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There’s a universe in which ‘70s sitcom Three’s Company didn’t invite horny viewers to “come and knock on our door.” And even if they did, they probably wouldn’t have recognized John Ritter’s roommates if either of them answered.

Entertainment publicist Danny Deraney recently shared the opening credits from the original pilot of Three’s Company, and it’s like a bizarro-world version of the popular sitcom. Only a few elements remain the same — mainly Norman Fell and Audra Lindley as the Ropers, the meddlesome and undersexed landlords, respectively.

The rest looks familiar yet strange. The theme song has the same bouncy melody, but a cheerful “doo-doo-doo-doo-doo” replaces lyrics that promised “where the kisses are hers and hers and his, three's company too.”

There’s breakout star John Ritter, but he’s “David” instead of the familiar Jack Tripper. As for Chrissy and Janet? Both the characters and...

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This February, Tubi is bringing you a lot of entertainment, from the brilliant epic space opera film Dune: Part One to the classic sci-fi action film The Terminator. However, this article only includes the films coming to Tubi this month with a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score. So, check out the ten best films coming to Tubi in February 2025 with a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score.

Licorice Pizza (February 1) Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90% Credit – United Artists Releasing

Licorice Pizza is a coming-of-age romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. The 2021 film is set in the 1970s in California’s San Fernando Valley, and it follows Gary Valentine, a teen actor who falls for Alana Kane, an older girl. Licorice Pizza stars Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Sean Penn, Tom Waits, Bradley Cooper, and Benny Safdie.

Leaving Las Vegas...

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Going Dutch is a comedy series created by Joel Church-Cooper. The Fox series follows Colonel Patrick Quinn, an arrogant and narcissistic man who is reassigned to the “least important Army base in the world” after an offensive rant. When he gets there, he discovers that his estranged daughter is already there. Going Dutch stars Denis Leary, Taylor Misiak, Danny Pudi, Lacy Mosley, and Hal Cumpston. So, if you loved the military humor, hilarious comedy, and compelling characters in Going Dutch, here are some similar shows you should check out next.

Enlisted (Rent on Prime Video) Credit – Fox

Enlisted is a military fiction comedy series created by Kevin Biegel. The Fox series revolves around three brothers who are soldiers in the US Army as they serve their nation by taking care of those who are left behind after the soldiers deploy.

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The Pitt is a medical drama series created by R. Scott Gemmill. The Max series is set in the emergency room at the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital and follows a group of doctors and nurses working an extremely tense 15-hour shift. The Pitt stars Noah Wyle, Tracy Ifeachor, Patrick Ball, Katherine Lanasa, Supriya Ganesh, Fiona Dourif, Taylor Dearden, Isa Briones, Gerran Howell, and Shabana Azeez. So, if you loved the medical drama, compelling storylines, and complex characters, here are some similar shows you should check out next.

This Is Going to Hurt (AMC+ & Prime Video Add-On) Credit – BBC

This Is Going to Hurt is a British medical dark comedy-drama series created by Adam Kay. Based on Kay’s 2017 nonfiction book of the same name, the AMC series follows Adam Kay as he works as a junior doctor...

Mash ran for over a decade and the showrunners were often so hungry for good ideas they didn't even realize they made the exact same story twice. Mash ran for 11 seasons and was still one of the biggest shows on television when it ended. In fact, it was a cast vote that ended Mash and CBS. The actors felt the series was running out of steam and they needed to wrap it up before things became stale.

Of course, that doesn't mean they didn't repeat - whether accidentally or on purpose - similar storylines. For example, the controversial Mash episode where Bj cheats on his wife in season 5 was recycled again for season 8's "War Co-Respondent" - but in the latter case, he at least resists temptation. One of season 7's most interesting episodes is "Preventative Medicine," where Bj and Hawkeye clash with a commander with a high casualty rate,...

