A sitcom about army surgeons produced the most-watched finale in American television history
M*A*S*H ran for eleven seasons, far longer than the Korean War it depicted. Set in a mobile army hospital, it lurched between slapstick and grief, quietly needled America's Cold War role while Vietnam was still being fought, and signed off in 1983 with an episode no scripted show has out-rated since.
The CBS series aired from September 17, 1972, to February 28, 1983. Larry Gelbart developed it as the first original spin-off of the 1970 film, itself adapted from Richard Hooker's 1968 novel about three army doctors. It exists partly because a planned film of the book's sequel, set in Maine, fell through. Its setting is the fictional 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in Uijeongbu during the Korean War of 1950 to 1953, and its opening titles use an instrumental arrangement of the film's theme, Suicide Is Painless.
Alan Alda led the ensemble as Hawkeye Pierce, the irreverent surgeon. Around him the roster shifted: Mike Farrell's B. J. Hunnicutt replaced Wayne Rogers's Trapper John, Harry Morgan's Colonel Potter succeeded McLean Stevenson's Henry Blake, and David Ogden Stiers's snobbish Winchester took over from Larry Linville's Frank Burns. When Gary Burghoff left as Radar, Jamie Farr's Klinger moved into the clerk's job. Only four characters lasted all eleven seasons: Hawkeye, Klinger, head nurse Margaret Houlihan and Father Mulcahy. Writers short of names once borrowed the entire 1978 Los Angeles Dodgers roster for season seven.
Half-hour episodes were billed as comedy but often played as tragedy, partly because stories came from many hands, including Alda and real Korean War surgeons. Some episodes took the form of a letter home. Much of the friction came from drafted civilians like Hawkeye clashing with career officers such as Houlihan and Potter. In the early years the producers had to comment on Vietnam without appearing to protest it. The BBC's Ludovic Kennedy argued in 1980 that the humour came from seeing doctors, usually treated as totems, behave as foolishly as anyone else.
One small oddity: the asterisks in the title have nothing to do with army usage. They were a flourish from the novel, and the 1970 film only used them on its posters. The finale, Goodbye, Farewell and Amen, remained the most-watched broadcast in the United States until 2010.
Source: M*A*S*H (TV series)
