This video was going to feature graphic
imagery, discussions of suicide, mental illness, and some problematic depictions
of people of color because....yeah And spoiler alert for pretty much this whole
show? I can't possibly spoil eleven whole seasons, but I will definitely spoil all
the major important episodes so you've been warned. And the usual disclaimer
everything here is just my opinion and So please be chill everybody okay? Okay. So if you know me in real life you've probably heard me talk about 'M*A*S*H*' at least once. I mean the show was iconic and groundbreaking it ran for 11 seasons and 265 episodes it's been referenced in everything from 'West Wing' [Toby Ziegler] "'Suicide is painless...'" To Family Guy. [Brian] "Meg Griffin's plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan. There were no survivors." TWICE. [Stewie] ""'Cause suicide is painless...'" To Futurama [iHawk] "This isn't a war. It's a murder. [Switches to a imitating Groucho Marx] "This isn't a war. It's a moider!" To Sesame Street. [Big Bird] "Like you Radar..." And up until 2013 the M*A*S*H* finale was the most-watched television event in
history. It also happens to be one of the best TV shows of all time, and a very
formative one for me personally. If you want to die while watching this video take a drink every time I say something along the lines of: It's gonna happen a lot and if you drink crappy gin from a homemade still then you're basically role playing Hawkeye. And I'm gonna be
honest, I'm not sure how much this video is going to be some in-depth thesis
based analysis, and how much it's just going to be me giving a fangirl
retrospective about a show I love dearly. Either way the show ran for 11 seasons
so we've got a lot of ground to cover. Now let's get a move on. in 1968 the book 'MASH: A Novel about
Three Army Doctors' was published by H. Richard Hornberger Jr. a former military
surgeon under the pen name Richard Hooker. It followed Hawkeye Pierce,
Trapper John McIntyre, and Duke Forrest of the 4077th M*A*S*H* unit and their
misadventures all the way to two of them being sent back to the states when their
deployment orders expired. Then in 1970 Robert Altman directed a film adaptation
which...I mean some people really liked it. It's preserved in the National Film
registry and stuff. I like that Gary Burghoff is here I guess? It largely
followed the plot of the book with some differences. Then in 1972, Larry Gelbart, Gene Reynolds, and Burt Metcalfe adapted the film for television series. ["My Blue Heaven' plays in Japanese over the PA] [Song fades out] [Radar] "Here they come!" And fun fact the show's theme song is actually an instrumental version of the song
[Instrumental of 'Suicide is Painless' plays] 'Suicide is Painless' which was sung in the film. I'm not really going to dissect it since I think it's a relic of the original film which was much more nihilistic and the show really grew away from that mindset but yeah. Larry Gelbart said in his book 'Laughing Matters' that he was inspired by the song, not for its
content, but for its haunting tune. He described it as 'comedy written in a
minor key.' Incidentally Altman and Hornberger were notoriously unhappy with
the television adaptation. It played fast and loose with many characters and
events. Characters like Duke Forrest, I think never made it onto the show at all,
while other minor characters from the book like Spearchucker disappear after
season one, while new characters like Klinger ended up becoming regulars. And
Hawkeye and Trapper's roles were largely reversed in the show. In the book and the
film Trapper was chief surgeon not Hawkeye. I mean the series would run for
11 seasons and change the face of television. But before we can get into all that. Let's do the usual rundown.
['Suicide is Painless' theme ends] In season one our main cast began with a snarky surgeon Benjamin Franklin Pierce AKA
Hawkeye played by Alan Alda. Hawkeye to this day remains one of my favorite
characters of all time...also he was probably one of my first crushes when I
was a teenager. ['Careless Whisper' by George Michael plays] I mean what's not to love? With a fragile
sanity, alongside an ardent idealism, and a deep well of kindness, parked next to
the fastest mouth this side of the 38th parallel. Hawkeye could get mad and make a
speech like few other characters in fiction can. [Hawkeye] "I simply cannot eat the same food everday." "Fish! Liver! Day after day!" "I've eaten a river of liver and an ocean of fish!" And that's when he wasn't chasing nurses or breaking my heart [Hawkeye] "I said give me a knife."
[Henry] "Pierce..." "Go help McIntyre." The funny part is that initially Alda wasn't really comfortable in the role of a fast-talking womanizer. [Alan Alda] "I do remember the first day we shot, I still didn't know," "how I was gonna be this guy who seemed so different from me. "And in the first shot some nurses passed by and I thought, 'Be Hawkeye. Nurse. Grab a nurse.'" All of a sudden I thought, 'I could--I could be this guy.' Alongside him was trusty BFF and serial adulterer Trapper John McIntyre played by Wayne Rogers. [Trapper] "Quiet will you? The man is trying to be dull. Go ahead Frank, dull away!" Trapper was more of a goof between the two of them, so when he got serious, you knew shit was about to get real. Then there was the weasely Frank
Burn's played by Larry Linville. [Frank] "Unless we each conform. Unless we obey orders. Unless we follow our leaders blindly," "There is no possible way we can remain free!" Frank wouldn't remain for the duration of the series because the character was such a cartoon and Linville was so good at playing him as
one. In spite of the fact that, by all accounts, Linville was a sweetheart in real life. [Larry Gelbart] "I knew we were shortchanging him. We all did." "That we were making him such a fool. Such a buffoon." [Larry Linville] "And you have to ask yourselves: Do you know Frank Burns in your own life?" "If you do then Frank is not a cartoon, and never has been. And if you know a person like this..." "Avoid them"
[Linville laughs] Then there was the no-nonsense head nurse Margaret Houlihan played by Loretta Swit. [Margaret] "I'm gonna count to three and if you're still here I'm gonna snap off your epaulettes." "One."
[Frank] "You're bluffing." [Margaret] "THREE!"
[Frank] "You skipped two!" I love Margaret and I'll talk about her more later, but suffice to say she's pretty great and probably my other first crush. [Soldier] "How about a little kiss for me?" [Punching sound] ['Careless Whisper' by George Michael plays] Gary Burghoff who played the company clerk Radar O'Reilly in the film, reprised his role in the series, and remained a source
of sweetness and innocence in the midst of utter chaos, while also keeping the
entire camp afloat. [Radar & Potter speaking over eachother]
"I told Tokyo you're on your way."
"Radio Tokyo I'm on my way." "I'll look after Burns, don't worry."
"And look after Burns." Then there was commanding officer Henry Blake played by McLean Stevenson. [Henry] "Well I'm afraid this is what you call your command decision...Strictly something for your leader..." "Aw golly, whatever you people decide is fine with me." He was lovably incompetent and sometimes understandably so when they were
surrounded on all sides by utter chaos. [Henry] "Oh everything's fine sir." "Well not actually fine um." "Actually terrible rather than fine. But I mean everything was really fine before it got terrible." Rounding out the main cast we had
Maxwell Q. Klinger, the Lebanese corporal who wore dresses to try and get out of the
army played by actor Jamie Farr. [General Barker] "Still trying to get out on a psycho, eh Klinger?" "Well I can tell you. It'll take a lot more than this."
[Klinger] "Then I'll just have to keep trying Mary!" [Laugh track] And the camp chaplain, Father John Patrick Francis Mulcahy, played by William Christopher. [Mulcahy] "Let me take care of it...please?