Henry Blake's departure from Mash came in the season 3 finale with his tragic death summarizing the show's core message about war. Played by McLean Stevenson, Blake was 4077's commanding officer during the groundbreaking dramedy's early years. While not as respected or capable as Col. Sherman Potter, Blake was a fair and good-hearted doctor who was liked by his subordinates despite his inadequacies. The news of his death was delivered by a stunned Radar O'Reilly to a busy operating room, making for one of the most iconic TV deaths.

McLean Stevenson won a Golden Globe in 1974 for his performance as Henry Blake on Mash.

Given the nature of Mash, injuries, deaths, and other tragedies were the norm. The medical show leaned on it frequently, with its best moments not shying away from these difficult topics. Balancing silly humor with the horrors of war is what made Mash one of the most popular shows ever.

Mash had many shocking moments, but the death of a major character not only transformed the show, but also impacted television itself in the decades that followed. Mash ran for 11 seasons, and during that time, evolved from a wild sitcom to a full-on dramedy. The show was groundbreaking on many fronts, such as dropping the laugh track during surgery scenes to actually exploring the trauma the main characters were experiencing. The shock death of Henry Blake in Mash season 3 proved especially controversial.

It may have lost its impact thanks to series like Game of Thrones or Walking Dead killing off main characters like and right, but prior to Blake, it was unheard of for a major supporting player to die. While McLean Stevenson came to regret leaving Mash so soon, Blake's demise was a groundbreaking moment in many ways. It even stands out among divisive entries like "Dreams" - a...

The co-creator of Mash's failed sequel AfterMASH once hilariously summarized why it bombed so completely. Despite Mash having run for 11 seasons, it was still a ratings hit for CBS when it ended. This led the network to greenlight some ill-advised Mash spinoffs, with AfterMASH being the first. This saw returning characters like Potter (Harry Morgan), Klinger (Jamie Farr), and Father Mulcahy (William Christopher) working together in a Veteran's hospital after the war ended; the resulting series was a total disaster, as was the second failed spinoff, W*A*L*T*E*R.

It's easy to forget that goodwill from Mash's groundbreaking finale saw the sequel show earn solid ratings for its first season. Still, AfterMASH's ratings tanked so badly that its final episode wasn't even aired, and it's now considered one of the worst TV series ideas ever. A major issue was that it lacked a major star like Alan Alda to frontt,...

The long-running classic sitcom "M*A*S*H" went through quite a few changes throughout its 11 seasons, both in front of the camera and behind it. Even series creator Larry Gelbart left after the fourth season because the show had become all-consuming in his life due to its immense popularity. In fact, there were so many cast change-ups over the years that there is only one episode (albeit a two-parter) that features every single starring cast member. And all in all, only one character, head surgeon Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce (Alan Alda), appears in every episode. It makes sense that faces would change in a wartime situation, especially when the real-life Korean War lasted for only three years and "M*A*S*H" went on for eleven. 

Over the years, the show lost not only Gelbart but stars Wayne Rogers, McLean Stevenson, Larry Linville, and Gary Burghoff, who played Hawkeye's best friend "Trapper" John McIntyre,...

The classic sitcom series "M*A*S*H" had a pretty expansive cast of characters as it followed the servicemembers assigned to the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, and the main crew had some major changes over the years. In fact, only Captain "Hawkeye" Pierce (Alan Alda) appeared in every episode. Both Wayne Rogers, who played Hawkeye's roommate and Bff Trapper John, and McLean Stevenson, who played camp commander Colonel Henry Blake, left the series after the third season in large part because they felt like they were playing second fiddle to Alda, and that meant replacing their characters in some way. Both Trapper and Col. Blake were sent home by the army, and that meant the 4077th needed two new surgeons.

Enter Captain B.J. Hunnicutt, a good-natured Californian wife guy who becomes Hawkeye's new roommate and soon his soulmate new best friend, played by Mike Farrell. It had to be...

