T/S: Funny, kooky laugh-track episodes of MASH vs. Alda-produced non-laughtrack "horror of war" episodes of MASH?

Those brown hills gave it away.

I wonder how close the Manson ranch was to the hills of Korea.

What could have trounced it? Seinfeld?

Benny Hill had a fair amount of crossdressing as well, but less war.

Joey and Chandler were even worse, on a regular basis, and... GAH! I really don't like Friends, never did, think it's a fucked-up mess of a show. I love Seinfeld, though. Horrible people presented as being horrible is fine by me.

Maybe Loretta Switt's only boardgame appearance...

Those people in those fucking NYC lofts, fuck them. Except for Jennifer Beals.

The West waxes, the East wains.

It was a real wrench seeing MASH on sky with awful canned laughter.

ihttp://www.rareads.com/scans/16138.jpg

A stateside television correspondent (Clete Roberts) interviews M*A*S*H
personnel. (in Black & White)

it was the first series to do all that experimental mess-about-with-the-form stuff. see also the episode filmed entirely from the point of view of a wounded soldier, the episode set entirely in a cave etc.

A show that I sorta grew up on in a way, I always remember repeats being on. SO much went over my head of course but a lot of it was very accessible and easy to follow along with.

I still remember being surprised when I realized David Ogden Stiers didn't actually talk like that.

he was just nominated for an oscar!

this show
how is it so awesome and how has it remained awesome like this
i cannot choose sides on thred title question

hawkeye = one of my first crushes for sure

funnily enough i am watching this ep from s9 where trapper keeps track of hawkeye's jokes and hawkeye gets all self-conscious and serious

the film also remains awesome
california hills as well

they drink A LOT and often

watching season 3 now :)
realized that i called hunnicut 'trapper' up there, who he is obv not
but yeah, this show

how morbius has not weighed in on this i don't know.

I haven't watched any reruns.

You don't get Peabody Awards with a laugh track.

He didn't get his "sensitive" image playing Hawkeye.

hmmmm, I think he did... along with the contemporaneous talk show appearances.

By the last season the entire 4077th, including Hot Lips, were '70s liberals (I think they finally made David Ogden Stiers one in the finale).

There was a real time episode as well, with a clock ticking down in the corner.

WAS there? wow i don't remember that one.

dudes it is all to be found on the internets

+v 11nks

It seems like the real time one wasn't completely in "real time." I think it started out like a regular ep, and then the clock came in after a couple of minutes.

Another classic "Horror of War" ep: The one were a soldier goes into a coma and his "spirit" exits his body and walks around observing the camp. He soon dies and he, along with the spirits of other fallen soldiers make an exodus from the camp.

Yeah, I remember that one. Good ending.

I bought the entire series a couple of years ago when it was 60% off on Amazon, and I'm finally rewatching the series. It's still great, although Hawkeye is more grating than I remember. What's really intriguing about the show were the clumsy exits of Burns and Trapper. It was unfortunate that neither of them got a proper send-off. I imagine that a lot of backstage drama preceded it.

And one great thing about the DVDs is that you can turn the laugh track off on all episodes. MASH is one show where it doesn't ruin the pacing. And I will go on record preferring the funny, kooky episodes.

Whoa, that's weird (that you can turn the laugh track off). Does any other set do that?

Not that I know of. And even if other shows could, it's hard to think of other sitcoms that could survive with the laugh track stripped. the producers of MASH had such contempt for the laugh track that they didn't pace around it, but that's definitely not the case for lots of other shows.

I'm pretty sure that MASH never had a laugh track when it was shown in the UK

I remember hearing somewhere that the show was only broadcast w/the laughtrack in the states. Overseas (at least in Britain anyway), it played without it.

(x-post)

When MASH was on the BBC none of the episodes had the laugh track. SO my vote goes for the kooky laugh-track episodes without the laugh-track.
It was a real wrench seeing MASH on sky with awful canned laughter.