[MP Officer] "I'm not even Catholic." [Laugh track] [Mulcahy] "Would you like to be?" And in the show's first season, well...it was wacky? [Hawkeye] "General Clayton? This is Benjamin Franklin Pierce." "I realize you're a general and I'm just a captain, but I wanna have your baby." [Laugh track] "I mean it! I want your baby! I'll kiss all your stars!" The show would change in its overall tone over the course of eleven seasons but at the start it was largely just silly. [Frank] "I'm here to relieve you."
[Hawkeye] "You do resemble an enema." The show was airing during the Vietnam
War and so from the start it was a fairly anti-military, anti-war kind of show, but that was initially tackled with humor and little else. [Hawkeye] "You must be tired too after all that malpractice you put in." [Margaret] "You're dismissed."
[Hawkeye] "Thanks mother." The episode 'Sometimes You Hear the
Bullet' is frequently cited as the first time the show began to explore deeper
themes. We meet a childhood friend of Hawkeye's, who's traveling with soldiers
at the front and working on a book called 'You Never Hear the Bullet.' At the
end of the episode, this friend is wounded and brought back to M*A*S*H* 4077th and he dies on Hawkeye's operating table. [Hawkeye] "I said give me a knife."
[Henry] "Pierce...Go help McIntyre." There's a B-Plot involving Frank Burns applying for a Purple Heart after he threw out his back, because the show always liked a good A
and B storyline. But this is the scene where M*A*S*H* truly found its feet for the
first time. [Hawkeye] "I've watched guys die almost every day why didn't I ever cry for them?" [Henry] "Because you're a doctor."
[Hawkeye] "What the hell does that mean?" [Henry] "Look all I know is what they taught me at command school." "There are certain rules about a war," "And rule number one is: young men die. And rule number two is: doctors can't change rule number one." My favorite episode from
season one is called 'Yankee Doodle Doctor' [Trapper] "A Yankee Doodle Doctor!"
[Hawkeye singing] "Stuck a feather in his nurse] [Both singing] "And called her macaroni." In it, a documentary crew comes to
the 4077th intending to make a jingoistic propaganda style documentary
glorifying the war and this camp of doctors. Hawkeye and Trapper take issue
with that and end up exposing all the film and shooting a little movie of
their own. [Hawkeye] "Gentlemen, I give you the war." [Laugh track] [Everybody] "Ugh!" It's funny, and Alda has a very good Groucho Marx voice. [Hawkeye doing a Groucho Marx impression]
"You should have booked ahead." "Come to think you of it you should've booked the rest of the body as well." [Laugh track] But at the end of the movie, we get this scene. [Hawkeye] "Three hours ago this man was in a battle. Two hours ago we operated on him." "He's got a 50/50 chance. No guaranteed survival. No 'saints in surgical garb.'" "Guns, and bombs, and anti-personnel mines have more power to take life than we have to preserve it." "Not a very happy ending for a movie." "But then no war is a movie." And we're left...uncomfortably caught between our own amusement at the jokes they just told us, and the reality that people were dying every day in this war. This is where M*A*S*H* would excel, in the blending of tragedy and comedy. But for all of M*A*S*H*'s excellent cast and snappy writing, the show did not do well in its first season. The ratings were bad, and they had a weird time slot. [Jamie Farr] "We were, I believe, number 56, opposite 'The Wonderful World of Disney.'" "And they were just creaming us in the ratings." Some say the change happened when audiences started to watch reruns in between seasons 1 & 2. [Alan Alda] "People had seen the first runs of all the other shows that were popular...they--- they said 'well let's try out these reruns
of M*A*S*H*, what's that?'" Some, including writer producer Larry Gelbart claimed they got a season 2 because William Paley, the head of CBS at the time...well...
His wife really loved the show and campaigned for it to stay on the air [Larry Gelbart] "Mrs. Paley, Bay Paley was her name, was...enamored of the show." "And she--it was a series of pillow talks," "Where she just said 'you can't let that show go you can't let that show go.'" "That may or may not be true." Whatever the case may be they got renewed for a second season with a new timeslot after 'All in the Family' and before 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show.' And from there the show quickly climbed in the ratings and started garnering critical praise and awards [Linville] "The second year, Freddie put us behind 'All in the Family,'" "and they handed us 35 million people on a silver plate...And the rest is history." Seasons 2 & 3 would remain largely the
same in terms of writers and actors. And then with the end of season 3 in the
start of season 4, the show would lose writer Larry Gelbart as well as McLean Stevenson's Henry Blake and Wayne Rogers' Trapper John. And...we have to talk a little about that, because its some of the most legendary moments in TV history. [Larry Gelbart] "Gene and I had actually made the decision that uh..." "knowing that McLean was leaving the series," "That we make an event out of it." And this is a bit of hearsay, but I did watch this show with my parents, and according to my dad
when it was announced that Henry Blake was going home,
fans of the show were elated. People were having 'Henry Blake going home' parties as
they all sat around to watch 'Abyssinia Henry.' [Larry Gelbart] "If they started to film the show...knowing that Henry was a dead man by the end of the episode" "Their performances would have been quite different," "It would have colored their performances." None of the cast knew in advance aside from Alan Alda. Henry's death was kept under wraps
from almost everyon. According to Jamie Farr, the cast had largely finished
filming the season finale, and they were called back for one final scene. The cast
was shown the new pages, but the crew and the extras had no clue until the cameras
rolled and: [Radar] "Lieutenant Colonel...Henry Blake's plane..." "Was shot down over the Sea of Japan." 'It spun and...there were no survivors." Before this characters did not die on half hour situation comedies. Not main
characters anyway, and certainly not like this. This moment changed television [Gelbart] "And uh...Larry Linville said 'fucking brilliant'" 'And as we pan...A scalpel dropped" [Metal clattering] "Quite by accident. Unplanned. And it was perfect 'Cause it pierced the silence...And then back to the work. Just work, work, work." "And I said cut and that was it." "Gary Burghoff looked at McLean Stevenson, and he said:" "'You'll probably win the Emmy for this, you son of a bitch.'" And then in the season four premiere 'Welcome to Korea,' we discovered that Trapper got his orders to go home and left while Hawkeye
was on R&R. Now this was possibly due to a kerfuffle where Wayne Rogers wanted to
leave the show to work on other projects, and legend has it that through some clerical error, his contractor something had never been signed. Everyone's on good terms now but it seems like there was a little drama at the time? And so that meant one minute Trapper was here and then he's just gone. [Radar] "Trapper's gone. he got his orders."
[Hawkeye] "Trapper went home?" And in his place we get BJ Hunnicutt played by Mike Farrell. I really love these two introductory episodes because BJ is so the antithesis
of Trapper in every way. An easygoing family man who is absolutely loyal to
his wife, unlike Trapper whose infidelity was regularly played for laughs. I mean
everybody's infidelity was played for laughs in the early years. The show
wasn't finished growing up yet, but either way once Hawkeye gets the news, he
races to Seoul to try and say goodbye to Trapper. And he's going against orders to
do it, but Trapper's been his friend through hell for a while now, and he
doesn't care. And Radars along for the ride since he was sent to pick up the
replacement surgeon. In the end Hawkeye misses Trapper by 10 minutes and meets BJ. [Radar] "Uh Captain Pierce sir, Captain Hunnicutt." [Hawkeye] "I missed Trapper by 10 minutes, 10 lousy minutes!" [BJ] "Captain Pierce?"