Larry Gelbart hit it big as the showrunner of the TV show M.A.S.H. For four seasons, the writer and creator speared ahead with the dramedy before leaving it for good in 1976. M.A.S.H. has been referenced multiple times in various media and has often been cited as an inspiration for many sitcoms and comedies since its airing.

While he went on to work on several acclaimed films and stage musicals after departing from the show, he reportedly felt like he had made a good decision despite the series being at its peak. Walking away from an established gig is not always advised but the writer’s stint on the series reportedly affected him so much that there was no other option.

Larry Gelbart Was Burnt Out By Season 4 Of M.A.S.H. A still from M.A.S.H. | Credits: CBS

Based on Robert Altman’s Oscar-nominated film of the same name, M.A.S.H. was adapted into...

Back in March 1975, TV viewers were thoroughly blindsided by the shocking death of MASHs Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake, in what became one of the show's most shocking plot twists. Played by McLean Stevenson, Blake was the lovable and usually bumbling commanding officer of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, best known for his laid-back, yet compassionate leadership style and an all-consuming love for fishing. Blakes warm demeanor compared to some of Mash's other characters helped balance the rigors of war all around the dark edges of the show during its first three seasons.

The season 3 finale, "Abyssinia, Henry," opens with the happy news that Blake has earned his necessary rotation points and is receiving his long-awaited discharge. The mood is celebratory and upbeat, seasoned with poignant goodbyes. As he preps for a return to his hometown of Bloomington, Illinois, Blake bounces between disbelief and joy, revealing how much hes...

Over 40 years after its finale aired, Mash still stands as one of the most influential television series of all time, with many historically relevant episodes. While the show about the personnel of a United States Army Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War started as a spinoff of Robert Altmans hit 1970 film, Mash morphed over its 11-season run between 1972 and 1983.

While previous war-based situation comedies like Hogans Heroes stuck to jokes, Mash turned into one of TVs first true dramedies. CBS executives wanted Mash to stay in its California-shot sitcom lane, but show co-creator Larry Gelbart and his team had other ideas. As the seasons progressed, Mash increasingly mixed laughs with stories not only overshadowed by the darkness of war itself but by a host of historically relevant social and geopolitical issues that resonated in both the shows 1950s setting as well as with its 1970s and 80s viewers.

The 1972 Korean war sitcom "M*A*S*H" has become one of the most beloved television shows of all time, but it's fascinating to watch just how the series evolves over the seasons. The series was based on Robert Altman's 1970 film of the same name, which was in turn based on the novel "Mash: A Novel About Three Army Doctors" by Richard Hooker, but it was a very different take on the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. Altman absolutely hated the series and Hooker hated Hawkeye (Alan Alda), but series creator Larry Gelbart really knew what he was doing, even if he was clearly figuring it out as he went along.

Many of the characters on the show are different versions of their movie counterparts, but a few characters were created just for the series, and the first one was Corporal Maxwell Klinger, played by Jamie Farr. Klinger was an orderly who...

Watching the classic 1970s sitcom "M*A*S*H," it's easy to imagine that everyone involved was just as close behind-the-scenes as their characters were onscreen, but that wasn't always the case. Like any workplace, there were occasionally some disagreements and clashing personalities, though they could be exacerbated by the stresses of making a television series. The show achieved wild popularity early on and inflated that stress even more, leading to all kinds of casting change-ups as the actors pursued roles on shows that weren't big ensembles and even leading series creator Larry Gelbart to walk away from "M*A*S*H" after season 4. One of the actors who left the series was McLean Stevenson, who portrayed Colonel Henry Blake, the commanding officer of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. He was frustrated because he felt like he was playing second fiddle to Alan Alda's character, Captain Hawkeye Pierce, and ended up being written out...

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Teri Garr gifted us with one of the most humane, hilarious looks at the various stages of grief that come with a break-up in the span of about one minute in Tootsie. It's one of the funniest, most epic break-up scenes of all time, opposite scene partner, Dustin Hoffman. Directed by Sydney Pollack and written by Larry Gelbart and Don McGuire, Tootsie is considered one of the greatest comedy films ever made. Passing away at the age of 79 this past Tuesday, a great part of Garr's legacy comes from her unforgettable role as Sandy Lester in the rom-com.

