173 - MASH on TV (Bangers of MASH #1)
Added 2025-01-22 07:00:06 +0000 UTCThe lads once again return to the frontlines of the Korean War as they rejoin 4077th for the first in an ongoing miniseries covering the hit 70s television show: M*A*S*H. Topics include the show’s origins, the gradual evolution beyond the Altman template, and what it means to make a season finale so powerful it resonates 50 years after the fact.
Media referenced in this Episode:
Season One, Episode One: “Pilot”
Season One, Episode Six: “Yankee Doodle Doctor”
Season One, Episode Fifteen: “Tuttle”
Season Two, Episode Thirteen: “Deal Me Out”
Season Three, Episode Twenty-Four: “Abyssinia, Henry”
Alan Alda discusses how MASH tackled the subject of war - EMMYTVLEGENDS.ORG
Larry Gelbart | US comedy writer | Obituary by Michael Carlson. The Guardian. September 13th, 2009.
MASH’s Revolutionary Gay Episode by Matt Baume
TWOAPW theme by Brendan Dalton: Patreon // brendan-dalton.com // brendandalton.bandcamp.com
Interstitial: “A Brief Message from Alan Alda” // Written by Ellie Philips and A.J. Ditty // Featuring Ellie Philips as “Ellie Philips” and A.J. Ditty as “Alan Alda”
Comments
Great episode! Different level of expertise on the subject surely adds to the charm! Really looking forward to the next one in the series=)
Zinaida Liashonak
2025-02-10 19:36:20 +0000 UTCThis episode got me to subscribe. It's hard it is being one of the only MASH fans and also gender queer people and this episode finally brought the lens I value you guys for to something I knew deep down I loved for a good reason and being validated. Thank you
Jordan Giese
2025-02-09 18:36:43 +0000 UTCThanks, Dad!
The Worst of all Possible Worlds
2025-02-07 15:21:26 +0000 UTCLast night, I watched Larry Gelbart’s epic (and a movie that will someday grace the airwaves of, or get a plug on, Fancy Movie Time) O GOD. It is a movie that came out after Larry left as the head writer for MASH. Interesting casting with John Denver, but George Burns as God is classic Burns who deliver’s the humor in Gelbart’s script with precision. I write here because God mentions Voltaire when answering questions put to him by the “religious leaders” of the time: "Voltaire may have had me pegged right: 'God is a comedian playing to an audience that is afraid to laugh.” If you haven’t seen this gem, and you’re not afraid to laugh, its now streaming on Youtube. Its a funny feel good movie. Voting in advance of the anticipated airing on Fancy Movie Time, I’m calling it a feast. DOD
Tony Ditty
2025-02-07 15:00:52 +0000 UTCghost and mr. chicken mentioned 🗣
Ciara Rhiannon
2025-01-29 15:20:06 +0000 UTCI've been studying karate by mail for years! My whole body's a weapon!
Dergon
2025-01-27 21:15:19 +0000 UTCAs someone with a lot of found memories of MASH, I greatly enjoyed this and want to see you do many more.
Noblesse Oblahaj
2025-01-26 21:38:06 +0000 UTCI, too, am afflicted by that same strain of virulent pedantry
Ijon Tichy
2025-01-26 19:47:34 +0000 UTCwhen i got the notification it took halfway through reading the description to realize it wasn't hell of a way but a zoo crew x twoapw episode would be so good
Robert Heilman
2025-01-26 05:20:31 +0000 UTCngl this description of AJ did make me cackle out loud
Robert Heilman
2025-01-26 05:14:57 +0000 UTCCame here just to comment this, esp since Hippocrates translates to "Horse-strong" or (if you like and I'm sure AJ does) "Horsepower"
Thomas Noriega
2025-01-26 00:03:01 +0000 UTCI’ll stop doing a running commentary after this comment, but that part where it gets serious at the end of the comedy documentary GOT me, even with just the audio version and having never seen this show
Elizabeth Power
2025-01-25 16:44:16 +0000 UTCOnly this podcast could make me almost spit out my drink laughing as someone says “as you stare into their eyes and tell them that the cancer is terminal” And a minute later have an extended sound of music joke that I appreciated very much.
Elizabeth Power
2025-01-25 16:23:14 +0000 UTC“There is no laugh track in surgery” should become a common expression. Like “there’s no crying in baseball “
Elizabeth Power
2025-01-25 15:55:50 +0000 UTCOnly recently started watching mash on MeTV as an adult in the last year, I had no context for it at first but it's quickly become a favorite and we've watched through it multiple times now and it's become a gateway for so many other older shows, Rockford files, andy Griffith, the rifleman (Chuck Connors can GET IT), Gunsmoke, magnum pi, dragnet 67 (also Harry Morgan!), adam-12, emergency!, etc. This double adhd household cannot handle modern TV made for bingeing, so rediscovering all these old shows that are mainly one-off episodes has been a game changer for us!
Violent J and Shaggy2Dope 2024
2025-01-24 12:28:47 +0000 UTCNot on Ao3! The Trapper/Hawkeye tag has 592 works. But the BJ/Hawkeye tag has 1182. Also the people in the M*A*S*H* fandom on tumblr, at least in my circles, are much bigger shippers of the latter than the former. So much so that I have just incorporated "BJ/Hawkeye is the stronger ship" into my understanding of the show. which is maybe an insane way to think about a show
Three Memes in a Trenchcoat
2025-01-24 05:43:40 +0000 UTCGhost and Mr Chicken mentioned! Atta boy, Luther!
