Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen

[filkertom]

At the very end of last year, we had an amusing little scare regarding writer Larry Gelbart, who had supposedly died.

Unfortunately, this time it's the real thing.

Mr. Gelbart, one of the great comedy writers of our time, has passed away at the age of 81.

He wrote for everything from Danny Thomas's radio show and The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine to his many excellent episodes of M*A*S*H, and also wrote or co-wrote, such films and shows as Tootsie, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, City of Angels, Oh God!, and Movie Movie.

(Thanks to shsilver for the heads-up.)

What are some of your favorite episodes of M*A*S*H? I'm hard-pressed not to say just the whole frickin' series, but a number do stand out, such as the one where everyone was dreaming, the one with the timer in the corner of the screen saying how long a patient had to live, the one where Sidney tries to find out who's the camp practical joker, and of course the finale.

Comments

[sillyfox.livejournal.com]

It's been a long while since I've watched M*A*S*H, but one episode that sticks out in my mind was one of the Christmas shows. In spite of their best efforts, one of their patients died very late on Christmas Day - Hawkeye went over to the clock, advanced it by about fifteen minutes to make it a little past midnight, so that way the man's kids wouldn't remember Christmas as the day their Daddy died. A poignant moment.

[kshandra]

...with Father Mulcahy (and I believe HotLips) there as witnesses....

[pagawne.livejournal.com]

May he rest in peace.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

The whole series, but 3:11 has a warm place in my heart, although it wasn't by Gelbart, but by Gene Reynolds.

The episode, of course, was "Adam's Ribs."

[kshandra]

the one with the timer in the corner of the screen saying how long a patient had to live

...which was one of the only episodes (if not the only one) that was recorded without a laugh track. I even still remember bits of dialogue from that one:

(trying to replace a section of blood vessel)
Hawkeye: This is manicotti, we need rigatoni!
Kellye: Doctor, I'm half Japanese, half Hawaiian - you need to give me measurements I can relate to.
Hawkeye: A small egg-roll.
Kellye: Got it. We don't have any.

*whomps on IMDB* Looks like that episode will be on the Hallmark Channel next week....

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Remember also that they never had a laugh track during any scenes in surgery.

[bryanp.livejournal.com]

You beat me to it with the practical joker episode. That's probably my favorite.

"Air raid! Air raid!"

Another particular favorite was the episode where Winchester spent the episode working with a soldier who had a bad stuttering problem, trying to help him.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

and then listens to a tape from his sister, who stutters, at the end. Winchester was a far more interesting character than Burns.

[beldar.livejournal.com]

Well, you named some of my favorites, but I also remember the time they pinned rank on Radar so he could go into the Officer's Club, making the young Corporal nervous as heck. One of the best ever was the "Adam's Ribs" episode, showing how the Army supply system *really* works.

I also remember when Klinger was finally awarded his discharge. All he had to do was admit he was gay -- but he wasn't going for gay, he was going for crazy. After that he stopped wearing the dress. No doubt he realized "crazy" was too common an ailment in the 4077th, if not the whole Army.

[ldwheeler.livejournal.com]

"When I go, it'll be the honorable way -- with a Section 8!"

[misterseth.livejournal.com]

When Henry Blake went home. The ending of that episode, with Radar announcing his tragic death, always struck a chord with me. This seemed to me, a turning point in the series, from army hijinx to the tragedy of war.

[docwebster.livejournal.com]

The story goes that they purposely did not tell the cast what would be Henry's fate before shooting that final scene so the reactions are genuine.

[peachtales.livejournal.com]

I have always loved the show. It keeps humanity, seriousness and humor close together.

[ldwheeler.livejournal.com]

My favorite is "Preventative Medicine" from the seventh season -- IMDB lists Gelbart as "developer" with Tom Reeder as "writer" under "Writers" -- in which Hawkeye, to prevent a maniacal colonel from sacrificing his men in a needless, ego-stroking, near-suicide assault on a hill, removes the colonel's healthy appendix. Causing much ethical strife between Hawkeye and B.J.

B.J.: "You'll hate yourself for the rest of your life!"
Hawkeye: "I hate myself right now."

All this and a voodoo-doin' Klinger.

I'm also partial to "Adam's Ribs," "Sometimes You Hear the Bullet" and several dozen others.

RIP, Mr. Gelbart.

[faxpaladin.livejournal.com]

And the reason I loved that episode...

