Article written by Samuel Burnett.
Just a few short weeks ago, Kim Jong-un, the “democratically” elected leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea crossed the DMZ and shook hands with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
While officially, the Korean War went from the 25th of June 1950 to the 27th of July 1953, in practice, the two countries have been in a state of belligerence for over fifty years.
This must have been the thinking behind the hit show set in the conflict, M*A*S*H lasting eight years longer than the official conflict.
Or they saw dollar signs in their eyes and just decided to keep the cash train a going.
Seeing as the Korean War might finally be coming to its real conclusion, now is as good a time as any to take a look back at one of television’s most popular programs.
Once upon a time, every Monday night, viewers around the world would sit and watch the helicopters fly in accompanied by Suicide is Painless, a truly iconic television opening.
In a world where television spin-offs, serialization and controversial subject matter is the norm, it can be difficult for a modern viewer to understand just how groundbreaking this show was at the time.
The show follows a team of doctors and support staff stationed at the "4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital" in Uijeongbu, South Korea with a tone that would, despite the brutal setting, would be comical as often as dramatic.
Any given story could range from the wacky antics of the cross-dressing Corporal Klinger, desperate to get that Section 8 to the mind-numbing tedium that company clerk Radar O'Reilly goes through day to day, to Captain Hawkeye Pierce crying as his childhood friend dies on his operating table.
The show was also unique in that it was one of the first to change the status quo in terms of casting and character development. In other shows of the era (and occasionally still today), when an actor wanted to leave, often they were replaced with a carbon copy with a similar appearance, filling the exact same function. Maverick of the 1950s infamously had three replacements for the title character, Bart, Beau, and Brent.
This was simply a result of how television was broadcast back in the day. Often, a long running show would be broadcast in any order, especially in reruns, and the idea was to make it easy for any casual viewer to immediately understand what was happening.
What set M*A*S*H* apart was its willingness to break with the traditional format. When adulterous, womanising Trapper John left the show, his replacement came in the form of devoted family man B.J. Hunnicutt. The outright villainous Frank Burns, often a thorn in the side of all present was replaced by the aristocratic yet decent and occasionally romantic Charles Emerson Winchester. And when Radar O’Reilly left the show, rather than casting a new actor, his duties were filled by Corporal Klinger, a man who had been allowed to evolve from what was originally a one joke character.
Just like people in real life, the cast in M*A*S*H* were allowed to grow, develop and, occasionally, regress and backpaddle. Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan is a prime example of this.
In the early seasons, it would be unreasonable for a viewer to describe her as an antagonist alongside Frank Burns. Military, by the book and utterly devoid of humour, she would often be an obstacle for distinctly unmilitary Hawkeye Pierce, hoping to have the would be draft dodger disciplined for his insubordination.
However, as the show went on and she was forced to spend more time with her colleagues, she began to let her hair down, so to speak. It wouldn’t be uncommon to see her eating meals with the others, there were times when she would join in whatever hare-brained scheme Hawkeye had dreamed up to relieve boredom and she would often join the others at the table for a round of cards. She could even let her defences down and show vulnerability despite her strict, regimental upbringing.
The Margaret Houlihan of the first season could never laugh freely with her colleagues like she would in the later seasons.
There was no specific episode nor moment to mark this change. You could never say, “Oh, she became one of the good guys in this particular episode.” The show was better than that. Her change was a slow, gradual process, like anyone on the other side of the television screen.
But there is no disputing that that she became one of the group’s friends.
M*A*S*H* was also not afraid to tackle more controversial topics that other shows would have baulked at. Subject matter such as death, infidelity, homosexuality in the military, institutionalised racism and the futility of war were explored in great depth, especially for the time of broadcast.
The first story to really tackle the horrors of war was episode seventeen of the first season. Hawkeye’s childhood friend, Tommy Gillis, makes a memorable appearance, stating his desire to write a book about the struggles of being on the frontline. He titles it, “You Never Hear the Bullet” as he says, unlike movies where death in war is always presented as dramatic, real life doesn’t care for theatrics.
Towards the end of the episode, Hawkeye discovers, to his horror, Tommy brought in on his operating table, seriously wounded.
Despite the serious nature of his injuries, Tommy seems more disturbed by the fact that he “heard the bullet coming, just like in the movies.”
“So, you'll change the title of the book, that's all,” says an increasingly agitated Hawkeye, “Sometimes You Hear the Bullet. It's a better title anyway.”
He continues to operate but, despite his best efforts, Tommy just slips away but Hawkeye has no time to mourn as another wounded soldier is placed before him.
After surgery, he stands outside his tent, tears silently running down his face, he wonders why he is crying, after all, he hadn’t cried once since coming to Korea. His commanding officer, Henry Blake, says that it’s perfectly natural, after all Tommy was his friend.
Hawkeye responds that not what he meant. He knows why he’s crying for Tommy. What he doesn’t understand is why he didn’t cry for any of the other soldiers he had watched die during the war.
Henry darkly chuckles, “If I had the answer, I'd be at the Mayo Clinic. Does this place look like the Mayo Clinic?” He then becomes serious. “Look, all I know is what they taught me at command school. There are certain rules about a war, and rule number one is: Young men die. Rule number two is: Doctors can't change rule number one.”
Hawkeye angrily declares, “I know one doctor who can keep one young man from dying in one war.” He then turns in a fifteen-year-old boy who had lied his way into the army in order to be a hero.
The boy says angrily that he will never forgive him for the rest of his life.
To this, Hawkeye coolly quips. “Let’s hope it’s a long and healthy hate.”
This was considered by many to be the turning point of the show, transforming it from an irreverent, slapstick comedy into an intelligent piece of anti-war commentary at a time when the Vietnam War was still raging.
It even earned writer Carl Kleinschmitt a nomination for a Writers Guild Award.
When the show finally ended, ten years later, it was one of the biggest television events of all time drawing in over 105 million viewers. The finale, Goodbye, Farewell and Amen, was a two hour epic designed to give the viewing audience the chance to properly say goodbye to characters that had become so beloved.
Interest from advertisers prompted CBS to sell 30-second commercial blocks for $450,000 (over $1,000,000 in today’s money) each — costlier than even for NBC's airing of the Super Bowl of that year.
There are even persistent urban legends that the plumbing of New York City was damaged during the commercial breaks as everyone held it in until the episode had finished.
While sadly untrue, it is indicative of what a phenomenon this show was.
While created in protest to one war, in a world with seemingly endless war in the Middle-East, the oddly long war in M*A*S*H* seems more relevant than ever.
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