[Hawkeye] "...Hi." Over the next 45 minutes or so their Jeep is stolen, they steal a jeep, get
shot at, bombed and blind drunk. There's a scene that I always think of from this
episode that really sticks out. Because this new guy BJ is pretty upbeat.
He takes most of this insanity in stride or at least with the appropriate amount
of incredulity. But when they meet up with a convoy of soldiers and the
shelling starts, we see this doctor, fresh from the state's, thrown into the real
horror of war. [Coughing sounds] And they don't have time to let him rest
or get his bearings because people are dying. But still, Hawkeye sits with BJ for
just a moment. And then he helps him to his feet, And they get back to work. [Hawkeye] "Don't forget your first day at school. The worst part is you'll get used to all this." From there we would meet the new commanding officer Colonel Sherman T. Potter played by Harry Morgan. [Potter] "On your feet son, I'm Colonel Potter." [Radar] "Oh boy." Who had previously appeared as a wacky general in season three. But now he's back and better than ever as Potter. A veteran of two wars, and
a lover of horses, westerns, and his wife Mildred. He would become like a father to
most members of this camp [Potter] "Listen when you're in love you're always in trouble. There's only two things you can do about it." "Either stop loving them or love them a whole lot more." [Klinger] "But if you love them a whole lot more won't that just get you a lot more trouble?" [Potter] "Yep. Then you love him even more." [Klinger] "Boy that sounds tough." [Potter] "It's murder." He's just great. The next major change in the cast
wouldn't come until the end of season five when Larry Linville's Frank Burns
would finally leave the show. [Hawkeye] "A toast. What should it be?
[BJ] "Something tender." [Potter] "Something sentimental."
[Hawkeye] "Right. goodbye ferret face." Along with his departure the
show also lost executive producer Gene Reynolds. Burt Metcalf would step up to fill his place along with Alan Alda, who had already begun writing scripts and
directing episodes. And fun fact many other cast members would also take a
turn at writing or directing over the course of the series. But as for Frank
Burns, all parties had built him into such a monstrous caricature, there was
nowhere for the character to go anymore. [Larry Linville] "Some people have said, 'you know why didn't the role progress." "Why didn't he become...um more humane, more compassionate, more sensitive," "More comprehending, more understanding.' I said, 'what do you want him to be Alan Alda?'" The show still had some growing up to do and this character
could not grow with it, so Frank would leave and be replaced by Charles. Who was
more than an equal to Hawkeye and BJ as an antagonist. [Hawkeye] "What's so great about him?" [Winchester] "I do one thing at a time. I do it very well. And then, I move on." And later on as a friend. [Winchester] "Where I have a father...you have a dad." [Hawkeye] "Charles, you never told me anything like this before." [Winchester] "Actually...Hawkeye, I've never told you anything before." Also let me just jump in
here to gush about David Ogden Stiers You might recognize his voice from here: [Cogsworth] "If it's not baroque don't fix it."
[Giggles] Or here: [Jumba] "After all you put me through, you expect me to help you just like that? JUST LIKE THAT?" [Stitch replies in a monosyllabic alien word] Also he seemed like an amazing person,
and also one time Alan Alda and Mike Farrell had his dressing room painted
bright orange and purple as a prank and just... [David Ogden Stiers] "It will be repainted."
[Off camera voice] "And repaid?" [David Ogden Stiers] "No just repainted and I'm planning on using Farrell's mustache." What an icon. The last big change came in season eight when Radar O'Reilly got sent home. His
character is not replaced by a new cast member, instead Klinger picked up his
duties as company clerk and Radar's absence was felt for the rest of the
show's run. And from there M*A*S*H* went along for a few more seasons until the team decided to end the show in its 11th season. Going out on a high
note, rather than running the show into the ground. The last season was only 15
episodes, before the final episode 'Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen.' Ao now let's
talk about how the show grew over 11 seasons, and in some cases matured. So I mentioned that the show...grew up. And I can't go any further without just briefly touching on...well... [Cho Man Chin] "Real estate. First class poop." [Potter] "Real estate. Next you'll sell me your mother."
[Cho Man Chin] "Sold out." [Frank] "Oh you'd think there were all my wife!" [Margaret] "Oh...Frank!"
[Laugh Track] So like this show started in 1972 and
culturally we were just not...there yet I can't excuse it. I can only point to
improvements that were made as the show went on, and as the writers and creators
maybe learned and matured? But the other stuff is still in there so let's just
address it. Trapper John, Henry Blake, and Frank Burns are lying cheating bastards
and this show thinks that's very funny. We're supposed to like two of them but
all three of them are cheating on their wives and it's only ever played for
laughs. [Henry] "Frank, the one thing that will get you
nowhere with me is impersonating my wife!" I think it's meant to be a comment on
the extremes that living through war might drive a person to? But I think BJ
and Colonel Potter were attempts to rectify some of that. Both are loyal
husbands and anytime they came close to straying, they got really torn up about
it. I mean Frank would stick around for two more seasons after Trapper and Henry
left, but again we aren't supposed to like him. Also in season five Margaret
meets her husband Donald Penobscot and leaves Frank. And then there was the
general treatment of women on the show which was largely not...good for those
first years. [Nurse Baker] "OW!"
[Henry] "Just reaching for my frankfurter." They're mostly treated as objects for the men to enjoy or
occasionally miss out on. Hawkeye and Trapper were known leches and
philanderers, and that too is played for jokes. [Lt. Dish] "Hawkeye! Is that your hand?"
[Hawkeye] "Is what my hand?" [Margaret] "What are you doing with your hands?"
[Trapper] "Just saluting." And honestly the level of bad just depends
on the episode. Sometimes it's just cute and consensual canoodling, and other
times... [Trapper] "I thought I heard somebody yell for help...
carry on." Even writer Larry Gelbart has
acknowledged in interviews that women characters weren't treated well on the
show initially. Nurses didn't really get to have much in the way of a personality
until later in the show with episodes like 'Taking the Fifth' where the nurses
take Hawkeye down a peg, or the excellent 'Look Me Over' where Nurse Kellye gives
Hawkeye a piece of her mind. [Nurse Kellye] "You haven't the faintest idea how terrific I am. For your information," "I happen to have a fantastic sense of humor, a- a bubbling personality" "And on top of all that, I happen to be cute as hell!" But the clearest example of growth when it comes
to women over the course of the series would be the writing of Margaret. And to
give the writers a little bit of leeway it's not like the movie gave them much
to work with. So let's talk about Margaret Hot Lips Houlihan [Margaret] "He knows I love fine leathers." [Margaret shrieking and Radar yelping] In the early seasons, her two defining characteristics were her love of military discipline, and
her love of high-ranking military officials. Also this: [Frank] "You'd think they were all my wife!"
[Margaret] "Oh...Frank..." And there were
flashes of something deeper, even in those early seasons.
I love the season 3 episode 'Aid Station' where Hawkeye, Margaret, and Klinger have
to go to an aid station. But we get moments like this [Hawkeye] "You are my favorite officer in the whole US Army." Which are beautiful hints of what would follow.
