The final episode of M*A*S*H aired on February 28, 1983. It wasn’t just a “TV event” …it was the most-watched episode in scripted TV history.

WAR IS SWELL

M*A*S*H was a sitcom based on a cynical movie inspired by a cynical book about an unpopular war. It was also one of the most successful TV shows of all time. Chronicling the doctors and nurses of the 4077TH Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War (1950-1953), the first season in 1972 drew such low ratings that CBS nearly canceled it. But they gave it a chance, and by season two, M*A*S*H was a top 10 show. For the remainder of its 11-year run, it never fell out of the top 20.

Until 1983, M*A*S*H was a fixture on Monday night at 9:00 PM on CBS. But by the time it ended, it had evolved into a much different show than it had been at the start.

FROM SILLY TO SERIOUS

The biggest reason for M*A*S*H‘s change in tone was Alan Alda, who starred as Captain “Hawkeye” Pierce, the unit’s chief surgeon. After series creator Larry Gelbart left the show in 1976, Alda took over as head writer. He, along with executive producer Burt Metcalfe, convinced CBS to phase out the laugh track and focus less on the doctors’ womanizing and pranks and more on character development and honest depictions of the horrors of war.

Result: M*A*S*H was no longer a comedy with occasional drama, but a drama with occasional comedy. “We’re recreating a time of suffering and joy and revelation that happened to real people at a real time,” said Alda. “We know what they went through. We can’t be casual in the face of that.”

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

M*A*S*H remained popular through all the changes, but after 10 seasons, Alda and company were running out of stories to tell about a three-year war. CBS wasn’t willing to call it a day, though, and convinced Metcalfe and Alda to return for a final season that would conclude in February 1983 with a movie-length finale.

That wasn’t Alda’s first choice. He wanted the last M*A*S*H to be a regular 30-minute episode. At the end of his version, the audience would hear the director yell “Cut!” and the camera would move back to reveal the crew. Alda would take off his surgical mask and address the viewers with a short, heartfelt tribute to veterans.

CBS nixed that plan, so Alda and eight other writers began penning “Goodby, Farewell, and Amen.”

THE WAR AT HOME

When M*A*S*H‘s end date was announced in the fall of 1982, it became the biggest story in entertainment. Many fans mourned the show’s end. “The general viewing audience will feel a tremendous disappointment when M*A*S*H finally goes off the air,” reported Dr. Robert London, a psychiatrist at the NYU Medical Center, adding that viewers might even suffer withdrawal symptoms. (CBS mourned the end of its hit show by 30-second advertising spots on its finale for $450,000 each -about a millions dollars in today’s money.)

In fact, M*A*S*H fans were so eager to find out what would become of Hawkeye, B.J., Col. Potter, Charles, Margaret, Klinger, and Father Mulcahy that a Fall 1982 edition of the National Enquirer promising exclusive scoops on the final episode sold out: “One character goes crazy, one is wounded in action, one leaves early, and one remains in Korea!” (They were right.)

PLAYING CHICKEN

While the final episode was being filmed, a forest fire swept through the outdoor set in the hills outside Malibu, leaving only a burned-out Jeep and the “Best Care Anywhere” sign standing. And only half of the scenes had been shot. Undeterred, Alda wrote the fire into the story: North Koreans had set off incendiary devices, causing a blaze and the evacuation of the 4077th.

(Image credit: Flickr user Danielle Directo-Meston)

On February 28, 1983, “Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen” aired on CBS. Directed by Alda, it was unlike any other M*A*S*H episode. It opens with Hawkeye in a mental institution, recalling a horrific experience to Dr. Sidney Freedman (Alan Arbus), M*A*S*H‘s psychiatrist. Over the course of the first hour, Hawkeye reveals a horrific ordeal he experienced while hiding in a bus with some Korean refugees. (A chicken was making noise, putting them all in danger of being captured by the Chinese, so Hawkeye told the woman to “shut the chicken up!” Hawkeye soon remembers that it wasn’t a chicken but a baby, and that the mother had smothered it.) Later, he’s deemed fit to return to duty, but it’s obvious that he’s damaged -especially when he risks his life to drive an abandoned tank out of camp to draw enemy fire away from the hospital.