The writing staff was at a point where they had n ideas and n+1 episodes, so they decided to recycle a very early episode. In the original, Hawkeye and Trapper connived to sideline the colonel, and the rehearsal draft of the new script likewise had Hawkeye and BJ conniving. Mike Farrell strongly objected, and he and Alan Alda started arguing -- in character. As the story goes, that argument went pretty much intact into the new draft...

Edit to add: Also, one of the most devastating lines in the whole series: "It was pink, and perfect, and I threw it away."

[mimiheart.livejournal.com]

M*A*S*H got me through high school. I have an episode guide book in the other room. I really can't say a favorite episode... just episodes that have moments that stick out.

Hawkeye singing "Your The Tops" without his bottoms... ;) (After a rather hilarious prank-war.) I don't think that's considered one of the better episodes, but still.

Abyssinia, Henry... the whole thing. :(

Radar getting the rabies shot.

The "I don't want no more of Army Life" song.

Charles being human.

There's one episode where there's a pianist who loses one of his hands. That one... *sigh*

"I will not carry a gun, Frank. When I got into this war, I had a clear understanding with the Pentagon: no guns. I will carry a torch. I will carry a tune. I will carry on, carry over, Carry Grant, cash-and-carry, 'Carry Me Back To Old Virginia'; I'll even hari kari if you show me how, but I will NOT carry a gun." (Doing that from memory, it may be off.)

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Follies of the Living - Concerns of the Dead

The episode starts with a chaotic triage, and a young soldier being pronounced dead. The camera pulls back and shows the same soldier crouched down watching all this. The entire episode is the ghost of Private Weston (who Klinger, due to a high fever, can see and hear) trying to come to terms with what happened to him.

It's the ending. Weston realizes that the camp is becoming hazy, and he sees other soldiers walking through the camp. Americans, Chinese, Koreans, all walking together.

"Where are we going?"

"I don't know."

As they fade into the mist.

[morpheus0013.livejournal.com]

YES. That was simultaneously the creepiest and most comforting view of death I saw as a child.

[sffilk.livejournal.com]

Ouch!!

[awfulhorrid.livejournal.com]

I don't have a specific favorite episode, but I think it's worth noting that M*A*S*H is one of the shows that we always have a record option for on the DVR. We keep five episodes and when we don't have anything else we want to watch we find an episode we haven't seen in a while and watch that.

It's amazing to me that there are episodes I know I've seen six times or more than can still make me cry. That says a lot right there.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

M*A*S*H is the first series I bought on DVD. I had decided not to buy it, but then I caught an episode in syndication and realized that some of my favorite lines had been cut out to make room for additional commercials. The next day, I picked up season one.

Now I can't watch it in syndication because I'm so used to watching it without the laugh track.

And two moments I don't think anyone's mentioned... First Hawkeye finding Radar's teddy bear on his pillow and in the final season putting the teddy bear in the time capsule.

[morpheus0013.livejournal.com]

This is my favourite television show. Ever. I have watched it since I was in diapers, and I have never found anything better. There's not a single episode I can't recite.

That being said, it's hard to pick favourites. Anything with Sidney, of course. I adore that character. Episodes that stand out for me that I actually enjoyed (the dreams episode is not one of my favourites):

--Sometimes You Hear The Bullet ("Rule number one is that young men die. And rule number two is that...doctors can't change rule number one.)
--Five O'Clock Charlie
--The General Flipped At Dawn (LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS EPISODE)
--Tuttle ("...I guess you could say all of us together made up Tuttle." And giving his religion as Druid!)
--Our Finest Hour (Unbelievably classic television.)
--Where There's A Will There's A War (Hawkeye writes his will)
--Hawkeye (the episode where Hawkeye flips his jeep and sustains a head injury and spends the entire episode keeping up a running monologue with the Korean family who's looking after him)

And other just...moments. When you find out Charles' sister stutters. The general whose son dies while he's visiting. Colonel Flagg! Radar coming into the OR to announce Henry's helicopter was shot down over the Sea of Japan. Colonel Potter giving Sophie to the elderly Korean man. Radar's teddy bear on Hawkeye's pillow. The time capsule. Hawkeye's face when he realized that the woman on the bus wasn't holding a chicken, but her child. Hawkeye and BJ's argument re: the healthy appendix Hawkeye removes. (That conversation still guides a fair bit of my moral code.) The concert pianist who loses partial use of one of his hands, and who Charles helps.