There's also the season 5 episode 'The Nurses' where Margaret, as head nurse,
clashes with her team. And it leads to this scene where we learn, she's just
really lonely and would like some friends. [Margaret] "Can you imagine what it feels like to--"
[Gasps] "To walk by this tent and hear you laughing...and know...I'm not welcome?" "Did you ever once offer me a lousy cup of coffee." [Nurse Baker] "We didn't think you'd accept." [Margaret] "Well you were wrong." Her character would grow a lot more once she left Frank Burns and married Donald
Penobscot. Not because marriage fixed her personality or something, but because
Frank was such a cartoon it lessened her character to stay in a relationship with
this creep. Her entire relationship with Donald was always fascinating, because we
watched it start and we watch it fall apart. By season 7 she's decided to divorce him in another favorite episode 'Peace on Us' [Potter] "Come on Margaret, from your gut, what do you wanna do?" [Margaret] "Divorce him."
[Potter] "Then do it!" [Margaret] "I will!" In the episode 'Dear Sigmund' visiting psychiatrist Sidney Friedman described Margaret as 'on the outside all discipline and strength. And on the inside, six kinds of passion looking for an exit.' And to quote tumblr user La Belle Epoch on Margaret's arc over eleven seasons, 'It truly is an honor to watch Margaret Houlihan grow into her heart' [Margaret] "How many points do I get if I find L.O.V.E.?" [Hawkeye] "You win the game." [Margaret] "Harknerf...Well I guess I keep looking." The last big issue that really dates the show would be its treatment of Asian characters. I say Asian since the actors were rarely cast
as the correct ethnicities. This remained a problem throughout the show's run, what
did improve was the writing of those Asian characters. In early seasons they were... [Young-Hi] "Roger Wilco Captain-San. I make English perfect. Speak very Goodly." It wasn't good you guys.
As the series progressed we got characters like Klinger's wife's Soon-Lee,
who would be played as real people, and not 2-dimensional jokey stereotypes. As for
'the opposition,' we occasionally got a soldier on the operating table, but they
rarely got to say a lot or express a lot of emotion other than anger, or fear at
their general situation of being injured in a hospital where nobody speaks their
language. There is one episode towards the end of the series that I thought was
a particularly stellar attempt at delving into the humanity of 'The Enemy.'
In the season 9 premiere 'Best of Enemies' Hawkeye gets waylaid by a Korean soldier
who wants Hawkeye to try and save his friend. [Hawkeye] "As long as he stays alive, I sat alive." Over the course of the episode the two largely failed to communicate due to the language barrier and being 'enemies' as the title suggests. Hawkeye tries to bargain and plead: "I work in a in a hospital just like...a hand
grenade throw from here." "If we can get but we get back to my jeep and we go very fast down that road to the hospital we can--" "We can help him"
[Soldier cocks gun] "Alright, okay! Alright! Alright I'm not gonna move him okay?!" And eventually he abandons any attempt at niceties as the wounded soldier gets closer and closer to death. "Don't worry about your gun, there'll be plenty of time later later to kill me." And Hawkeye fails to save him. There's
this gut-wrenching moment where he assumes he's about to die because he
couldn't save this man. And the soldier... For whatever reason, We can only guess because the scene is almost entirely without dialogue but... [North Korean Soldier speaks Korean] He just lets Hawkeye go... and starts to dig a grave for his dead friend. And then Hawkeye, given the opportunity to go, gets down on his knees and helps the man dig. [Digging sounds] It's a really powerful moment and this
episode is one of the ones I revisit whenever I decide to sit and watch some
of the show. It doesn't really justify all the
seasons they spent treating Asian characters like cartoons, there's nothing
I can say to excuse that. It happened and the writing improved somewhat as the
show went on. The last element of the show that needs to be talked about would be the show's handling of...LGBT themes? Not even as a major flaw or sin the
writers committed but... [Sidney] "Now...what's your name honey?"
[Laugh track] The show was of its time, and the cross-dressing Klinger was originally played as a gay character in his first appearance [Jamie Farr] "E.W. Swackhammer, who was a guest director," "And this is the first time this character shows up," "Has me doing it...in a, in a more of a homosexual way," "With lisping...and I said how about if
he just plays it straight." Let everybody else look at him as if he's, he's strange, and literally go with that's his dress of the day." The concept for the character
came from comedian Lenny Bruce who wore women's uniforms to try and get out of
the army. In the 1950s being gay was often considered a mental disorder so...you know That is the entire joke of this character. He's a man with hairy legs wearing dresses to prove he's 'crazy' to get out of the army. [Klinger] "I'm Section 8 head to toe. I'm wearing a Warner bra. I play with dolls." "My last wish to be buried in my mother's
wedding gown. I'm nuts. I should be out." The interesting part is that even in the early years, while the joke is always him in absurd outfits, Everybody is completely accepting of this. [Potter] "Klinger...nice outfit." [Klinger] "Thank you sir, it's from the Shirley
Temple collection." With the exception of the antagonist characters like Winchester and Frank Burns [Frank] "A soldier stands in your office in an evening gown and you ask what's wrong?!"
[Laugh track] [Henry] "I'll admit he's no Lana Turner."
[Laugh track] There's even a scene in the season 6 episode 'War of Nerves' where Klinger questions his sanity, or possibly
sexuality, as he discovers he likes wearing dresses and is developing a real
sense of fashion. [Klinger] "Major I think I'm really going nuts! Gina Lollobrigida used to make me drool!" "And last week I looked at a picture of this beautiful voluptuous woman and all I could think of was..." "How could she wear a peasant
blouse with a tweed skirt!" Dr. Sidney Freedman says he's not losing it. "You're a tribute to man's endurance. A monument to hope in size 12 pumps." And you know it's not a progressive depiction of queerness by modern standards, But for the 70s? This is actually pretty good. Klinger was a man who wore dresses and mostly liked it and nobody questioned it. [Hawkeye] "C'mon Klinger put on a dress or something." in later seasons he would eventually abandon the outfits and stick to the military uniform, But the show would never forget Klinger's origins. [BJ] "When I tell Erin about all this there are some things she's just not gonna believe so uh..." "Would you autograph this for me?" [Klinger] "Aah this was one of my favorite. I was always a sucker for crinolines." And there were some
one-off episodes like this season 2 episode' George' which more openly touched
on the homophobia of the time, so... I think it's safe to say their hearts were in
the right place. I mean we could try and unpack the queer coding of Frank Burns. [Frank] "Fred?"
[Hawkeye] "Yes Frank?" [Frank] "Do you think the principal saw us?"
[Laugh track] But that would mean having to unpack a century's worth of film and effeminate male antagonists "I've heard nothing but innuendo."
"Call it my women's intuition." and jokes at
the expense of implied homosexuality and there just isn't time for that today.
Plus I think Winchester to some degree answers that by
being a less traditionally masculine character and that is never the butt of
the joke like it was for Frank. [Frank] "I've had a little experience lieutenant. Uh--Amateur production in college. I played Romeo." [Hawkeye] "And Juliet." So parts of the show grew up,
parts of it didn't. I still enjoy it although I understand why some people
might not. I argue that the merits of the show outweigh its flaws, which were of
their time, before they were mostly, if not completely outgrown. I'll always love
this show because at the heart of it all was this makeshift family that was just
trying to survive and stay sane in the face of insanity By any. Means. Necessary. [Potter] "I said fire that weapon!" [Hawkeye] "Alright...you fired." [Frank] "Oh everybody knows war is hell." [Hawkeye] "War isn't hell. War is war and hell is hell and of the two, war is a lot worse. [Mulcahy] "How do you figure that Hawkeye?" [Haekeye] "Easy. There are no innocent bystanders in hell. But war is chock-full of them." "Little kids, cripples, old ladies...in fact
except for a few of the brass," 'Almost everybody involved as an innocent
bystander." So we've touched on The War a little bit. But we do have to take a second to talk about Vietnam This show is about the Vietnam War probably more than it is about the Korean War, in a way that seems somewhat unintentional. Writers and actors never
saw it as a deliberate allegory. [Alan Alda] "The question always comes up, was the show about the Vietnam War really?" "What was it in your mind?" [Larry Gelbart] "It was a show about all wars."
