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.

[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....

[kshandra]

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

[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.

[kshandra]

Huh. Never realized that.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[ldwheeler.livejournal.com]

I could be wrong, but I think both Clete Roberts "Interview" eps were sans laugh track as well, which makes sense.

[ldwheeler.livejournal.com]

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

[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.

[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.

[mimiheart.livejournal.com]

They did during the first few seasons, they fought and got it removed during the latter seasons. And then got it removed during certain episodes. If you have the DVDs you can have the option to remove the laugh track.

[bryanp.livejournal.com]

Absolutely.

[sffilk.livejournal.com]

Ouch!!

[jss]

BJ and Margaret, I think; it was on a clips show I caught the other night.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[morpheus0013.livejournal.com]

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