What do "Happy Days" and "M*A*S*H" have in common? Well, for one thing, they're both era-defining TV shows of the 1970s that took place in the 1950s. "M*A*S*H" was set during the Korean War (even if its satirical target was the more recent Vietnam War), which unfolded from 1950 to 1953. It's a well-known joke that thanks to its 11-season run (1972 to 1983), the series lasted longer than the war it was set in.
That's not the only historical incongruity in "M*A*S*H" — there's a small but telling one in season 4, episode 21, "The Novocaine Mutiny," as first noted in "TV's M*A*S*H: The Ultimate Guide Book" by Ed Solomonson and Mark O'Neill. In this episode, Major Frank Burns (Larry Linville) is left in command and predictably behaves like a tyrant. He begins searching officers' quarters for "stolen" (actually gambled) money. When he gets to Radar's (Gary Burghoff) office,...
That's not the only historical incongruity in "M*A*S*H" — there's a small but telling one in season 4, episode 21, "The Novocaine Mutiny," as first noted in "TV's M*A*S*H: The Ultimate Guide Book" by Ed Solomonson and Mark O'Neill. In this episode, Major Frank Burns (Larry Linville) is left in command and predictably behaves like a tyrant. He begins searching officers' quarters for "stolen" (actually gambled) money. When he gets to Radar's (Gary Burghoff) office,...
- 1/10/2024
- by Devin Meenan
- Slash Film
Actor Gary Burghoff said goodbye to M*A*S*H twice, revealing in a new TV special that he asked to reshoot his final scene as the hit CBS show’s Cpl. Walter “Radar” O’Reilly. At the end of Season 8’s “Good-Bye Radar: Part 2,” which aired on October 15, 1979, the arrival of wounded interrupts Radar’s farewell party, meaning the character never gets a meaningful goodbye with friend Hawkeye (Alan Alda). And Burghoff reflects on his departure from the show in the special M*A*S*H: The Comedy That Changed Television, airing Fox on Monday, January 1, at 8/7c. “I said to myself, ‘What a wonderful moment, I can cry my eyes out, and I can do this wonderful dramatic moment, I can just completely fall apart,’” Burghoff says in an excerpt shared by Entertainment Weekly. “And the director said, ‘If I were you, I would fight the tears.’ And I said,...
- 12/31/2023
- TV Insider
"M*A*S*H" is famous for having some of the sharpest scripts in sitcom history, but even a TV giant can occasionally be improved with some ad-libbing. That was apparently the case in the third season episode "Love and Marriage," in which head surgeon Hawkeye (Alan Alda) and naive company clerk Radar (Gary Burghoff) help a local Korean woman deliver her baby.
In a 2018 retrospective by The Hollywood Reporter, Burghoff (who's one of a handful of 'M*A*S*H' actors still with us today) told the outlet he heavily improvised the episode's climactic scene. "There's an episode in which Hawkeye and I are alone on a moving bus with a pregnant Korean girl who suddenly gives birth," the actor recalled. "He tries to get Radar to help with the delivery. Radar comes totally unhinged."
By season 3, viewers had likely caught on that young Radar wasn't especially well-versed in the birds and the bees,...
In a 2018 retrospective by The Hollywood Reporter, Burghoff (who's one of a handful of 'M*A*S*H' actors still with us today) told the outlet he heavily improvised the episode's climactic scene. "There's an episode in which Hawkeye and I are alone on a moving bus with a pregnant Korean girl who suddenly gives birth," the actor recalled. "He tries to get Radar to help with the delivery. Radar comes totally unhinged."
By season 3, viewers had likely caught on that young Radar wasn't especially well-versed in the birds and the bees,...
- 12/29/2023
- by Valerie Ettenhofer
- Slash Film
‘The Falcon And The Winter Soldier’ Director Kari Skogland Set For ‘The Wheel Of Time’ Origins Movie
Exclusive: BAFTA winner and Emmy nominee Kari Skogland has been set to direct live-action feature The Age of Legends, the first installment in the planned trilogy of films that will explore the origins of Robert Jordan’s bestselling book series The Wheel of Time.
Screenplay comes from Thor, X-Men: First Class and Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous scribe Zack Stentz.
Set several millennia before the timeline of the books, The Age of Legends will chart the emergence of ‘the Dark One’, when the world descended into darkness and war. The film will delve into the corrosive nature of power and pride, as seen through the tragic tales of the Forsaken – once honored leaders who fell victim to the Dark One’s seduction, each personifying distinct elements of human weakness and ambition. The story will also portray the valorous sacrifices of unexpected heroes who rise against the Dark One to defend humanity...
Screenplay comes from Thor, X-Men: First Class and Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous scribe Zack Stentz.
Set several millennia before the timeline of the books, The Age of Legends will chart the emergence of ‘the Dark One’, when the world descended into darkness and war. The film will delve into the corrosive nature of power and pride, as seen through the tragic tales of the Forsaken – once honored leaders who fell victim to the Dark One’s seduction, each personifying distinct elements of human weakness and ambition. The story will also portray the valorous sacrifices of unexpected heroes who rise against the Dark One to defend humanity...
- 12/14/2023
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Robert Altman's "M*A*S*H" was a New Hollywood sensation upon its release in 1970. It announced Altman as one of the most exciting filmmakers in Hollywood, and turned Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland into A-list movie stars. Several of the supporting cast — namely Robert Duvall, Sally Kellerman, and Tom Skerritt — got a career boost as well. So when Larry Gelbart sold CBS on the idea of a sitcom adaptation of the material two years later, these actors were far too prominent to reprise their roles in the series (it's worth noting that television was considered small time in relation to movies back then).
Gary Burghoff was a different story. As Corporal Walter "Radar" O'Reilly, the diminutive Burghoff didn't pop on your first viewing of the movie. He darted to and fro in the background, but never strayed too far from his superior, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake (Roger Blake). Radar didn't participate in the company's shenanigans,...
Gary Burghoff was a different story. As Corporal Walter "Radar" O'Reilly, the diminutive Burghoff didn't pop on your first viewing of the movie. He darted to and fro in the background, but never strayed too far from his superior, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake (Roger Blake). Radar didn't participate in the company's shenanigans,...
- 11/14/2023
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
"M*A*S*H" famously pulled from real life across its historic eleven-season run. The team behind the sitcom spoke with actual doctors and nurses who worked during wartime in order to come up with many of the show's most heartbreaking -- and hilarious -- plotlines. In season 5, though, the show ended up incorporating a real-life event that was a lot closer to home: Father Mulcahy actor William Christopher's battle with hepatitis.
Hepatitis, which in 1977 was still being researched and categorized (the Nobel Prize in Medicine the year before went to a scientist who had discovered the Hep-b virus), was no joke for anyone who contracted it at the time. Unfortunately, Christopher did, and in Suzy Gershman's (née Kalter) 1984 book "The Complete Book of M*A*S*H," he explains that he ended up bedridden for eight weeks. According to one MeTv article, "He became very sick and many people thought that he wouldn't make it.
Hepatitis, which in 1977 was still being researched and categorized (the Nobel Prize in Medicine the year before went to a scientist who had discovered the Hep-b virus), was no joke for anyone who contracted it at the time. Unfortunately, Christopher did, and in Suzy Gershman's (née Kalter) 1984 book "The Complete Book of M*A*S*H," he explains that he ended up bedridden for eight weeks. According to one MeTv article, "He became very sick and many people thought that he wouldn't make it.
- 10/15/2023
- by Valerie Ettenhofer
- Slash Film
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