― Ed (dali), Friday, 18 March 2005 19:57 (3 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Ah!

It plays with the laugh-track on Paramount Comedy, often as not. I'm agnostic about them generally but I don't like it on MASH cos a) it feels weird cos the sets try hard to look non-studio, and b) it muffles the jokes half the time.

T/S: Blake vs. Potter

The character of Henry was great (more so in the show than in the film), but when Harry Morgan came on board as Col. Potter I think it advanced the show's capability to reach the level it wanted to from the beginning. I always loved it when he'd get all reflective and somber.

Yeah, I thought Henry was terrific, but Potter was classic. Henry was pretty goofy most of the time, while Potter could alternate between being a goofball and a hardass military man.

and those expressions...buffalo bagels! buffalo cookies! horse hockey! mule fritters! beaver biscuits! monkey muffins!

Jimmy the Mod made me laugh last month:

http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k294/sdsgirl_1998/s640x480-1.jpg

I'm praying for a Henry Blake moment in about 1.5 hrs tbh

― Every Day Jimmy Mod Is Hustlin' (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Tuesday, January 20, 2009 11:58 AM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Harry Morgan as Potter was the best thing in the show. Alda as Hawkeye was just too f**king adolescent, as written and played.

I'm praying for a Henry Blake moment in about 1.5 hrs tbh

― Every Day Jimmy Mod Is Hustlin'

o my damn!

this episode The Interview, a fake documentary shot in black and white is a damn good example of the latter
http://vimeo.com/21250437

i never recall Alda's character being such a miserable misanthropic sod as he is in this.

false dichotomy IMO... real choice is between Burns v. Winchester.

Silent-majority buffoon vs. Tongue-wagging aristocrat?

mm Trapper era vs BJ era also. or the Klinger-in-dresses years vs Klinger-in-regular-army-wear years.

no Radar no credibility

R.I.P Allan Arbus http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2013/04/23/mash-star-allan-arbus-dies-at-95/2106421/

Dr. Sidney was among my absolute favorites in a cast full of favorites.

Aw, that sucks, he was definitely great.

Just saw this upthread:

the best MASH episode is still the one with the dreams where he's operating on a boat and the river is filled with body parts. that scared the fuck out of me when I was a kid.
― kyle (akmonday), Saturday, March 19, 2005 6:07 PM (8 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not only that, but Hawkeye and the other doctors are in some kind of classroom, and the teacher, punishing Hawkeye, makes him remove his arms. That gave me nightmares for DAYS when I was a kid:

Hawkeye Pierce dozes off in the mess hall, and undergoes the classic nightmare of being subject to a test he didn't study for (reattaching a limb). The professor instructs Pierce to remove both his arms (aided by Winchester, who was sitting next to him), which are promptly thrown away. The scene shifts to a lake full of mannequins' arms and legs, with an armless Pierce in a rowboat. He lands ashore, where a Korean child with a belly wound is waiting on an operating table. He is offered a scalpel and hears the iconic sound of approaching helicopters, which causes him to scream in frustration. At that point, Pierce wakes up to the sound of real helicopters bringing more wounded.

I don't remember seeing that episode as a kid (my parents probably sent me out of the room or something), but even when I went on a serious MASH bender in my early 20s it freaked me out a little.

RIP. How many times did Sidney actually appear?

The internet tells me he was in 12 episodes. That doesn't seem like many, but he sure made an impact.

More than I would have guessed, tbh.

David Ogden Stiers. I remember how you skateboarded to work every day down busy LA streets. How, once you glided into Stage 9, you were Winchester to your core. How gentle you were, how kind, except when devising the most vicious practical jokes. We love you, David. Goodbye.

— Alan Alda (@alanalda) March 4, 2018

MeTV is showing the finale for Veterans Day. Kind of amazing that something that starts off so fucked up is the all-time ratings champ.

40 years ago today. If you know, you know. pic.twitter.com/FQm24ByJfT

— Lynda Carter (@RealLyndaCarter) February 28, 2023

One episode of MASH was broadcast in the UK with the laughter track.

