M*A*S*H special to commemorate 40 years since finale
M*A*S*H: The Comedy That Changed Television will be a 2 hour special with Alan Alda, Mike Farrell, Loretta Swit, Jamie Farr & Gary Burghoff.
- Published by David Knox
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America is set to get M*A*S*H: The Comedy That Changed Television, a two-hour special which features new interviews with surviving cast memners.
While it isn’t clear if they will physically reunite together, they include Alan Alda (Capt. Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce), Gary Burghoff (Cpl. Walter “Radar” O’Reilly), Jamie Farr (Cpl./Sgt. Maxwell Q. “Max” Klinger), Mike Farrell (Capt. B.J. Hunnicutt) and Loretta Swit (Maj. Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan), as well as EPs Gene Reynolds and Burt Metcalfe.
It will also remember the late writer / producer Larry Gelbart and stars Larry Linville (Maj. Frank Burns), Harry Morgan (Col. Sherman T. Potter), McLean Stevenson (Lt. Col. Henry Blake), Wayne Rogers (Capt. “Trapper” John McIntyre), William Christopher (Father Francis Mulcahy) and David Ogden Stiers (Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester III) through clips and rarely-seen archival interviews.
The retrospective will also include “never-before-seen behind-the-scenes footage, photos and stories.”
“M*A*S*H is not only a great television series, it is a cultural phenomenon. It has made multiple generations of viewers laugh, cry and think, often in the same episode,” said Executive Producers John Scheinfeld and Andy Kaplan. “We are excited to team with Fox to create this unprecedented window into an innovative television classic.”
“M*A*S*H is among the most iconic sitcoms in the annals of television history,” said Dan Harrison, Fox’s EVP of Program Planning & Content Strategy, in a statement. “It’s a timeless show that comedically captures the 4077th medical corps and how they managed to maintain their sanity while saving lives on the front lines of the Korean War… Fox is proud to celebrate the landmark achievements of one of the best comedies ever created.”
The emotional 1983 finale M*A*S*H: Goodbye, Farewell and Amen is still the highest rated TV drama of all time in the USA at 105.9m viewers.
The special screens in the USA on January 1 but an Australian date is yet to be confirmed.
Source: TV Line
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9 Responses
It’s actually closer to 41 Years since the show ended which was March 1983
… WIN TV was the first station in Australia to run “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen” … Susie Elelman organised army vehicles to run Sydney’s media writers down to Wollongong where the studio had been decorated as a M*A*S*H unit and they were fed from ration tins … didn’t do the ratings any harm either … 10 didn’t play it until much later …
Good trivia.
Hopefully the wait to see it here won’t be too long! Really looking forward to seeing it.
I still enjoy watching the original series.
Looking forward to watching this when it’s available in Australia
It’s amazing how M*A*S*H is still shown pretty much everyday in Australia and around the world after all this time….it’s still great stories and amusing at the same time…
For decades the MASH music starting up was the message to thousands of kids to change the channel or leave the room. Still depressing as hell.
or for me as a kid…to watch the comedic antics of the 4077
And 40 years of continuous re-runs.
@Higgy. Thank you. I’ve tried many times to get into MASH as I’m a fan of many classic sit-coms. But I never could. Hawkeye and co’s, Marx Brothers like schtick played against the Korean war, was never funny for me.
The original 1970 film was a much blacker comedy and was only set during the Korean War because it was considered by the studio too sensitive/controversial to make it about the then ongoing Vietnam conflict.