic movie without one.

 

Vidiot has a great deal of experience working in the TV industry, judging from his other posts. His opinion carries a lot of weight with me. Plus, if you just watch the show, you can see that he’s right. The actors often pause a bit after delivering a punch line so that laughs can be edited in.

M*A*S*H is still a great show that has held up well. It would be even more well regarded had it ended after 7 or 8 years instead of 11. The fact that it is a period piece has helped it seem less dated. Fox has also taken good care of it, remastering it at least twice (once in the 90s, and again in the last decade). It was still running on local stations in the 90s, long after its contemporaries had slid to cable or had vanished entirely. And even today, multiple outlets still run it.