M*A*S*H ran from 1972 to 1983, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest TV series of all time. Mobile Army Surgical Hospital units were real, but the show’s 4077th was fictional. It was loosely based on the experiences of US Army surgeon Hiester Richard Hornberger Jr during the Korean War, who wrote the book MASH in 1968, spawning a film and a TV show.
The 2.5 hour final episode of M*A*S*H, set to the war’s ceasefire, remains the most watched series episode in US TV history as of 2026, and for 27 years was the most watched TV production ever (not counting the Apollo 11 moon landing, which was categorized as a news story). The ad spots sold for more money than Superbowl spots.
This is the intro theme from the TV show (youtube).
Dr. Hornberger died in 1997 at age 73 from leukemia. This is Hornberger during the Korean War, serving in the real life 8055th MASH unit.
The main characters from the show are still household names 43 years after the end of the series.
Hunted down a little more info. These actors are still alive, in their 80s and 90s now:
- Alan Alda (Hawkeye), Jamie Farr (Klinger), Gary Burghoff (Radar), Mike Farrell (Hunnicut).
These actors are deceased.
- Loretta Swit (Hoolihan), William Christopher (Father John), Wayne Rogers (Trapper), McLean Stevenson (Blake), Larry Linville (Burns), Harry Morgan (Col. Potter), David Ogden Stiers (Winchester).
Many of the episode plots were a direct result of the series producers finding and interviewing other real life MASH doctors about their experiences.
Gary Burghoff (Radar O’Reilly) was disliked by the cast and crew after getting a reputation for being extremely difficult on set. On the Andy Griffith Show, it was Francis Bavier, who played Aunt Bea, who was the difficult one.
My only little tidbit about Radar that I knew was his hand. One of his hands is messed up. That’s why he was seen primarily with objects in his hands, like clipboards or the teddy bear.
Interesting. I’ve seen many of the episodes but never even noticed. Wikipedia:
became a drummer, despite being born with brachydactyly caused by Poland syndrome, which made three fingers on his left hand significantly smaller than those on his right hand.
And on his drumming,
In the M*A*S*H episode “Showtime”, Radar is seen playing a solo on the drums; he was actually performing, and the music was not overdubbed.
It was a pioneer of a show. If you haven’t seen it and are in between binges, check it out. A lot of what it did set þe bar and þe model for later comedy series.
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When the M*A*S*H tie-in game came out on the Atari 2600, Jamie Farr did a promotional autograph signing at the Macy’s in New York. My dad took me and I got to ask Farr what the “Q” in “Maxwell Q. Klinger” stood for. He told me it was a secret, but I’m sure it was never actually established. I got a signed picture of him which is probably in a box somewhere in my garage.
I also got the game which was disappointing, to say the least. I don’t remember a lot about it, but I think there was a screen where you had to fly a helicopter through a maze to deliver the patient, then another maze screen which was meant to represent removing shrapnel from the patient. I don’t think I played it more than a couple of times.
I didn’t even know there was one!
Holy Toledo!
Looks like the series production site is now part of Malibu Creek State Park in California. The state park site has a lot of info about various M*A*S*H events such as the 50th anniversary celebration held at the site.
Top of the page shows what the backdrop mountains from the iconic TV intro are like today. Also, this rather beautiful aerial photo of the park.
MAS*H
lol, you have to look at what you post and understand Markdown a little bit. :) Putting asterisks around something causes italics. If you want to escape the behaviour of the asterisk, put a backslash in front:
M\*A\*S\*Hbecomes M*A*S*H:)
Hmm. ISWYM, but for some reason it looks fine for me (on web site). Edit: which is why I didn’t notice.
Is this something that looks different on mobile? Here’s my SS, before editing to add escapes. I’m not sure why it isn’t italics.
If a mobile client doesn’t render Markdown correctly, then it won’t render that Markdown correctly, which would be desired in this rare case :)
I’m using the web site though, not a mobile client.
I can only guess that it detected mismatched asterisks and decided not to italicize. It certainly does in other case. Like this for example is italics.
Butthisisnt*italics for me. Probably is for others, sounds like.
https://i.imgur.com/US1fPnc.png
If a frontend interface doesn’t render Markdown properly… :)
Seems like there isn’t really a “properly” here. Stackoverflow thinks markdown doesn’t have a single official spec, but lots of different specs saying different things, which people tried to unify, which resulted in yet more specs and yet more MD parser behaviors. Wikipedia agrees:
At the same time, a number of ambiguities in the informal specification had attracted attention.
Example, some italicize if the asterisk comes after a non-alphanumeric character, and others don’t.
Sounds like a mess. But it doesn’t seem as simple as “if an interface doesn’t render markdown correctly.”
Not sure if you already edited but it looks correct (just like your screenshot) for me on Voyager.
I’m on voyager and this is what I see in the title:
I wonder if it’s an instance thing?
Oh yeah, you’re right. The title does look like that but his comment looks normal.
Can’t blame that one on OP, though. Voyager really shouldn’t be applying formatting to title! The dev is really responsive but I forgot their name or I’d ping them
Yeah I did edit the text body after it was pointed out.
I didn’t know it was messed up in the title too (didn’t expect markdown there) so I’ll fix that too.
Edit: tried to fix the title, but now it shows the single backslashes visibly, instead of escaping the asterisks. Maybe there’s no way to have the post title right for everyone?
Maybe clients are not supposed to use MD in the titles, but since it seems to be different for different people, I removed the bloody things entirely, so now it just says MASH.
I’d leave the title as-is, don’t try to accommodate those of us with app issues!
Frontends shouldn’t be applying it to titles at all, they should be raw text
I wonder how it would go with unicode.
This -> ∗ is not an asterisk. But now there’s a dependency on every font having that unicode.
I guess we’ll just have to start calling it M🤩A🤩S🤩H
Y*E*P.
I have been watching broadcast tv and many old shows are played. This has to be one of the best. Many others are good to. Barney Miller really stands out.
What a great show and and awesome memory. Thanks OP!
It’s a half-hour show. If they’re showing at 6 and 7pm, what are they playing at 6:30?
Probably the news?
Here’s a schedule from 1982. Doesn’t seem to be the sort of station to have news.
2 KTVU
6:00 Jim Bakker
7:00 Woody Woodpecker and Friends
8:30 Romper Room
9:00 Six Million Dollar Man
10:00 Rockford Files
11:00 Donahue - Guest: Lana Turner
NOON Big Valley
1:00 Dialing for Dollars Movie: “A Man for All Seasons”, Part 2 of 2 (1966 Best Picutre) - Paul Scofield (Best Actor), Wendy Hiller, Leo McKern, Orson Welles, Robert Shaw, Susannah York.
3:00 Scooby-Doo
3:30 Tom & Jerry
4:00 Spider-Man
4:30 Gilligan’s Island
5:00 Star Trek
6:00 Three’s Company
6:30 Laverne & Shirley & Company
7:00 M*A*S*H
7:30 Barney Miller
8:00 8 O’Clock Movie: “September 30, 1955” (1977) - Richard Thomas, Susan Tyrell, Dennis Quaid, Lisa Blount.
10:00 Channel 2 News
11:00 M*A*S*H
11:30 Love, American Style
MIDNIGHT Big Valley
1:00 Lucy ShowNice find!
Military
As
Shit
Hospital