The classic wartime sitcom "M*A*S*H" has since become one of the most beloved and important shows in television history, but when it was first being developed in the early 1970s, not everyone involved was sure it could work. Series star Alan Alda, who played Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, had some pretty serious initial concerns early on, though he eventually ended up being perhaps the most influential voice on the entire series, as he both wrote and directed episodes and was the only actor to appear in every episode. Though the show would undergo some pretty major cast changes and would even lose one of the series creators after the fourth season, Alda is sort of a guiding light throughout, the show's heart and soul and moral center.

Over the years, Alda has revealed some of his early hesitations regarding his starring role in "M*A*S*H," and most of it revolved around how war was depicted.

A season 2 episode of Mash managed to sneak a big f-bomb right by censors and audiences - until high definition arrived. Mash ran for 11 seasons, and it's fair to say it got considerably more dramatic in its later years. The show was often at its best with a mix of comedy and drama, but it's undeniable that the early seasons were more fun. The sitcom was still finding its feet during these first few years, and while it toned down the gore and dark humor of Robert Altman's 1970 movie, it felt closer in tone to the film.

Like the latter, the series originally revolved around the antics of surgeons Hawkeye (Alan Alda) and Trapper (Wayne Rogers). When Trapper's role began to get downgraded in favor of Hawkeye, Rogers was one of the first Mash actors to exit the show. Also leaving the party early was McLean Stevenson, who, despite...

Though much of the cast remained until the end of the series, several actors such as Harry Morgan left Mash throughout its 11-season run. Mash was the second adaptation of the novel following the Robert Altman movie, which followed the experiences of a medical unit during the Korean War. Mash began as a comedy that nevertheless took the core theme seriously, and while the showrunners were forced to include a laugh track, they were able to drop it from scenes involving surgery. In later seasons, it evolved from a sitcom to a dramedy, with some episodes being borderline laugh-free.

The series ended up lasting eight years longer than the Korean War itself, with Mash's finale being the most-watched scripted TV episode of all time. Mash's unique fusion of laughter and drama had never quite been attempted before and would prove influential on future shows like Scrubs. Considering it ran for 11 years,...

A two-part documentary about comedy legend Mel Brooks from directors Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio has been set at HBO.

The HBO Documentary Films and Apatow Productions project, now in production, will trace Brooks’ journey from Brooklyn to Hollywood and Broadway. Joe Beshenkovsky, who last worked with Apatow and Bonfiglio on HBO’s four-hour documentary George Carlin’s American Dream, will edit the documentary.

Apatow promises a career-spanning film about the comedy legend behind classic movie farces and parodies. “I went into comedy because of my love for Mel Brooks. This project is the dream of a lifetime,” the Hollywood writer-director-producer said in a statement.

Brooks’ career began with Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows where he worked alongside the late Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, and Larry Gelbart. That’s after the teenage comedian in the Catskills conquered the entertainment world with his satirical comedy.

Brooks earned an Oscar...

Mash's inaccurate portrayal of Korean language is highlighted by the rise of K-dramas. Locals in Mash mostly speak Hangeul incorrectly, a glaring inaccuracy compared to modern Korean shows. The series also inaccurately depicts the length of the Korean War and the presence of African-American surgeons in Mash units during the conflict

The rise of specific genre in recent years makes it difficult to get past Mash's most inaccurate detail about the Korean War. Despite being released during the early '70s, creator Larry Gelbart decided to stick with Richard Hooker's 1968 novel Mash: A Novel About Three Army Doctors for the CBS show's backdrop. There have been theories that Mash was a commentary on the divisive Vietnam War, which was at its tail end during the medical comedy/drama's first year, although there is no confirmation about this. Regardless, however, its storytelling remained and remains ever-relevant.