That took up the first hour; the second hour and a half was about the cease-fire ending the Korean War, and saying goodbye. In the iconic final scene, Hawkeye boards a helicopter and looks down at the camp from above. He sees someone had written “GOODBYE” in rocks on the ground. The helicopter flies away.

THE AFTERM*A*T*H

Even now, 28 years later, “Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen” still holds the record for the most-watched scripted TV episode. (The previous record holder was 1980′s “Who Shot J.R?” episode of Dallas.) It’s estimated that between 105 million and 121 million people tuned in, more than half of the U.S. population at the time. No single American TV broadcast surpassed the finale until the 2010 Super Bowl. And it’s likely that M*A*S*H will hold on to this record for a long time, perhaps forever. Why? In the early 1980s, network television was the biggest thing going in home entertainment. But today, audiences are divided among hundreds of cable channels, DVDs, video games, and the Internet.

The M*A*S*H finale was such an event that it affected everyday life. Newspapers reported that more than a million New Yorkers all flushed their toilets at once immediately after the show ended (they’d all waited until the end). According to “The Straight Dope’s” Cecil Adams, it nearly brought on a plumbing catastrophe: “The resultant pressure drop caused a pronounced surge in the two huge tunnels that bring water into New York each day.” And according to New York Magazine, classical radio stations across the country were inundated with requests for a Mozart piece called “Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, K 581″ just after the show. The music figured into a poignant subplot where the snooty Major Charles Emerson Winchester II (David Ogden Stiers) teaches a group of Chinese prisoners of war how to play it.

F*A*C*T*S

* Each main characters exits the show in a different form of vehicle: Hawkeye in a helicopter, B.J. on a motorcycle, Col. Potter (Harry Morgan) on his horse, Charles in a garbage truck, Margaret in a Jeep, Father Mulcahy (William Christopher) in an ambulance, and Corporal Kinger (Jamie Farr) in the back of an oxcart.

* Klinger, Potter, and Mulcahy reunited in the CBS spinoff series AfterMASH, which lasted two seasons (1983-1985). In 1984, CBS aired a pilot called W*A*L*T*E*R about Radar (Gary Burghoff), the camp’s original company clerk, but the show was not picked up.

* During the filming of the finale, the Smithsonian Institution requested that set pieces, props, and costumes be set aside for the Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. Later, the M*A*S*H exhibit broke so many attendance records that it was extended for six months, and a few items are still on display today. And if you go to Malibu Creek State Park, about 25 miles north of Los Angeles, you can touch a piece of TV history -a burned-out Jeep carcass from the old 4077th.

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The article above was reprinted with permission from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Tunes Into TV.

Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts.

If you like Neatorama, you’ll love the Bathroom Reader Institute’s books – go ahead and check ‘em out!

Mr. Morgan attracted attention almost immediately. In “The Ox-Bow Incident” (1943), which starred Henry Fonda, he was praised for his portrayal of a drifter caught up in a lynching in a Western town. Reviewing “A Bell for Adano” (1945), based on John Hersey’s novel about the Army in a liberated Italian town, Bosley Crowther wrote in The New York Times that Mr. Morgan was “crude and amusing as the captain of M.P.’s.”

He went on to appear in “All My Sons” (1948), based on the Arthur Miller play, with Edward G. Robinson and Burt Lancaster; “The Big Clock” (1948), in which he played a silent, menacing bodyguard to Charles Laughton; “Yellow Sky” (1949), with Gregory Peck and Anne Baxter; and the critically praised western “High Noon” (1952), with Gary Cooper. Among his other notable films were “The Teahouse of the August Moon” (1956), with Marlon Brando and Glenn Ford, and “Inherit the Wind” (1960), with Spencer Tracy and Fredric March, in which he played a small-town Tennessee judge hearing arguments about evolution in the fictionalized version of the Scopes “monkey trial.” In “How the West Was Won” (1962), he played Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

After a personable performance as Glenn Miller’s pianist, Chummy MacGregor, in “The Glenn Miller Story” (1954), starring James Stewart, he often played softer characters as well as his trademark hard-bitten tough guys. There were eventually a number of comedies on his résumé, among them “John Goldfarb, Please Come Home” (1965), with Shirley MacLaine and Peter Ustinov; “The Flim-Flam Man” (1967), with George C. Scott; “Support Your Local Sheriff!” (1969), with James Garner and Walter Brennan; and “The Apple Dumpling Gang” (1975), a Disney movie with Tim Conway and Don Knotts.

