TV Guide - February 9, 1974

You can't go wrong with Jack Davis, and TV Guide knew it, so they commissioned him for this great M*A*S*H cover. This issue is from February 9, 1974, while the show was wrapping up its second season.

Entertainment Weekly - 12/5/14

In the 12/5/14 edition of Entertainment Weekly, there's an article recommending great Christmas-related entertainment, including five great Xmas-themed TV episodes. As you can see above, Season 9's "Death Takes A Holiday" made the list!


One other thing worth mentioning: check the color-coded key EW provides to help you find what streaming services you can see these shows on. Which ones is M*A*S*H on? That's right, none of them. C'mon, Netflix, get with it!

TV Guide - 4/25/81

Yet another piece of M*A*S*H obscura courtesy Swamp Rat Russell Burbage, a 1981 edition of TV Guide featuring an extended article on the making of an episode of the show. Really interesting behind the scenes glimpse, capped off by an Al Hirschfeld cover. Not bad for 40 cents!

Thanks again Russell!

TV Guide - 9/10/83

Another piece of M*A*S*H obscura courtesy Swamp Rat Russell Burbage, here's a 1983 edition of TV Guide featuring an article on the new show, AfterM*A*S*H. Note the somewhat condescending tone in the article, I guess the writer just couldn't help themselves.

Thanks again Russell!

Dynamite #19

Swamp Rat Russell Burbage sent me a box o'fun for my birthday a few months ago, including some M*A*S*H stuff, like this issue of everyone's favorite magazine, Dynamite!

 It might seem surprising that a magazine aimed at kids would so extensively cover what was an adult TV show, but I think it only underscores just how massively popular the show was at the time. Side note: it's funny that the only promo still Dynamite could get of Harry Morgan was when he was playing General Steele in Season 3's "The General Flipped At Dawn", not a shot of him as Col. Potter. No one said running a magazine would be easy.

Thanks Russell!

Entertainment Weekly - 5/12/13

Entertainment Weekly recently released their "100 All-Time Greatest" issue, where they rank the 100 best TV shows, movies, albums, books, and plays.

Of course, when a major pop culture arbiter such as EW does something like this, there's always a bunch or bunches of people who walk away from it mad, angrily tossing the magazine across the room in disgust that their favorite show didn't rank higher ("Where's 'Manimal', dammit?!?")

And while I of course consider M*A*S*H to still be the greatest TV series of all time--still, thirty years after it went off the air--there are a handful of shows (IMO, The Sopranos, Mad Men, The Simpsons, Mary Tyler Moore, The Wire) that I think deserve to breathe that same rarefied air, so if any of them had gotten the top spot, I wouldn't have thought much of it.

But look at the graphic and you can see where M*A*S*H placed--#31. Gadzooks, #31? Here's a list of some of the other shows that EW deemed greater achievement than M*A*S*H:

• Seinfeld (#3)
• Buffy The Vampire Slayer (#8)
• The Office (U.K.) (#14)
• Lost (#24)
• The Abbott & Costello Show (#28)
• E.R. (#30)

Now, you can argue those are all great shows (though I'd say Seinfeld has curdled like bad milk), but the idea that they deserve to be on any list, in any known universe consisting of sentient beings, above M*A*S*H is so bizarre that I lack the words to fully express how I feel. I mean, sure, the British Office was great, but...what did they do? Like, eight episodes? M*A*S*H practically had more one-hour episodes than The Office's entire run.

And while no one is a bigger fan of Abbott & Costello than me, their greatest fame came from their movies, not the TV show. I'd be hard pressed to find anyone below a certain age who even knows A&C, and if they do it's thanks to "Who's On First?" I bet a lot of people who are fans of their movies don't even know they had a TV show.

So while I started this post acknowledging that lists like this are always pretty meaningless, it still gripes my cookies (to borrow a phrase from Henry Blake) that the show whose final episode is still the highest-rated single episode of all time, and is still running on several networks in syndication, was put so far down. To angrily quote another 4077th veteran: "Boy!"

Galveston Daily News - 2/28/83

An article from the day of M*A*S*H's final show!

Frederick News Post - 2/25/83

A "Hot Lips Look-alike contest"? As Radar might say, Holy Cow!