[Alan Alda] "That's what I thought!" [Larry Gelbart] "Exactly thank God you were doing the show." Well you see M*A*S*H* began in 1973 and the Vietnam War had been going in some
capacity since 1955. The war would not end until 1975 by about the third season
of the show, but Vietnam had a lot of lasting effects on the culture in
America. The draft and all the young men who didn't want to go to war, along with
an increased antipathy towards bureaucracies and politicians that let
the war continue as long as it did. I mean the Korean War also had a draft but
it's safe to say that for most of the war the American people considered the
fight against communism in Korea to be a worthy cause? Unlike with Vietnam which
was generally recognized as a clusterfuck and well... [Frank] "This is a war y'know!" [Hawkeye] "Y'see? I told you it was a war. But no you keep saying we're both dreaming." [BJ] "How can we be in each others dreams?"
[Hawkeye] "How can I be in Korea?" I think it's safe
to say that a lot of the ideas surrounding war in the show were more of
the 1970s than the 1950s? [Hawkeye] "You know what to do why can't you just do it? People are dying out there you got to stop it." "You can't wait anymore! You can't!" Whether it was intentionally or not, M*A*S*H* was a way to reckon, not only with the current war, but to unpack the last one. Since many of the writers and
directors working on the show were probably alive during the Korean War.
Some of them like Alan Alda or Jamie Farr might have even served in those
wars. [Potter] "If they can invent better ways to kill each other, why can't they invent a way to end this stupid war!" I think it's an interesting footnote on the
series as a whole. The darkness of the humor, and the bleak nature of the
violence portrayed, and the toll it takes on these doctors is...I think very
reflective of the time it was made, not the time its portraying. A lot of
historical films reflect the times in which they're made. This isn't new, it's
just interesting. [Hawkeye] "I just don't know why they're shooting at us. All we want to do is bring them democracy and white bread..." "Transplant the American dream..." "Freedom, achievement, hyperacidity,
affluence, flatulence, technology, tension..." "The inalienable right to an early coronary sitting at your desk while plotting to stab your boss in the back." "That's entertainment." This show was extremely liberal in its day and political too. Most shows would occasionally have a 'very special episode'
to try and tackle big issues, but almost every episode of M*A*S*H* would be about big
issues. Just by the nature of its setting and the people who were making it almost
every episode was an impassioned plea for pacifism [Hawkeye] "I'll carry your books, I'll
carry a torch, I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, carry
over, carry forward, Cary Grant," "Cash and carry, Carry Me Back To old Virginia," "I'll even harikari [mispronounced Harry Carry] if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun." The shift away from a more jingoistic pro-military sentiment had already happened in film, but it was slower to come to television. The
television series 'Hogan's Heroes' ran from 1965 to 1972 and followed a lovable
group of soldiers who were fighting Nazis and sabotaging operations from
within a German prison camp. The tone was largely light and silly, in spite of its
subject matter and was obviously pretty pro-military.
I mean setting that show in the European half of World War II allowed for an
easy and obvious villain that audiences could laugh at, as the American heroes
foiled them time and time again for six seasons. The Korean War was much more
complicated, and a different kind of complicated from Vietnam, in the sense
that we might have accomplished something in Korea, and our actions were
viewed as mostly positive. And in Vietnam it was just an absolute mess that we
stepped into, partially based on the quote-unquote "success" we'd had in Korea.
And we definitely did more harm than good in Vietnam, but
both cases Congress never officially declared them as wars, and usually referred
to them as police actions. And in the end M*A*S*H* would last eight years longer than
the war it portrayed which is funny somehow. [Sidney] "Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice. Pull down your pants...and slide on the ice." One of the themes this show would
explore over and over again was trauma. A lot of it was extremely literal, since
wounded soldiers were coming in and out of this camp, and getting patched up. The
doctors do what they can but sometimes it's not enough. In one episode 'The Smell
of Music,' a young man's face gets burned and he's convinced his girlfriend back
home will leave him over it, so he tries to commit suicide. Only some upsettingly
tough love from Colonel Potter stops him. [Potter] "The part of you that wants to stick around is stronger than the part that wants to end it all" "Okay...hang on to that." In another episode, 'Morale Victory,' Charles is very pleased with himself when he's able to
save a patient's leg, but he had to ignore some nerve damage in the man's
right hand to do it. It turns out the patient was a classical piano player and
he's heartbroken at his new disability. In the end Winchester is able to track
down some sheet music composed specifically to be played left-handed. [Winchester] "I won't make any pretense about your physical ability to play concerts. That's not my point." "Because the true gift is in your head," "And in your heart....and in your soul." "Or you can find new ways to share your gift with the world. Through the baton, the classroom, the pen." [Fast paces piano music] But when the doctors aren't trying to
keep the patients afloat, they're doing everything in their power to hold on to their own sanity in the face of so much blood and death every single day. In a favorite episode 'Movie Tonight' the M*A*S*H* unit gathers to watch 'My Darling Clementine,' and the film reel keeps slipping or breaking, so they just spendan evening as a camp singing songs, doing impressions, and just passing time while they wait for the movie to start again. [Margaret doing an impression of Father Mulcahy]
"And somebody has broken into the sacramental wine." [Laughter] In the end they get really into the film,
physically play-acting a final climactic shootout [Gunshot sounds from the movie and everybody yelling] and then the whole thing is interrupted as a real wounded arrive at the camp [Bus Driver] "Hey we got wounded out here!" "...We got wounded in here too." And they all just have to get
up, and go to work. That's a common theme on this show. Lives are always on the line and so these doctors often have to compartmentalize in order to cope. They
turn to drinking, or sex, or whatever gets them through the day. The show rarely
addressed the alcoholism displayed by many of the main characters. It's mostly
treated as the sane reaction to an insane situation. In another favorite
episode 'Pressure Points,' Colonel Potter calls in Sidney Freedman after he misses
a piece of shrapnel and a patient. And then he has a minor meltdown at a
visiting physician. [Potter] "Tell me this Captain. How the hell am I supposed to keep up with it!" "If they can invent better ways to kill each other, why can't they find a way to end this stupid war!" It's a sudden turn and it takes him by surprise - but
tensions are high all around camp, so while Colonel Potter grapples with being
a veteran of two previous wars and the destruction he's witnessed. Hawkeye BJ
and Winchester have their own little meltdown over who cleans and who doesn't
in their tent, which leads to this scene: [Trash rustling around]
[Laugh track] [Patting sounds and more laugh track] [Tearing sounds] [Laugh track] [Winchester screaming & fabric tearing] This is what M*A*S*H* would always do at its
best. Telling two different but complementary stories. One would be funny
and one wouldn't be. One particularly memorable example might be the season 8
episode 'Heal Thyself.' Colonel Potter and Charles to fall victim to the mumps. The
pair are quarantined and a Dr. Newsome is brought in to help keep up with the
wounded coming into camp. He's a funny guy, and the rest of the camp gets along with him really well including Hawkeye, Margaret, and BJ. He's not new to this
sort of thing either, he references time spent on the Pusan Perimeter, and bodies
being stacked like cordwood. [Newsome] "Anyway I'm cutting. Kid is screaming. Leg is bleeding. And the driver's yelling 'where are we?'" But he seems mostly okay until an OR
session turns particularly harrowing, and the doctor vanishes. Meanwhile Winchester
and Potter have spent most of this episode being ridiculous, and the two
have wildly different personalities, and being trapped in a tent together with
the mumps puts both of them in a bad mood. [Opera music getting cut off]
[Potter] "Oh yes!" [Shattering sounds] But after everyone in camp goes
looking for Newsome, this happens: [Potter] "He's in here." Once they realize what's actually
happening, [Potter] "He just wandered in and sat down." nobody judges him for this either. Initial outrage at being left understaffed is immediately swept aside when they see the state of this man. [Newsome] "The blood won't come off...no matter how hard I scrub or..." "How much I wash..." "It's gonna stay there." It feels like a cautionary tale. Any one of them could end up like Newsome, and they all know it. [BJ] "He was as strong as any of us."