Wilma Willis
2025-01-24 02:18:40 +0000 UTCDammit, the Tuttle Twins should've died at the end of the episode. (They go back to WWII to talk to Churchill and mistakenly end up on Omaha Beach.) One of my most favorite scenes from MASH is I think from Season One, the one where Hawkeye is Officer of the Day and won't carry the gun - he's deadpanning an account of a dream he had where he encounters a giant Frank Burns washed up on shore and his mother wants him "Be careful, son, the dullness rubs off". That and the game of "Vaccinate Radar" from later in the series.
Gary McCammon
2025-01-24 00:27:28 +0000 UTCNot to as a black man this, but as a black man I actually like the racist blood episode, because as a kid it's how I learned that this was a real phenomenon. Like, white people back in the day and a disturbing amount of people today believe you can't or shouldn't get a blood or organ donation from a black person. I like how back in day sitcoms were willing to acknowledge racists exist and are worthy of mockery and derision. Modern sitcoms are all far too sanitized; everything is Happy Days
St. Leibowitz
2025-01-23 18:04:05 +0000 UTCMy imaginary friend was an invisible peacock named Portion. Why Portion? Well, at the time, NBC would display its peacock logo and the voiceover would say, "This portion of the program is brought to you by..."
Hugh Kearney
2025-01-23 16:29:42 +0000 UTCThe interstitial with AJ's spouse was hilarious. They must send him to record podcasts like a parent sends their kid to swim lessons so they can get their energy out
Jimmy McMillan
2025-01-23 14:32:00 +0000 UTCAlan Alda wanted to make Sidney Freeman a main cast character, and I've heard that maybe part of the reason Arbus turned it down is that Alda would talk to him as if he were an actual therapist.
BarFly
2025-01-23 14:17:24 +0000 UTC“Cut to Trapper and Hawkeye being gay with each other” let’s just click over and check ….a “466 results for Trapper/Hawkeye” This is by *far* the most popular pairing btw
John Leavitt
2025-01-23 13:50:22 +0000 UTCAs someone who's family bought every season of MASH on DVD as it was released, I'm very excited for this series. Berlinisches Polyteschnikum has lived in my head since I was about 11
BarFly
2025-01-23 13:36:36 +0000 UTCI grew up with M*A*S*H but until this episode of the podcast I had largely forgotten it. I was 12 when the first episode aired. The laugh track was annoying but I guess you learn to tune it out as I loved the show. Interesting the comment about the construction of the episodes around ad breaks. in the UK I watched it on the BBC where there are no ad breaks. Also I never saw the final episode - I missed it when it was broadcast and we didn’t have a VCR. Well now I just bought the whole lot so I’m going to have a lot to get through in the coming months before I finally get to see that final.
Kevin Leah (AKA Zoinks!)
2025-01-23 11:16:09 +0000 UTCI love historiography! Amazing episode, can't wait for more.
Kenzie Traill
2025-01-23 03:58:46 +0000 UTC"Just write in 'pizza' where it says 'machine gun'"
The Worst of all Possible Worlds
2025-01-23 00:49:22 +0000 UTCI like how you included some of the best one-liners from each episode. I still reference many lines from this show. Some of my favorites: “there’s no vinism like chauvinism” and “I can’t tell if I’m eating a chicken or changing a tire”
Luckie
2025-01-23 00:42:35 +0000 UTCMy parents also went to a MASH finale party when they lived on Guam. Taking this as a reason to finally watch the series!
Tyler Jay
2025-01-22 23:30:20 +0000 UTCHell yeah
Rosey Armstrong
2025-01-22 23:07:41 +0000 UTCHippo is Greek for horse so Horseocratic Oath is actually a pretty good pun
Speth
2025-01-22 22:57:29 +0000 UTCIt sure is
The Worst of all Possible Worlds
2025-01-22 22:21:04 +0000 UTCOkay so the new techno intro is staying for good!?!
Rosey Armstrong
2025-01-22 20:07:15 +0000 UTCThe interstitial floored me, the horse corner is hilarious and infuriating. AJ is firing on all cylinders
Maladapted
2025-01-22 19:10:46 +0000 UTCOh FUCK YEAHHH I’ve been excited about the prospect of this ever since last year’s ep about the movie🙌🏻
Maple
2025-01-22 18:01:34 +0000 UTCI grew up watching MASH, I’ve seen it so many times. And I have a lot of opinions. It’s such a wild show. Some amazing ups and downs. It does improve as the writers change out and they evolve past being a comedy of the era into something else. Especially past season 3. But please boys, tear it apart for me. I can’t wait. <3
Spiral Ink
2025-01-22 17:09:03 +0000 UTCOr cook their brain with odyssey
Maladapted
2025-01-22 16:43:45 +0000 UTCPlease invite Francis and Shocks from hell of a way to die on your next episode
Maladapted
2025-01-22 15:34:57 +0000 UTCEpisode was great. Looking forward to more of them. Can't believe the number of times that clips were played that I've seen so many times and they still make me laugh. And yes, Alan Alda in MASH can get it.
Peter Larkin
2025-01-22 14:40:42 +0000 UTCOh I'm happy to see this happening. MASH was a major obsession of mine as an introverted teen.
Peter Larkin
2025-01-22 11:01:07 +0000 UTCYEEEESSSSSSSS
M. Whitney
2025-01-22 07:58:30 +0000 UTC
