The show originally ran when I was a kid. I remember bits and pieces of it but I know I didn’t care for it back then due to my age.

I was just thinking about watching it for the first time now, but do you think it is too dated or too limited by the 70s television restrictions?

I know a lot here loved it when it originally aired. How well does it hold up today?

It’s a classic and still holds up well. Of course, it takes place during the Korean War in the early 1950’s, so it won’t get “dated” by cultural references. Each episode is fairly self contained, so you don’t have to watch it from the beginning to get most of it, but some of the jokes reference earlier episodes and you might not get those. Watch and enjoy!

I do not think it will appear to dated.

There was a group of us that watched it every week. We even had a huge party for the final episode. As I recall, "What?" was the last word of the final episode.

You will see Klinger reference Packo's in Toledo.

I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

I'm probably close to your age and I never liked it either. From what I gather it was good the first few years but once Alan Alda got some sort of creative control it went downhill.

A few months ago I ordered the complete Hogan's Heroes DVD set. Man, they used to crank out a lot of episodes! Of course there are only a few plot lines, but who cares. It's good clean fun!

I've seen it, and it hasn't aged too badly. The jokes about Klinger dressing as a woman to prove he's crazy are funny in the context of modern 'sexuality.' Back then, everybody knew a dude dressing in drag was crazy.

Oh, the laugh track is like fingernails on a blackboard. They seem to have the same 15 seconds of laughter they put on an endless loop. I'm sure many would not even notice the laugh track, but it's really unbearable to me.

I was too young (was a kid in the 70s) to figure out Alda's bad influence, but I've read about it. The Hawkeye character is a bit over-done and overbearing, but I never noticed as a child.

It had some really great episodes. Some were full of slap-stick comedy, and others were completely dead-pan serious. I also love Winchester's character. David Ogden Steirs was amazing, and his 'only sane man in a nuthouse' but was really good. I loved the episode where he gave chocolate to the village children.*



* It was a Winchester tradition; the father sold the chocolate on the black market, and Winchester confronted him about it. The father simply said "How could I give them desert when they haven't had dinner?" He sold the chocolate so he could feed his family for a month. It was good at showing the idiocy of Army bureaucracy and the waste of lives that often come in war.

Well first of all, it will appear dated, it was set during the Korean War after all.

The jokes they tell are still funny as are comedic routines found in a forward deployed unit (albeit a medical unit in this case).

Would recommend watching them in order though. Fun to see how the cast and stories writers bein to gel and, helps keep score for Hotlips vs. Hawkeye.

I have the first three seasons on DVD. They are the best IMO.

I really enjoyed the early seasons - the last two not so much - got really preachy

MASH is a great series. Col. Flag, Spear Chunker and Klinger?! What’s not to love??

quote:

Originally posted by LS1 GTO:
. . . it was set during the Korean War after all.

While set during the Korean War, the TV series M*A*S*H served as platform for anti Vietnam war sentiment with Alan Alda as the front man.

quote:

Originally posted by dry-fly:
MASH is a great series. Col. Flag, Spear Chunker and Klinger?! What’s not to love??

Alan Alda. They should post his photo alongside the definition of "smarmy." Cannot stand the man.

That is one of my all time favorite shows! True humor & true emotion in its finest form. I still watch when ever I'm around network TV, not very often, but I still watch.

This is one of those shows were we really can't say, we don't know you or where you are in life.

When I was a kid, through my twenties or more, I really enjoyed MASH. My father wouldn't watch it. He called it the "Alan Alda show" (and had many unkind words for Mike Farrel, a very outspoke Hollywood liberal for the time.)

Skip ahead 30+ years, my father, who doesn't watch a lot of TV, will watch it if it's put on. I on the other hand find it almost unbearable. I see/feel now what my father meant about the "Alan Alda show", I can't stand him or his character, it's sickening to me, which is too bad because I still enjoy everyone else's work on the show.

Why do I see now what I didn't see then? Why does my father not mind now? I dunno, must obviously be an age thing.

I watch it all the time. Hawkeye is too lib and preachy but, I can deal with it. I enjoy Col. Potter, Klinger, and Winchester. I do like them jacking with Burns.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by dry-fly:
MASH is a great series. Col. Flag, Spear Chunker and Klinger?! What’s not to love??

Alan Alda. They should post his photo alongside the definition of "smarmy." Cannot stand the man.

I agree. I liked the show when I was young. But I tried watching the series as an adult and Alan Alda annoyed the hell out of me after just a few episodes. I found it unwatchable.

Say what you like about Alda, but Potter (Harry Morgan) and especially Winchester (David Ogden Stiers) were great characters. The episode where Winchester counsels a soldier who was a concert pianist but lost the use of one hand was moving. In another, Winchester gave fancy candy to an orphanage, was pissed off when he found out they sold the candy on the black market, then was humbled when told they did it to buy badly needed real food, the only time he had ever done so.

I think Larry Linville played the part of Frank Burns so well it ruined his career.

We’ve watched the first 4 episodes. It reminds me of the show House a lot. The producers of that show must have watched a lot of Mash.

I still say things like "get on the horn to I Corps". I used to enjoy that show. Is it streaming somewhere?

FWIW, the episode "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" had one of the largest TV audiences ever.

If you get sick of watching it, at least watch the last 30 minutes or so of "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" to see how it all ended.