[Hawkeye] "That's what scares me." Hawkeye frequently struggled to keep a grip on his own sanity. In one episode he
developed psychosomatic sneezing fits that came from some traumatic childhood
memories he had long ignored. In another episode he developed insomnia and got increasingly strange until he finally slept. [Henry] "I'm gonna be frank with you Pierce." [Hawkeye] "You're gonna be Frank with me?" [Henry] "I mean blunt." [Hawkeye] "Oh good otherwise Frank would try to be Henry with me and I don't think I could stand that." And most notably in the series finale, Hawkeye spent some time in a mental
institution after suffering a psychotic break, when he saw a woman accidentally
strangled her baby in order to try and keep it quiet as they hid from North
Korean soldiers. [Hawkeye sobbing] "I didn't mean for her to kill it!" "I-I just wanted her to keep it quiet!" "She-she smothered her own baby!" There's one episode in particular that I think of a lot when I think of how far the show was willing to go. The 22nd episode of season 8, 'Dreams.' This one was penned and directed by Alan Alda. And in the episode, the doctors work for 33 hours straight, and as each character practically collapses from exhaustion during whatever breaks they can get away from OR, they sleep and we see their dreams. Some are calm and sweet. Some are incredibly, deeply disturbing. [Professor] "How do you reattach a limb? I watched this episode when I was around
12 years old, a dedicated fan by this point. My dad had been buying the season
collections on DVD, and they regularly aired a couple of episodes on TV every
day. So when I say I stopped watching 'M*A*S*H*' for a month after seeing this
episode, please understand what a big deal that was for me. I had nightmares
from this episode. Of course they weren't making the show for sensitive 12 year
olds, and it's a daring piece of television that won multiple awards. Alda
lists it as one of his favorite episodes. For me a better example of the way this
show would take 30 minutes to delve into a character's mental state, would be 'The
Interview.' The final episode of season 4 was filmed in black and white, and
largely unscripted. [The Interviewer] "Are you a captain in the US Army Reserve? Are you a civilian in uniform?" [BJ] "I'm a...temporarily misassigned civilian." In it, real war correspondent, Clete Roberts, played himself and interviewed the various doctors and nurses of the M*A*S*H* unit. The actors were given questions in
advance, and largely ad-libbed their responses. [Father Mulcahy] "When the doctors cut into a patient...and it's cold y'know, the way it is now..." "Steam rises from the body...and the doctor
will...will warm himself over the open wound." "Could anyone look on that and that
feel changed." That one was scripted. Based on a story from a real army doctor. But the episode as a whole was just 30 minutes of people talking. Talking about the family they missed, and the little, and big problems they faced every day. It's not as dramatic as Dreams, but I love this quiet exploration of these characters. And speaking of characters... [Klinger] "Okay! Ready for the army again."
[Laughter] One of my favorite elements of the
series and the reason I returned to it over and over again, is these characters.
They're unbearable humanity, and the tight bonds that develop between them. I
love the relationship between Hawkeye and Houlihan [Hawkeye] "You know all those rotten things I've said to you? All those nasty little tricks I played on you?" [Margaret] "Yes." [Hawkeye] "I'd like to get well and do them all over again." [Laugh Track] [Hawkeye] "Why don't you just chalk this up to experience and forget about Scully?" [Margaret] "Because I like him you dummy!!" I love the friendships that develop
between all three occupants in the swamp. [Hawkeye] "They're gonna separate us, and you're my best friend!" "I never got along this well with anybody you moron!" [BJ] "Well that goes double for me stupid!" [Hawkeye] "Charles you're not gonna like this, but I'm gonna tell you anyway." "You're pompous, arrogant conceited, and a total bore...but you're alright." I love watching Colonel Potter be a dad to this entire camp. [BJ] "I need some help here."
[Potter] "Pack it off...and keep the pressure on it." 'You're not gonna lose him." "Yeah, you're doing just fine, son." And the subtle kindnesses of Klinger. [Klinger] "And for dessert, Frisco Fudge!" [Winchester] "And what, pray tell, is the catch of the day?" [Klinger] "Oh just one catch Major. The source of this Christmas dinner must remain...anonymous." "It's an old family tradition." [Winchester] "Thank you Max." I love Radar's innocence and Father Mulcahy's mischievous spirit [Sergeant Zale] "What do you care? You're ahead 50 bucks." [Father Mulcahy] "The Lord moves in a mysterious ways." And if you couldn't tell.
I just love Margaret Houlihan. [Margaret slurring drunkenly] "You know something Stratton? and don't take it personally. I think you stink." "If my fiance Donald Penobscot..."
[Hawkeye] "--Of West Point--" [Margaret] "That's him. If he were here, which he isn't. He'd take this bum by the neck...and he'd deck him!" "So its a good thing Donald isn't here." In a favorite episode, 'Where There's a
Will There's a War,' Hawkeye fears for his life at an aid station, and writes out
his will. And in one of my all-time favorite scenes, he remembers a night
when he and Margaret were up late doing inventory, and this happened: [Hawkeye] "Where's the stupid Selfa?"
[Margaret] "It's in the living room." [Hawkeye] "What?" [Margaret] "The Selfa is in the living room between the end tables." [Hawkeye] "I can't believe you said that!" [Hawkeye chuckles] [Hawkeye] "Okay Selfa! Here-here we...we got plenty." [Margaret] "Selfa so good." [Hawkeye laughs] [Margaret] "We gotta get this done!"
[Hawkeye] "Alright, alright, okay, okay..." "Digitalus?"
[Margaret] "No I'm keeping it a secret." [Hawkeye and Margaret shriek with laughter] And it's the little moments like
that which I always think of when I think of the show. In yet another favorite episode, 'Sons and Bowlers,' Hawkeye nervously waits for news about a
risky surgery his dad is undergoing. He didn't get notified that his dad needed
surgery until the day of the procedure, because the letter took too long to
reach him, and making long-distance calls from other countries was rather hard
back in the day. So just reaching the stateside hospital where his dad is
being treated takes a while. And of all people, it's Charles who ends up keeping
vigil with him. At the start it's simply because he overheard Hawkeye on the
phone and then... [Winchester] "My father and I have been 12,000 miles apart in the same room." "And my father's a good man. He always wanted the best for me." "But where I have a father...you have a dad." [Hawkeye] "Charles you never told me anything like this before." [Winchester] "Actually...Hawkeye...I've never told you anything before." Again, a little moment but one that speaks volumes to these characters and how they've grown. [Winchester] "To our fathers." [Hawkeye] "And their sons."
