MASH 4077th:
Best care anywhere
M*A*S*H (an acronym for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) is an American war
comedy drama television series that aired on CBS from September 17, 1972,
to February 28, 1983. The series follows a team of doctors and support
staff stationed at the "4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital" in
Uijeongbu, South Korea, during the Korean War (1950 – 1953).
The ensemble cast originally featured:
- Alan Alda as surgeon Benjamin "Hawkeye" Pierce
- Wayne Rogers as surgeon "Trapper" John McIntyre
- Larry Linville as Frank Burns
- Loretta Swit as head nurse Margaret "Hot lips" Houlihan
- McLean Stevension as surgeon an company commander Henry Blake
- Gary Burghoff as company clerk Walter "Radar" O'Reilly
- Jamie Farr as orderly Maxwell Klinger
- William Christopher as the chaplain, Father John Mulcahy
Over the run of the show, several members of the main cast were replaced:
- Wayne Rogers was replaced by Mike Farrell as B. J. Hunnicutt
- McLean Stevenson was replaced by Harry Morgan as Sherman Potter
- Larry Linville was replaced by David Ogden Stiers as Charles Emerson Winchester III
- When Gary Burghoff left the show, the Maxwell Klinger character moved into the company clerk role.
The series premiered in the US on September 17, 1972, and ended on
February 28, 1983, with the finale, showcased as a television film, titled
"Goodbye, Farewell and Amen", becoming the most-watched
and highest-rated single television episode in US television history at
the time, with a record-breaking 125 million viewers (60.2 rating and 77
share). The series, which depicted events occurring during a three-year
war, spanned 256 episodes and lasted 11 seasons.
The episodes
"Abyssinia, Henry" and
"The Interview" were ranked number 20 and number 80,
respectively, on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time in 1997. In
2002, M*A*S*H was ranked number 25 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of
All Time. In February 2008, the series was named the number-one smartest
TV show of all time by Jim Werdell, chairman of Mensa International, who
said that it
"had smart repartee and was so much more than a comedy".
In 2013,
the Writers Guild of America ranked it as the fifth-best written TV series
ever and TV Guide ranked it as the eighth-greatest show of all time. In
2016, Rolling Stone ranked it as the 16th-greatest TV show. Do you want to
know more?
Click
here
for the Wikipedia Article.
Rating
If you have never seen this tv series, just go and watch it! It's different than the series you see today. I have to admit that the first 2-3 seasons the show is still finding itself but are still worth seeing. in my opinion, the series can definitely keep up with the modern series and rightly deserves every praise, even 50 years after the broadcast of the last episode.
Intrigued? Watch the beginning of season 1, episode 1!