While Mash's...

FX’s “The Bear” has been the series equivalent of a three-star Michelin, James Beard Award-winning restaurant since its premiere in 2022. Created by writer/director/product Christopher Storer, the hit show revolves around Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), a chef from the fine dining world in New York, who returns to his home in Chicago to run the family’s sandwich shop after the suicide of his brother. The first season won 10 Emmys including best comedy series and actor in a comedy series for White. Besides earning a Peabody, “The Bear” also performed well at the SAG Awards and the Golden Globes. The second season is a strong Emmy contender and the third season which just dropped will probably follow suit in 2025.

Since the early days of TV, restaurants, nightclubs, coffee shops, bars and diners have played an important role in countless series including the beloved multi-Emmy Award-winning 1982-93 NBC sitcom “Cheers”. In fact,...

Hawkeye's first love interest, Dish, was dropped due to the show having too many characters. Despite this, Dish appeared in all 256 episodes thanks to footage of her in the opening credits. Mash had issues with female characters, with only Margaret having real interiority in the early seasons, with Dish's disappearance only highlighting this problem.

Hawkeye's first love interest on Mash was dropped unceremoniously but still appeared in all 256 episodes. Based on the novel and movie of the same name, Mash began as a sitcom that just happened to take place in a warzone. Cut to 11 years later, and it ended as one of the most groundbreaking shows of all time. Throughout Mash's 11 seasons, it evolved from a comedy with an anti-war message to a heartbreaking dramedy. While it never dropped the humor, from around season 4 onwards. it began to focus on more serious topics and themes.

Given the nature of the show,...

Martin Starger, who shepherded Roots, Happy Days and Rich Man, Poor Man as the first president of ABC Entertainment before producing such films as Robert Altman’s Nashville and Peter Bogdanovich’s Mask, has died. He was 92.

Starger died Friday at his home in Los Angeles, his niece, New York-based casting director Ilene Starger, announced. “He was a brilliant, elegant, remarkable man and had wonderful taste in projects,” she noted.

As an executive producer, Starger worked on films including Stanley Donen’s Movie Movie (1978), Ingmar Bergman’s Autumn Sonata, The Muppet Movie (1979) and The Great Muppet Caper (1981), Mark Rydell’s On Golden Pond (1981), The Last Unicorn (1982) and Alan J. Pakula’s Sophie’s Choice (1982)

He received Tony nominations in 1987 and 1989 for producing the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Starlight Express and the comedy Lend Me a Tenor, respectively,

Starger was born on May 8, 1932, in the Bronx, New York. After graduating from City College,...

The Writers Guild of America West will present Designing Women and Evening Shade creator Linda Bloodworth Thomason with its highest honor — the Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television Writing Achievement. The award is presented to a Guild member who has “advanced the literature of television and made outstanding contributions to the profession of the television writer.” Designing Women star Jean Smart will present the statuette to Bloodworth Thomason at the Wgaw’s annual WGA Awards on April 14.

The multiple Emmy-nominated television creator-writer, director, and producer launched her career with an Emmy-nominated script on M*A*S*H* in 1973. She concurrently worked on M*A*S*H* and Mary Tyler Moore Show spinoff Rhoda before creating and producing her first series Filthy Rich in 1982. Filthy Rich would lay the groundwork for the creation of landmark comedy series Designing Women by bringing her together with actresses and collaborators Delta Burke, Dixie Carter, Annie Potts, and Smart.

In addition to her work in television,...

The classic sitcom series "M*A*S*H" was groundbreaking in a number of ways. It still holds the record for most-watched finale, pulling in 106 million viewers for the two-hour finale "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" in 1983. It helped create television dramedies, mixing the horrors of war with a whole lot of heartwarming humor. And perhaps most of all, it pushed the boundaries of what could be said and shown on television and helped promote some pretty progressive ideals. Unfortunately, behind-the-scenes there was a lot of fighting between series creator Larry Gelbart and the network censors, which might at least partially contributed to his leaving the series after the fourth season. (He also wanted more creative freedom and didn't want to let himself grow stagnant, so good on you, Gelbart!) 