Harry Morgan was 96. Link -via Metafilter

HGTV forum user Kraw27 built a replica of the set from the TV show M*A*S*H in his backyard. As you can see from the other pictures, even the interiors are duplicated in stunning detail.

Link and More Pictures via Boing Boing

It’s hard to believe 26 years have passed since the TV series M*A*S*H aired its final episode. Today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss will test how much you remember about the series. I was embarrassed to score only 80%. Some of the questions are hard! Link

1. "Suicide is Painless" - M*A*S*H*

The song was written by Robert Altman's son, Mike Altman, when he was only 14 years old. The tune was written by Johnny Mandel, a musician who worked with Count Basie, Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee (among others). Mandel sings the song as well. When Altman wrote the lyrics, he told producer Ingo Preminger that he just wanted a guitar in return, but Preminger insisted that he be paid the regular way and set up a contract that would give Altman royalties. He ended up making more than a million dollars, at least according to his dad, who directed the movie. Incidentally, Robert only received $75,000 for directing it.

2. "Those Were The Days" - All in the Family

According to series producer Norman Lear, the reason Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton sang the theme song themselves was simply to save costs. Although it was the same thing at the beginning of every episode, there were a few different versions. In one, Archie hugs Edith at the end. In another, Edith smiles at Archie and he returns the look with one of irritation. And we shouldn't be surprised that the lyrics and music were so memorable: songwriting duo Charles Strouse and Lee Adams were very good at their jobs, having already won a couple of Tony Awards (Bye Bye Birdie and Applause). Another interesting tidbit: after the theme song aired for the first few times, viewers wrote in and complained that they couldn't understand what the actors were supposed to be saying, especially the line "Gee our old LaSalle ran great." If you've ever wondered why that line is so clearly enunciated in the theme song, that's why - Jean Stapleton recorded her part again and made sure to speak ridiculously clearly during those words.

3. "The Addams Family Theme" - The Addams Family

Composer Vic Mizzy wrote the theme song, which is pretty well known, but what isn't as commonly known is that he wrote the theme song for another very popular sitcom from the same era. "The Munsters?" you might be wondering. Nope - the other theme song is a true testament to Mizzy's versatility - it was Green Acres. Mizzy also contributed parts to the Mr. Ed and Petticoat Junction theme songs. He still receives royalties every time The Addams Family theme is played, even when it's on an organ at a baseball game. (Photo from VicMizzy.com)

4. "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" - The Beverly Hillbillies

This tune joins the elite group of T.V. theme songs that were so popular they actually ended up on the mainstream music charts. The song was written and composed by Paul Henning, who was also the series' creator. The man who sang the song, Jerry Scoggins, was a stockbroker trying to break into the music business when he landed "The Ballad of Jed Clampett." This luck break paired him with the legendary Foggy Mountain Boys, who played the music that backed him. The Foggy Mountain Boys, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, were already well established in the country and bluegrass world and had been members of the Grand Ole Opry for years... which probably helped the theme song reach #44 on the charts in 1962.

5. "The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle" - Gilligan's Island

What ended up being one of the most recognizable theme songs of all time started out as a very amateur recording done in a noisy house. Sherwood Schwartz, the show's creator, couldn't afford to rent a recording studio to get the theme down, so he called in a favor from a friend with the necessary equipment. The only day they could all do it in time for the pilot was a day that his friends were preparing for a big charity event at their house, so the song had to be recorded when waiters weren't clattering silverware and plates and serving trays around. It took forever to adjust the levels just right; they finally got a usable take just as guests were arriving for the event. It's not exactly the one we know today - Sherwood had injected a sort of calypso solo that didn't make the cut - but it's the general theme. And for the first season, the portion of the lyrics that served as a roll call completely neglected poor Mary Ann and the professor, saying, "The movie star and the rest, here on Gilligan's Isle!" Schwartz said he never had an inkling that the professor and Mary Ann would become such popular characters and therefore didn't think to name them in the theme song. Although this changed by the second season, Dawn Wells and Russell Johnson liked to send each other birthday cards and presents with the signature "The Rest" as a nod to the first theme song.

