M*A*S*H, a TV sitcom airing from 1972 to 1983, was about a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War. Or at least it was supposed to be. Starring self-anointed feminist actor and Groucho Marx wannabe, Alan Alda, as Captain Hawkeye Pierce, M*A*S*H quickly degraded into an Alan Alda soapbox for anti-war and anti-American dissent after its first two seasons and the show's unscrupulous and opportunistic producers, writers, directors and cast never looked back. What ensued was the liberal, bleeding-heart, Baby-Boomer version of the Korean War, not a cool comedy about Army doctors and nurses.What Baby-Boomer issues, you might ask? Well, the preposterous notion that men and women are interchangeable, for one thing. And the idea that marital infidelity, fornication, cross-dressing (even if it is just a "dodge" to get out of the Army) and homosexuality were perfectly natural and acceptable social behavior for the early 1950s. Oops, that's right, this sitcom was about the Korean War, not Vietnam. I guess the writers, producers and directors just plum forgot.
There's more. M*A*S*H tried its best to perpetuate Baby-Boomer myths like the misconception that doctors can operate on patients at peak levels after drinking the still dry and really talented surgeons can get away with all kinds of anti-social behavior then hide behind their unbeatable skills as surgeons when the crap hits the fan. Or putting the wounded enemy patients ahead of the American and Allied wounded for treatment. Or not tossing a Korean thief out on his ear when he robs you blind after you agree to put him through college in The States at your own expense. What twisted, illogical, ridiculous crap. What kind of role models were these for young American viewers who were already screwed up by having divorced parents or parents who were high most of the time or in jail for not paying their income taxes?
The funniest thing about M*A*S*H was McLean Stevenson as Colonel Henry Blake. But he left at the end of the third season, to be replaced by a 9-year view up Harry Morgan's incredibly large nostrils, along with "Colonel Potter's" boring, mundane, running commentary on life and everything Army. Considered by many to be "the worst career move in television history", McLean Stevenson's departure left the show at the mercy of Alan Alda and the writers who loved this pantywaist's shlocky delivery of their asinine lines that were anti-everything-traditional and heavy-on-the-Jewish-humor.
Larry Linville's portrayal of Major Frank Burns and Loretta Swit's Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan were the only other funny things left. But when Larry Linville departed after the fifth season, "Hot Lips" Houlihan became just plain Margaret Houlihan, a major feminist whiner with a big, man-hating axe to grind on our own personal prime time. More Baby-Boomer issues in place of 1950's army hospital comedy. More soapbox dissent in place of entertainment.
And why go into details about the other regular characters, like Radar O'Reilly, Spearchucker Jones, Ginger Bayliss, Father Mulcahy, Maxwell Klinger, "Trapper" John McIntyre, B.J. Hunnicutt and Charles Emerson Winchester? I mean, what can you say about a brown-noser, your token black character, your token black female character, a geeky guy who doesn't like girls, a homely cross-dresser, a lame comic sidekick, a lamer comic sidekick, and a rich, hateful snob that hasn't been said before?
But, as bad as it was, M*A*S*H the TV Show was still better than M*A*S*H the Movie, starring Donald Sutherland as Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce and Elliot Gould as Captain John "Trapper" McIntyre. M*A*S*H the Movie was the most boring, the least funny and the lewdest Army comedy I've ever seen. Robert Duvall was sorely miscast as Frank Burns and Sally Kellerman's brief offering of eye candy (as a much hotter "Hot Lips" Houlihan than Loretta Swit could ever be) was, unfortunately, this dog of a movie's only memorable moment.
So, that's not saying much for the Alan Alda vehicle that took us for a whining, crying, anti-war ride every week for a dozen long years, without mercy. Yep, for an unbelievable 12 seasons this schizophrenic sitcom seesawed back and forth between cheesy, sight-gag, back-biting, sarcastic humor and the depths of utter, tear-jerker, self-inflicted despair before CBS finally put this out-of-touch sitcom out of its own misery in 1983 with a two-hour finale entitled, "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen". This last episode of M*A*S*H aired live on big-screen TVs in taverns, clubs, restaurants, sports bars and Baby-Boomer watering holes all across America. It even set a record as "the most-watched television episode in U.S. television history", a fact that should have come as no surprise to anyone. Hell, nothing loves company like misery. Especially when alcohol is involved.
The "Roman Send-off" for this highly overrated TV sitcom was affectionately dubbed the "M*A*S*H Bash" by its millions of rabid, teary-eyed fans and, in fact, this finale was nothing more than 12 years worth of recaps and show highlights rolled into two hours of public drinking, group hugging and therapeutic crying jags. The fact that M*A*S*H immediately went into syndication after its highly-publicized euthanasia proved the theory that mystery, murder and crime don't attract nearly as big a TV viewing audience as sexual innuendo, social commentary and human suffering packaged together as a situation comedy.
