The enduring appeal of "M*A*S*H," 40 years later
It still holds the record as the most watched TV show of all time. Forty years ago today, MASH aired its final episode. Jessica Moore explains why all these years later, the legendary sitcom stands the test of time. Forty years ago, more than 100 million people tuned in, many of them here on CBS2 to say goodbye, farewell, and amen to MASH. It was one of those events where it felt like the entire country stopped and everybody watched it. It was a huge cultural event. For 11 years, the comedy followed a group of doctors and nurses led by Alan Alda as Hawkeye Pierce, as they treated patients at a mobile army surgical hospital during the Korean War.
MASH joked about a serious situation. Well, maybe a third. Well, the mortar-marrier. And set a new standard for how heavy a sitcom could get. What happened next? The show was one of the first attempts I had to learn to laugh at something as serious at war, to know that humor can invade the most serious of our topics. So it meant a lot to me. Plus, it's just, it's really funny, you know, and it's beautifully rendered characters, beautifully acted, you know, top-notch stuff across the board.
So I just fell in love with it. When he's not on the job at CBS, Rob Kelly hosts MASHcast, a podcast that goes through the series episode by episode. As a kid in 1983, he watched the finale live. I can remember being on the playground at school the day of, and me and all of the people at kids I was playing with, were like guessing what was going to happen. That's just something about the universal appeal of it, that my parents certainly were going to watch it, and every adult I knew was watching it. But like, even kids my age were so excited. Kelly has interviewed dozens of fans, along with cast and crew members, who worked on the show, finding out what MASH means to them.
I think to younger people, it seems revelatory. And I do converse with a lot of really younger MASH fans. People that were not even alive when the show was on the air. They're way younger than the 40th anniversary that we're approaching in the final episode. And they just kind of can't believe how progressive the show is. Episodes still play daily in reruns, and now some younger fans are rediscovering it. By making it streaming, a whole new generation of people got to see it.
The way we watch has changed, since the two-and-a-half-hour final episode aired. Sitting all together around one television, a big box television, you know, nothing modern, and you had to all be there on time, because there was no on demand. And there hasn't been anything like it since. Only a handful of Super Bowls have been seen live by more people. In an age where everything is so fractured now, the idea that the final episode was watched by over 100 million people, outside of the Super Bowl, no, 100 million people don't watch anything. As for why it endures, Kelly credits the relationship shown on screen. This notion that there are people who, even under such tremendous pressures as the characters are on M.
A.S.H., inherently are kind to one another, and the show's point of view is a kind one, is a thoughtful one. It feels kind of revolutionary at this point. I can't imagine what this place would have been like if I hadn't found you here. It was like emotion to it all ending, and I remember that shot of the helicopter flying away.
Jessica Moore, CBS 2 News. You know, I remember that one image too. Yeah, because I was 13 at the time, so I do remember watching it live. I don't remember talking about it on the playground to that extent, like the gentleman we heard from in the piece talked about, but it was such like a cultural event. It's true. Because, you know, there's a couple of shows, like this, Super Bowls, and like the final episode of Cheers, where you just had to be at the television ready to go for a while. And I remember that one image too.
Yeah, because I was 13 at the time, so I do remember watching it live. I remember the show where we had to be at the television ready to go for when that show started. So there is more proof that New Yorkers were glued to the TV, by the way. For something totally different. After the cast, they say goodbye. The rush to the bathroom nearly overwhelmed New York City sewers. That's right, they keep track of stuff like this.
The city's Department of Environmental Protection told the Associated Press at the time, flow rates went up by a total of 320 million gallons. There was never a jump like that before. So people were holding on.
CBS2 News This Morning, M*A*S*H, tv, television, entertainment, cbs2, cbs, jessica moore