[Glasses clink] There's a million episodes I could cite. The one where Colonel Potter toasts to his old war buddies who he has now outlived: [Potter] "I loved you fellas. One and all." He drinks to them and to his new friends
at the 4077th. [Potter] "As much as my old friends meant to me," "I think you new friends...mean even more." "So I'd like you to share this bottle with me." [Hawkeye] "We'd be honored Colonel." [Potter] "To love...and friendship." [Glasses clinking] Or this little moment that I had forgotten about until I was researching for this video from a season 3 episode called 'OR.' The
episode spans yet another never ending OR session and in one quiet moment,
after Hawkeye shaved with coffee, because they've used up all the hot water
sterilizing equipment, this Ethiopian soldier he operated on earlier, is brought by on a stretcher. And the man doesn't speak a word of English, so this happens: [Klinger] "I think he's thanking you." [Hawkeye] "Well that's haile selassie of you sir." "Keep him warm." "That's gonna be the nicest fee I ever got." After this scene Hawkeye performed an
open heart massage on another patient, and a small fire started in the OR, but
in the midst of all that chaos...we have a sweet little moment between two human
beings. Later in the episode he'll lose that other patient that he worked so
hard to save, but I keep coming back to this beautiful little moment. [Hawkeye] "That's gonna be the nicest fee I ever got." When I think of the way MA*S*H* showed us this
camp of doctors, and their boundless kindness and heroism in saving lives, as
well as all the broken ugly pieces of them that are just surviving it. I think
of a quote from one of my favorite books 'The Book Thief' by Markus Zusak in it our
narrator Death tells us a small story from a very different war, and at the
very end of the whole story, death tells us: And I think I'll always be haunted by the humanity of these characters, and the real people out there who've lived through the ugliness of wars. Because there is beauty in their survival and horror in what they survived. And you know when M*A*S*H* wasn't making me wanna bawl my eyes out, it was actually pretty funny. Like really funny. [Hawkeye] "I don't care what you do to me, but those lice you killed were women and children!" [Hawkeye cackles] The genius of this show was how quickly
it could pivot between the two. The horrific traumatic bits, and the
hilariously absurd moments in between. [Frank] "For a while there was a toss-up whether I'd be a doctor or an actor." [Hawkeye] "What finally happened?" When this show ended with the two-hour
finale 'Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen,' people everywhere were hanging on to the edge of their seats to see how it would all turned out and well... [PA Announcer] "Ladies and gentlemen five minutes ago at 10:01 this morning," "The truce was signed in Panmunjom. The hostilities will end twelve hours from now at 10 O'Clock." "The war is over!!"
[People cheering] The war ended. And
everybody got to go home. Of course all of these characters had been forever
marked by the war. Like Father Mulcahy's loss of hearing, or Hawkeye's PTSD. But
most of all these characters have been forever changed by their relationships
with one another. Relationships that helped them stay sane through the insanity
and senselessness of this war. [Nurse Kellye] "And I just want to say that I...I love you all." [Dennis] "I'm going back to Colorado my father-in-law's got a ranch there." [Shari] "I want to see if I can get into radiology." [Roy] "I don't know what I'm gonna do."
[Laughter] [Bigelow] "Well I-I was a nurse at the tail end of WWII and now this...and...you want to know something? I've had it." And so after about 90 minutes of show, where we watched Hawkeye go through a mental breakdown, a tank decimate some of the camp, BJ getting his orders to go home only to have them rescinded and him sent back to camp, and Klinger announcing after ALL THAT EFFORT he's staying in Korea, helping his soon-to-be wife find her family. And we even get to see the wedding. [Everybody singing 'The Wedding March'] And we saw Winchester bonding with some
Chinese soldiers over Mozart. [Winchester] "I am trying to listen to Mozart. Do you understand?" [Soldiers speaking to eachother in Chinese]
[Winchester] "Mozart." [The Chinese soldier plays Mozart's Clarinet Quintet melody on the flute] In the end they get sent off in a
prisoner exchange and all but one of them die on the way. The one survivor
ends up back at the 4077th. [Winchester sounding choked up] "He wasn't even a soldier. He was a musician." [Mozart's Clarinet Quintet plays on a record player] [Music cuts off abruptly] [Shattering sounds And after all of that...it was time to
watch this family say goodbye. [Potter] "I know you've got your career in order but don't forget to have a happy life too." [Margaret] "You dear sweet man. I'll never forget you." [Potter] "It would be hard to call what we've been through fun, but I'm sure glad we went through it together." [Hawkeye] "Colonel before you go," [BJ] "We've been thinking about it and there's a little something we'd like to give you." [Hawkeye] "It's not much but it comes from the heart and one of the most central relationships of the show, that of our two lead pranksters, Hawkeye and BJ, was really put under the microscope during the finale. You see, when BJ had received his discharge orders, Hawkeye was still away
at the psychiatric hospital. BJ even visited to try and tell Hawk
that he was leaving. [Hawkeye] "Go. what are you waiting for?" [BJ] "I don't know. I just thought there might be something we wanted to say to each other before I left." [Hawkeye] "So tell me the next time you see me. I'm not gonna be here forever I can guarantee you that." [BJ] "I'll see you." But in the end BJ just lef,t and Hawkeye returned from
his stay at the institution to find BJ had gone, much the same way that Trapper
had, without saying goodbye. [Hawkeye] "I'm about to stick my hands into a kid whose insides look like a raw meat loaf." "I just found out my best friend went home without leaving me so much as a damn note." [Margaret] "You know he really felt bad about that."
[Hawkeye] "Trapper left without leaving a note too." "Is it the war that stinks or me?" And Hawkeye isn't really
able to let that pass without comment. [Hawkeye] "In other words goodbye."
[BJ] "It's not goodbye." [Hawkeye] "It is goodbye! Say goodbye, what's the big deal?" "Just say goodbye."
[BJ] "What do you want me to say it for?" [Hawkeye] "Because it shows you know I'm going." 'C'mon just a little so long."
[BJ] "I'm gonna get back to the OR." [Hawkeye] "Goodbye." Because none of them know for sure if they will ever see
each other again. Many of them probably won't because they're going back home to places like Maine or California, and it turns out BJ doesn't like goodbyes. So
when the time finally comes for Hawkeye and BJ, after spending the whole episode
avoiding it... [Hawkeye] "Look I know how tough it is for you to say goodbye so I'll say it." "I want you to know how much you've meant to me. I'll never be able to shake you." [BJ] "I can't imagine what this place would have been like if I hadn't found you here." Then they share one last hug, and as Hawkeye heads for his chopper BJ says: "I left you a note!" And as he rides away on his motorbike, the chopper rises in the air, and we get this final shot. A goodbye for these two characters, a farewell to the audience, and a last Amen for this series. it was iconic, and emotional, and a truly
fitting ending. I don't like rewatching the finale as much as some of the other
episodes, because it's so emotionally charged. but it's up there in the
pantheon of best series finales because it does what some of the bests finales
should do. Spend enough time giving each character some kind of closure, and
giving us time as an audience to say goodbye. [Father Mulcahy] "Look on the bright side. When they tell us we have to do time in purgatory," "We can all say no thanks I've done mine." Because we the audience were saying goodbye after 11 years. And not only was the audience so were the cast and crew. Because of production schedules
they didn't actually finish filming the show with the finale.