It got massive amounts of complaints, and the BBC apologised and promised it wouldn't happen again.

I've probably said this upthread but I was obsessed with this show when I was 11 or 12, BBC 2 were rerunning it from the beginning and it was my wednesday ritual, 9pm. And now, whenever I see an episode in the US that's got a laugh track, it's incredibly jarring and often breaks the spell for me.

we’ve recently started watching s1 here and there for a nice “after-dinner rerun”

i loved this show as a kid and so much of it still gives me a very deep nostalgia comfort

alda’s so fucking great, his timing & everything is incredible. and his Groucho impression is pretty great!

however adulthood has left me with the feeling that Trapper kinda sucks? idk. he just seems like a handsome idiot.
i wish he was more charismatic?

anyway. mash rules. yay mash.

also i def STILL have a crush on hawkeye, the same one I had when i was a kid

BJ > Trapper imo

Back in the late 70s-early 80s, my mom, my brother and I used to watch this show in reruns every night after the 10:00 news (we were on Mountain time) and new episodes live when they aired. We saw every episode, and watched the final together. It became a ritual for us and a deep shared experience that we still have in common 40 plus years on. The show has an emotional resonance for me that no other can duplicate; even that picture, above, of BJ's "GOODBYE" gives me chills.

For me, the "serious" episodes had far more impact than the "funny" ones. I am not sure the show would have been the cultural phenomenon it became if it had remained the sort of madcap ensemble comedy it started out as. As someone pointed out upthread, the "Dreams" episode was profoundly disturbing, and a pretty powerful message for prime-time TV of that era.

One of the things I appreciated, even as an adolescent, was the deepening of Margaret Houlihan's character. She started out in the series similar to the movie iteration, but by the end had become someone we could deeply care about. In fact, I'd say that character development was one of the show's strengths; even a generally unlikeable character like Charles had his moments of true humanity (e.g., the Christmas and piano episodes).

And I agree, BJ>>>>Trapper (although I still love Elliot Gould's performance in the movie).

Maybe that wasn't really a laugh track, but A BABY.

omg yes BJ was great, def prefer him to Trapper

also Mr Veg reminded me hilariously that the “spin off” Trapper John MD contained almost zero references to MASH except his name, and in the first scene of the first episode a camera lazily pans over a black & white photo of the 4077 and some helicopter noises are overdubbed as he’s asleep on his office couch …and that’s it

oh and i mean Rogers’ Trapper is lame
Gould’s Trapper is unfuckwithable
Wish he had gotten his own show
THAT i would watch

Strange trivia: Trapper John MD is based on the book (and later, film) character, but not the Trapper John from the TV series.

In other words, Pernell Roberts was playing an older version of Elliot Gould.

(Still weird that they went through all the trouble instead of just naming the show Cooper James MD or whatever.)

huh weird!

Pernell Roberts was my favorite Bonanza cast member.

apparently Rogers turned down the role bc he didn’t want to play another tv doctor… and then ended up doing 3 seasons of House Calls as a wait for it TV DOCTOR lol

agent to wayne: tv doctor is the only offer you’ll get unless irl waiter appeals to you more

Rewatch update - Halfway thru season 2

Colonel Henry Blake is such a fun character - McLean Stevson has v good comedic timing. He really is a delight.

And I still love Hawkeye

Not to be captain obvious but the endless nurse grab-assing did not age well

Apparently there was a retrospective on Fox earlier this year that's on Tubi now. Watched it the other night. Features some interview footage I'd seen before (mainly from parties who've passed on), but the new interviews are pretty good and it's always nice to revisit it even if I'm not doing a full watch-through.

bj > trapper
potter > blake
winchester > burns

even better than cheers for making new characters work

and blythe danner was an incredible hawkeye ex

xpost yeah the retrospective was nice!

i think i agree w mookie on all three of the above but i will see if the rewatch changes anything