I could talk all day and night about M*A*S*H. My love for this show knows no bounds, and my appreciation for Larry Gelbart is second only to my sadness to her he's no longer here on the Prime with us.

[faxpaladin.livejournal.com]

"Five minutes to Charlie!"

[phillip2637.livejournal.com]

First thing that comes to mind: "The wind just broke its leg"

M*A*S*H is one of only two television series that I ever let affect what I did in real life. That is, if there was something I could do that conflicted with M*A*S*H, it had to be really good for me to skip an episode. (The other series like that was B5.)

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

+1 on the B5.

I sharply curtailed my TV watching after M*A*S*H's finale. After B5, I quit watching live TV altogether except for stuff like the Super Bowl. This past year? The only reason I saw any of the Super Bowl was I was in the airport...

although I thought having Blake's chopper shot down was just a *bit* much.

But all in all? Probably second best TV show ever. Behind B5, of course.

And, young as I was, *I* understood why Hawkeye moved that clock. Years later I waited until after midnight to propose to my now-ex for the very same reason. I'm glad I did.

Thanks, Hawkeye. Goodnight.

[archiver-tim.livejournal.com]

I had been following a lot of M*A*S*H on TV reruns. Then for a Christmas gift, I got the whole series in a box. Now I can watch anytime. Took me about a year to get through them all. I kept on waiting for the one were Charles began to instruct the North Korean musicians his classic music. After finally getting a reasonable live performance of the piece they were learning, they were gathered up and shipped out. Word got back soon afterward to Charles that they had died some close distance down the road. He, in rage, broke his record of that piece, never being able to listen to it again. Oh yeah, it was the finale.

It was also a TV show that my dad would always stop to watch when he could. He started dying the day after 9/11 and finished dying in the early hours of 9/13/2001.

[ladystarblade.livejournal.com]

Oh man...yes to all of the above. I grew up watching M*A*S*H...with both parents career Army, my father a war vet, and my mom a medic, it would've been near impossible to not be attached to this show.

Just an amazing show all around...though I always preferred BJ instead of Trapper...Trapper & Hawkeye were just too much alike...and I could spend all day spouting episodes and quotes...

Hawk: *taking a gun* "Is it loaded?"
BJ: "Filled it with water myself."
Hawk: "Look out everybody, I shoot to drown!"

And so on.

*sigh*

[lizziecrowe.livejournal.com]

Whole series is an easy and accurate answer 'tis true, but one episode does stand out. Hawkeye was having a rather serious emotional reaction to a patient who had been drowned. The Army shrink comes in, and over the course of the episode it come to light that when Hawkeye was young, he too had a rough drowning experience. the amount of personal drama in that episode still gets to me just thinking about it, and it really made the serious whole for me.

[faxpaladin.livejournal.com]

And it all came about because Alda told the show's producers, "You know, I do a really good sneeze..."

[andrianna.livejournal.com]

I think one of my favourites had to be the Time Capsule, as well as the one with the timer in the corner (I think that was a Xmas episode)....

Thankfully, Gelbart's work will live on for many years....

[guruwench.livejournal.com]

I can't pick just one, but I remember moments.

- Radar wanting to get a tattoo, but ends up being too scared, and instead had the artist draw it on with a pen. (It's a teddy bear, of course.)

- Radar always knowing when choppers are coming.

- Margaret telling off Hawkeye outside the mess tent one show, and telling him that the one thing he did have, they could "replace with a soggy piece of liver!" (I was a child at the time and had no idea what she was talking about. LOL)

- BJ and Hawkeye bantering, anytime

- Hawkeye leading a revolt in the mess tent one show because supplies have been shaky and they've had nothing but one thing to eat for way too long. "We want something else!!"

- Hawkeye losing his sight one episode

- Radar going home and meeting a girl who also adores grape Nehi

Edited to add: I love how the show has stood up so well over time. It may be 30 years later, but it's still funny, dammit, and sad and poignant and wise and biting and happy, all at once. I just rewatched the finale the other night, and I loved every minute of it.

Adding another memory

[beldar.livejournal.com]

One moment that demonstrated the comic genius of the show for me (and one of my favorite M*A*S*H scenes) was in the "dreams" episode (I forget its name) when the main characters are in the mess tent at the end, remarking how they need more sleep, and getting up to go hit the hay, when Winchester, still seated, quotes drolly "Ah, sleep, perchance to dream"
Suddenly everyone, declaring they need a little more coffee, head back to the table. That was so funny, but you didn't get the humor unless you had ridden through the nightmares with the cast during the preceding 30 minutes.

