M*A*S*H celebrated its 50th anniversary on Saturday. Two of the show’s longest-running surviving stars, Alan Alda and Mike Farrell, reunited to celebrate the occasion. Alda, 86, starred in all 256 episodes as Capt. Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce. Farrell, 83, joined in Season 4 as Capt. B.J. Hunnicutt, replacing Wayne Rogers’ Trapper John McIntyre.
“Mike Farrell and I today toasting the 50th anniversary of the show that changed our lives – and our brilliant pals who made it what it was. MASH was a great gift to us,” Alda tweeted Saturday. The two stars clinked wine glasses and smiled for the camera.
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M*A*S*H began life as a 1968 non-fiction novel by Richard Hooker about the experiences of U.S. Army doctors in the Korean War. In 1970, 20th Century Fox turned the book into a film, starring Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould. After an attempt to adapt Hooker’s sequel into a film failed, Larry Gelbart developed M*A*S*H as a sitcom. It aired on CBS from Sept. 17, 1972, to Feb. 28, 1983. The series finale, “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen,” still holds the record for the most-watched scripted episode in the history of U.S. television. Over 121 million people watched the episode.
“I got the script submitted to me when I was making a movie in the Utah State Prison. And it was the best script I had seen since I’d been in prison,” Alda called in a new interview with The New York Times. “I called my wife and I said: ‘This is a terrific script, but I don’t see how I can do it. Because we live in New Jersey, and it has to be shot in L.A. And who knows? It could run a whole year.’ To go from that to 50 years later, it’s still getting, not only attention but it’s still getting an audience, is a surprise.”
M*A*S*H is still a groundbreaking series. It started life as a sitcom, even featuring a laugh track, but it slowly developed into a more serious show as the writers tackled darker topics. The show even lasted much longer than the real Korean War did. M*A*S*H also had an unexpected death in the Season 3 finale, when Colonel Blake (McLean Stevenson) died. It’s considered one of the biggest surprises in TV history. Even Gary Burghoff, who played Radar, was shocked when seeing the scene play out.
“It shocked the audience, too,” Alda told the Times. “I had a letter from a man who complained that he had to console his 10-year-old son who was sobbing. But it was one of the ways for the adults in the audience to realize that another aspect of war is that things happen that you don’t expect.”
One reason why the show continues to resonate is the reality embedded in the storylines, Alda said. “Aside from really good writing and good acting and good directing, the element that really sinks in with an audience is that, as frivolous as some of the stories are, underneath it is an awareness that real people lived through these experiences and that we tried to respect what they went through,” Alda said. “I think that seeps into the unconscious of the audience.” M*A*S*H is now available to stream in full on Hulu.
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