Instead the final episode they produced was the penultimate episode of the
series, 'As Time Goes By,' where the camp buried a time capsule to commemorate the
4077th. The cast and crew actually buried a real time capsule on location
in the hills of Malibu California, where most of their outdoor shooting was done.
The capsule would later be accidentally dug up by a construction worker who
tried to return it to the cast and Alan Alda told him to keep it. The final scene
they filmed was the one where they showed off the contents of their time
capsule before burying it. Emotions ran high that day. Some of the cast and crew
had been on the show for 11 years. They had worked together under frequently
difficult conditions. The main set of the swamp had rats, and filming outdoors and
the Santa Monica Hills was often brutally hot or painfully cold, while actors like Alan Alda wore little more than Hawaiian shirts. And so when the series wrapped on January 14 1983 at exactly 6:05 PM, it was too many tears and hugs between this real-life family that had formed while they all made this show about a family. The 1970s were an age of
experimentation in film, but on American TV, networks liked to play it safe.
Before M*A*S*H* most shows were either silly sitcoms like 'Gilligan's Island' or dramas
like 'Little House on the Prairie.' There were sitcoms like 'All In The
Family' or the 'Mary Tyler Moore Show' which were making social commentary and
occasionally tackling heavy issues, but just by the nature of its setting every
episode of M*A*S*H* had a weight and a political agenda, and that aspect only
grew as the show progressed, and developed a more serious tone. The
creative team had to fight to allow blood to be shown on screen, something
that was largely unheard of from a network show in the 60s and 70s. But M*A*S*H*
was about war and war was bloody. Over time the show's laugh track would become increasingly sparse. They had already campaigned to have it removed from
certain operating room scenes, but by later seasons it was almost gone
entirely. [Winchester] "How I wish I could have swung the axe." [Hawkeye] "Just think of all the rats who are homeless now." [Winchester] "Oh, don't worry you'll find somewhere to go." And they experimented with the show's format, having episodes in black and white made
up of interviews with the characters, or an episode filmed entirely from the
perspective of a patient. [Hawkeye] "Rich welcome back!"
[Potter] "You gave us quite a scare son." [Winchester] "Fortunately for you, there was me." [Hawkeye] "You were on the table for two hours, minus his curtain calls." Another episode followed a tricky operating procedure in real time with a little timer in the corner of the screen. So I guess 24 took a leaf out of M*A*S*H*'s Book. Once this show had cemented itself
into the culture, they were given the space to be daring, and take risks. This
show, with it's crucial blend of comedy and drama, is sometimes credited with
creating the Dramedy Genre as we know it today. Now we have shows like 'The Good
Place,' 'Russian Doll,' and 'Fleabag' further blurring the lines between the two, but
M*A*S*H* was one of the first network shows to ever try and make us laugh and cry on
a weekly basis. [Potter] "See this smile? You're all gonna wear one just like it. hopefully it'll catch on." [Winchester] Surely you don't think--"
[Potter] QUIET! ....SMILE!" [Laugh track] And the cast was so devoted to the show and their characters, that the writers could trust them to ad-lib almost entire episodes, like 'The Interview' or 'Movie Tonight.' And by all accounts everyone loved working on the show. [Alan Alda] "The irresistible force is about to polish off the immovable object." [Mike Farrell laughing hysterically] [Several actors yelling bird sounds?] [Alan Alda] "What the?" [Off camera laughter] [Potter] "We are in the midst of an epidemic." [Mike Farrell] "Holy shit!"
[Alan Alda] "Oh my god." [Farrell] "An epidemic!" M*A*S*H* went to places that other
shows were too scared to, and shows after M*A*S*H* would try to follow in its
trailblazing steps. Some more successfully than others. The show was so
beloved that they tried to recapture the magic with two separate spin-offs. 'AfterMASH' starred Jamie Farr, Harry Morgan, and William Christopher as Klinger, Potter,
and Mulcahy respectively, and it ran for two seasons before it was canceled in
1985. And in 1984 they produced a pilot called W*A*L*T*E*R* a show that would focus on
Radar's character after the war. That show was never picked up, and eventually the
network let M*A*S*H* rest with dignity. It would be impossible to talk about every
great episode of M*A*S*H*, or even just to talk about all of my favorite episodes.
Episodes like 'The Novocaine Mutiny' where Frank puts Hawkeye on trial for a
supposed mutiny and it's hilarious. [Hawkeye] "Besides my life, Frank wants my virginity."
[BJ] "We all do." [Hawkeye] "If only I'd known. Or 'The Light That Failed,' where the whole camp gets obsessed with this mystery novel that's missing the last page. [Father Mulcahy] "Aww who did do it then?" [Hawkeye in a silly British accent] "Alright I confess! I did it and I'm glad. I hated Sir Winslow, I hated them all." "I don't even remember their names but I hated them anyway." [BJ] "He's mad sir" [Hawkeye] "Yes mad, mad, mad, mad, mad!"
[Hawkeye cackles] Or the episodes simply titled
'Hawkeye' where Hawkeye gets a concussion and monologues to this Korean family for
30 minutes. [Hawkeye] "Putting it simply what has happened is I have suffered a blow to my occipital bone right where it," "articulates with the parietal, and what
that's call is that's called a contra coup." I find myself reflecting sometimes on how objectively odd it probably was for
an eleven-year-old me to find this as her new favorite show. I was an 11 year
old child, whose favorite show was about the trauma and insanity of war. I'm not
sure what that says about me, but there it is. This show made an impact on me and
stuck with me into adulthood. So much so that I've spent the last 60 minutes
trying to verbalize why I love this show the way I do, and I'm not sure I've even
managed it. It was 11 years of lightning in a bottle. With a cast of characters that were so beloved for all their human frailties, as well as their heroism. There was nothing quite like it on television before, and although we've come quite far in this golden age of television, I think it's fair to say we
haven't had a show quite like M*A*S*H* since. [Hawkeye] "Good evening ladies and germs, I'm sorry I'm late but my watch stopped." "It had to! Its been running fast all week!"
[Hawkeye laughs] I'll stop repeating that there are a
lot of you, because it's becoming redundant, but yeah. Hello. I hope I got
all my history right, I checked with a friend on that. You know
who you are and thanks friend. Um I have a Twitter if you want to hear
from me more I guess. It's twitter.com/ladyknightthebrave
[Its not I actually got the URL wrong, check the description for the correct one] and I started
a Patreon. there's a link in the description for those who would like to
support me as I make these videos. I very much appreciate it. You may have noticed
a couple of names in these credits and those are some of my donors. Thank you
friends. I think I'll leave it at that for now. Thank you all for watching and
see you on the next one.
This was excellent and for those of us who love M*A*S*H\* it's really a good overview of the 11 seasons.
I really enjoyed this video. For what it is worth, I too had mash as my favorite show around the same age. I used to stay up far too late on school nights to catch three episodes back to back on a local channel. Thank you for all the memories!
I'm glad I watched this, very well edited and a great tribute/introduction to the show. Terrific!
Wow, nice find! I love long form video essays about media and have never found even a short video on MASH beyond standard reviews.
This is great. Thanks!
Saved it to watch later!
Like the author of this video, I think a lot of us got to see and love this show much younger than we "should" have.