6. "Happy Days" - Happy Days

For the first two seasons of the show, the theme song was simply an oldie but goodie - Bill Haley and the Comets' "Rock Around the Clock." And it served the purpose just fine - it was so popular, in fact, that the song recharted after nearly 20 years. After season two, though, they decided to use an original song instead of Bill Haley's, and fans were already familiar with it since it was being used as the closing theme music. "Happy Days" got bumped up from the end of the show to the front, and the song has been stuck in our heads ever since. It was written by Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel, who gave us the lyrics and music to a ton of other memorable theme songs: Laverne and Shirley, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, Wonder Woman and the score for H.R. Pufnstuf. "Happy Days" was performed by a roster of studio musicians, including some of the same guys who sang The Partridge Family theme song. As popular as the Happy Days theme song was, they decided to record a new version of it for the show's final season. It didn't go over as well, and I can see why... check it out for yourself:

7. "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" - Cheers

The famous theme song was nearly just a recycled song from a Broadway musical called Preppies. The producers of Cheers heard it and thought it would be perfect for their new show if the lyrics were just changed up a little. Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart Angelo, the songwriters, were understandably thrilled - but the producers of Preppies weren't. They refused to give up rights to the song. Portnoy and Angelo were devastated, but the producers of Cheers told them not to worry - they should just take a shot at writing something totally new. The first version, a pretty blatant rip-off of their first song, was quickly rejected. After reading a script, the duo took a third shot, which was closer - the producers loved some of the lyrics - but still no cigar. Version #3 was rejected. Portnoy and Hart were getting a little dejected and concerned that they were going to get fired any second, and to make matters worse, Gary and his girlfriend had just broken up. This set the mood for version #4, a melancholy little tune about the Red Sox losing, being too poor to pay the electric bill and needy girlfriends who wanted to get married. They almost decided it was too depressing for a sitcom, when they came up with the line "Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name," and the whole song turned from depressing to hopeful. The folks at Cheers loved it, but changed the opening lines from "Singing the blues when the Red Sox lose, it's a crisis in your life," to the now-famous, "Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got." The rest is history.

8. "Jeannie" - I Dream of Jeannie

There were three theme songs composed for the show about a blonde genie and her Master - the first season featured an instrumental waltz over the opening credits. And no less than Carole King wrote a theme song for the series, but Sidney Sheldon rejected it. The winning song that we know as the I Dream of Jeannie theme song today was composed by Hugo Montenegro. And, believe it or not, there were lyrics to the song. Written by Buddy Kaye, this gem was never used for the show:

Jeannie, fresh as a daisy. Just love how she obeys me, Does things that just amaze me so. She smiles, Presto the rain goes. She blinks, up come the rainbows. Cars stop, even the train goes slow. When she goes by, she paints sunshine on every rafter, sprinkles the air with laughter, we're close as a quarter after three. There's no one like Jeannie. I'll introduce her to you, but it's no use sir, cause my Jeannie's in love with me.

9. "Thank You For Being a Friend" - Golden Girls

Unbeknownst to me, this song wasn't original to our four happening grannies. It was first recorded in 1978 by Andrew Gold, who hit #25 on the Billboard charts the same year. Cynthia Fee sang it for the show, though.

The song was later reworked a third time for the opening credits to The Golden Palace. I hate it. But check it out! Don Cheadle!

10. "The Facts of Life" - The Facts of Life

If you didn't already know this, prepared to be floored: Alan Thicke, better known as Jason Seaver to legions of kids who grew up in the late '80s and early '90s, co-wrote "The Facts of Life." He also co-wrote and sang the theme song to Diff'rent Strokes. At the time, Thicke was married to his co-writer Gloria Loring, who sang the "Facts" song you probably remember. There was also an earlier version that featured the cast of the show singing the wise lyrics, but it was only used for the first season.