M*A*S*H

[Harmony]

I'm always a day late and a dollar short....but yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the premier of the television series M*A*S*H.  IMHO definitely one of the best television shows ever.

Here is the pilot's intro/opening. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NWDgMpQvu8

[Zoom E]

Such a great show. I still remember everyone on the bus to school the following morning, chatting about the final episode.

[pg1067]

Epic show.  I miss title sequences like this.

I was not yet 5 when MASH premiered, so I obviously didn't watch from the start.  I probably started watching after the BJ/Trapper, Winchester/Burns and Potter/Blake changes (probably why I prefer the later episodes to the earlier ones.  I can remember my mother explaining a lot things, like why Klinger wore women's clothes.  I also remember my brother, who served in Vietnam, complaining about how the helicopters used in the opening were from the Vietnam era, not the Korea era.

I'm pretty sure I knew Blake had died before I saw the episode.  Super powerful.  I distinctly recall watching the finale:  a TWO AND A HALF hour episode of a network show that aired in what was basically mid-season, February 28, 1983.  I was a sophomore in high school.  It's still the most watched non-sports program in television history.  Apparently, there are stories to the effect that the plumbing systems in some parts of New York City broke down because so many people waited until the end of the show to use the toilet.

[SoundscapeMN]

quite enjoyable show, especially the earlier Trapper/Colonel Blake episodes.

[jammindude]

It’s one of the greatest TV shows in history.

I almost bought the complete set, but then I figured 1) it’s always on anyway, and 2) when would I ever have time to binge watch 11 full seasons of anything?

Still. That doesn’t stop it from being one of the greatest shows ever.

And the movie is pretty good too.

[Stadler]

I loved this show; but it was really three different shows:  the Blake/Trapper/Burns years, the mid-years with Potter/Honeycutt/Burns transitioning to Winchester, and then the post-Radar years.    The first version was to me by far the best.  The irreverence, the mad-cap slap-stick in contrast to the war... I loved everything about it.  I liked the mid-years, but they started to sand down the rough edges, and I can barely watch the last trimester.   They succumbed to what most (Seinfeld is the glaring exception) long-running shows always succumb to:  the characters all want their moment and all get homogenized, or humanized.   It was the great down fall of The Big Bang Theory as well. I didn't watch that show to see Winchester's feelings any more than I was interested in Sheldon's feelings.  I wanted to see Frank Burns run out of his tent when the air raid siren went off and jump into the foxhole that Pierce and Macintyre filled with water.   I wanted to see Henry Blake's desk get progressively shorter as they burned the legs for heat while he was still working at it.