Lethbridge Herald - 3/3/83

An interesting piece about the emotional toil M*A*S*H going off the air had on people!

Wisconsin State Journal - 6/3/73

This article came less than a year into M*A*S*H's run, and before CBS moved the show to after All In The Family--where the rest of America pretty much found it, so the Wisconsin State Journal (or some AP reporter) was ahead of the curve. Click the image to read the whole piece!

Roswell Daily Record - 12/20/82

A very favorable piece about M*A*S*H Executive Producer Burt Melcalfe, a little less than three months before the show left the air.

Check out the headline and last line of the first paragraph, which describes Metcalfe as having "made a great show even greater." Now, I love the show as a whole, all eleven seasons, and think some of the series' best moments occurred in Seasons Six through Eleven. But you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who says that M*A*S*H's best years, as a whole, were post-Larry Gelbart and Gene Reynolds.

Yuma Daily Sun - 12/2/77

A surprising amount of column space devoted to what would, ultimately, not really go anywhere: the "romance" between Hawkeye and Margaret. That's how big M*A*S*H was!

Daily News Herald - 7/15/82

Pretty self-explanatory--M*A*S*H rules!

The Lowell, MA Sun - 3/18/75

Obsessed as I am now with finding new things to post here, and having concluded the run of episode adverts I had, I went searching for M*A*S*H-related newspaper articles.

This one is, of course, all about McLean Stevenson's final episode on the show. This article ran the day of "Abyssinia, Henry"--March 18, 1975--which means people read it before the episode in question aired.

Now check the copy, especially the last line: they give away the ending!! One of the biggest shocks ever delivered by a TV show, and this newspaper article gives it away to anyone familiar with the movie Mr. Roberts. I cannot imagine how furious I would have been, either as a viewer or a member of the M*A*S*H staff--if I had seen that. And since a lot of these types of articles were written by the AP or a similar outfit, its possible this piece ran in other newspapers, as well. Sheesh!


I'm happy to report I found quite a few interesting(?) newspaper articles related to the show, so check back here often as I'll be posting them regularly!

TV Guide - 2/24/73

Another issue of TV Guide with a M*A*S*H cover--in this case, the very first time the show's cast graced the cover, undoubtedly reflecting that the show, then still in its first season, was gaining steam, creatively and with audiences.

I found this on eBay, so I don't have the actual issue on hand to check out the article. Maybe should I pick it up, if only for the cool vintage ads...

M*A*S*H's Final Days - 2/28/84

Another vintage M*A*S*H article, this time from Stars and Stripes that ran on February 28, 1984, one year exactly after the show went off the air. Click to read the whole thing!

M*A*S*H Finale Review - 2/28/83

Another vintage M*A*S*H articles, this one from the Loganspoirt, IN Pharos-Tribune that ran on February 28, 1983, the day of the series' final episode.

In the intervening decades, newspapers have taken such a hit that a paper devoting this much column space to a TV show--any episode of any TV show--seems kind of inconceivable now.

Since the article was an syndicated piece from the AP, we don't know who wrote it--but whoever did was obviously a fan, and a thoughtful one at that: they manage to encapsulate many of the final episode's best and most important moments.

Four M*A*S*H Articles - 2/28/83

The Lubbock, Texas Evening Journal ran not one, not two, not three, but four different articles about M*A*S*H on the occasion of its final episode. A better testament to the show's cultural impact I can't really imagine.

M*A*S*H Review - 9/15/72

I was searching through an online newspaper archive and found a bunch of cool vintage M*A*S*H articles, like this one, a review of the pilot from the Illinois Galesburg Register Mail that ran on September 15, 1972, a mere two days before it aired.

The writer of the piece seemed like to like M*A*S*H just fine, but seemed more excited about Anna and the King, which lasted a mere thirteen episodes. M*A*S*H, of course, lasted just a little bit longer...

AfterM*A*S*H on The A.V. Club!

The Onion's A.V. Club has an excellent, detailed article today on the Season Four episode, "The Interview."

The post is filled with graphics from AfterM*A*S*H, and the author is also kind enough to recommend the blog, as well. Go check it out!