[wildcard9.livejournal.com]

I saw MASH as it first aired, and have not seen it too often since then. Getting the DVD set should be on my list. I have forgotten a lot of good shows, and reading this thread reminded me of only some of them. The first episode was nothing special exception the opening was 10 minutes long and is the only one to include the lyrics to the theme song (it also shows the full story of what the opening is only snippets of). Various snippets stand out but not detailed enough to describe them properly.

[briansiano.livejournal.com]

Speaking as someone who looks a bit like Alan Alda-- and was once mistaken for him on the NYC subway-- that show had a lot of great moments.

One of my favorites was an episode where Hawkeye grew very angry at a British commander who'd waltzed into the recovery room and gave his men a pep talk about how they're going back out to take that hill from the North Koreans. Hawkeye was already angry that the men had been drinking tea, and developed peritonitis because they'd had stomach wounds, but this martial spectacle really pissed him off. So he pulls the commander aside and gives him what-for.

And then the British commander drops his facade and explains himself to Hawkeye. He says that his men understand that only a madman would tell badly wounded men that they're ready for combat... "My men know I wouldn't shout at them unless I expected them to get well." It was a neat bit of psychology, it was one of the instances where the show questioned Hawkeye's moral stances about war, and it was a moment where one of the show's occasional martinets got to me more than a caricature. (If I recall, the actor playing the British commander had played Dr. Bombay on _Bewitched_.)

I grew up watching M*A*S*H*...

[amgem.livejournal.com]

"Alcoholics Unanimous" (Henry's in Tokyo giving a lecture, and Frank declares prohibition on the 4077th) and "Hey, Look Me Over" with Kellye and Hawkeye...being a full-figured woman, I felt for Kellye, and still do, even now.

Hawk: What's goin' on with you?

Kellye: Does it matter?!

Hawk: Well if you're upset with me I wanna know why because I don't think I've done anything to you.

Kellye: You can say that again!

Hawk: Exactly what is your problem?

Kellye: Whats my problem? Alright, I'll tell you. It's you pal. When you're with Lacy it's "Hey good-lookin'", with Webster she's unforgettable and me you treat like a rag-mop!


Hawk: Rag-mop?

Kellye: That's right! R-a-g-g-m-o-p-p, rag-mop!

Hawk: What the hell are you talking about?

Kellye: I'm talking about how when the slow music comes on you suddenly need a drink like you're afraid you're gonna have to put your arms around me. And then when I try to talk to you your eyes are on every nurse in the room but me.

Hawk: Look, is that what this is about? That I was a little distracted last night?

Kellye: It's not just last night. You've been like that ever since I got here and you weren't distracted, you've been avoiding me like I was Typhoid Mary!

Hawk: Sorry, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. It's just that I never saw you, you know, in that way.

Kellye: You never saw me, period! And why? Just because I'm not 5'9 and slinky with long blonde hair and a perky little nose that would fit in a bottlecap!

Hawk: It's not that I don't think you're a terrific person.

Kellye: You haven't the faintest idea how terrific I am! For your information I happen to have a fantastic sense of humour, a bubbling personality and I am warm and sensitive like you wouldn't believe! I also sing and play the guitar and I'm learning to tap dance. And on top of all that I happen to be cute as hell!

Re: I grew up watching M*A*S*H*...

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

And speaking as someone who prefers the Rubenesque look, I was thrilled to see Kellye hook up with someone visiting the 4077. Yeah, Hawkeye slow-dancing with her at the end was nice, but the moment of realization when "Mister Lindy" discovers that, yes, the fat girl CAN get a date? Priceless.

[drzarron.livejournal.com]

No way to pull one or two episodes, but lists of things I'll always remember:

Any episode with Sydney Freedman - That outside eye, trying to both understand and revel in the MADNESS that was the 4077th

Any episode with Col. Flagg - As someone quoted, "The wind just broke his leg" - Cause it showed there was something around crazier than the 4077th

Henry's Death, though in the end I liked Potter better. He was less of a foil.

Winchester giving the speech to the wounded soldier who was a concert pianist and was giving up cause he had injured his hand "I can play music, I can play the notes on the page. But you can MAKE music, and that I will never be able to do". I love that line so much cause I understand where he's coming from with it.

Anytime Hawkeye dropped into Groucho mode.

and That kiss.. the last, soul crushing kiss Hawkeye lays on Hot Lips.

so so so many more.