Most of the time, CBS just forced Gelbart and the other writers to make changes to the show's scripts in order to feel safe enough to air in primetime.

Henry Blake's death wasn't the first major point of transformation for Mash, it began with season 1's "Sometimes You Hear The Bullet." This pivotal episode mixed humor and darkness, informing the show's evolution towards a more dramatic tone in later seasons. Alda regrets his emotionally charged performance in the episode's finale, feeling he was "forcing" it.

Henry Blake's death is often cited as the moment that changed Mash, but its transformation into a dramedy began with a season 1 outing. Mash evolved in many ways during its first few years, moving from a sitcom with a not so subtle anti-war message into a medical drama that happened to be funny. This mix of laughter and darkness would have a big impact on the TV shows that came after, with Scrubs being the most obvious example. Showrunner Larry Gelbart and star Alan Alda were both behind this push toward a more...

The classic wartime sitcom series "M*A*S*H" was entirely fictional, but it was often inspired by real people and events. Heck, Alan Alda, who starred as Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce and also wrote, directed, and served as a consultant on the series, even served as an Army officer in Korea shortly after the war — though he was not in a medical unit. Not only that but Jamie Farr, who played the eccentric yet lovable Corporal Klinger, served during the Korean War and even wore his own dog tags on the show. Both of them helped bring some authenticity, but even then it was important for the series' head honchos to get a better understanding of the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (Mash) life, which meant visiting the United States Army's 8055th, still stationed in South Korea at the time.

In the DVD commentary for "M*A*S*H" (via the book "TV's M...

"Hawkeye" is a season 4 episode of Mash where only Alan Alda's character appears, which some find divisive. "Hawkeye" was an experimental episode that showcases Alda's talent, but the lack of other major characters can make it tough to sit through. Other controversial Mash episodes include season 3's "Abyssinia, Henry" or season 8's "Dreams."

There's an episode of Mash that features only one main member of the cast that has become a divisive outing among viewers. Neither the original author of Mash, Richard Hooker, nor the director of the 1970 movie adaptation, Robert Altman, liked the TV spinoff, feeling it cheapened the story or missed the point. Even so, Mash ran for 11 seasons and received acclaim for its then-groundbreaking mix of laughs and drama; there were even some Mash spinoff shows.

The death of Henry Blake in Mash season 3 was so shocking to audiences - since the killing of major...

One of television's greatest cads is Army surgeon Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, played by Alan Alda, on the classic sitcom series M*A*S*H. He's almost always hooking up with one nurse or another, but in one special episode, audiences got to see what happened when a woman truly captured his heart. In the season 4 episode "The More I See You," a nurse named Carlye ends up working in the Mash 4077 unit, and Hawkeye recognized her as the only woman (at that point) he had ever loved. She broke his heart and might even explain why he has such a negative view of marriage and even monogamy throughout the series, and their reunion is as chaotic as you might expect.

Carlye is played by actor Blythe Danner in the episode, and she's absolutely fantastic. She manages to feel totally at home in the world of "M*A*S*H...

The groundbreaking television sitcom version of "M*A*S*H" may have been centered on the Korean War, but it famously ran for 11 years, over three times as long as the war. Like a lot of series, the length of its run led to significant tonal shifts as writers and actors left the show and new creatives came on. In particular, "M*A*S*H" went from an acidic, satirical portrait of military cynicism at a mobile surgical unit (the 4077th) to a much more earnestly anti-war show.

You can trace a lot of those changes in the ways the series' characters changed and developed. In the first half of the show, most of the folk who work at the 4077th are either bureaucratic blowhards like Majors Frank Burns (Larry Linville) and Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Loretta Swit) or nihilistic, hedonist heroes like "Hawkeye" Pierce (Alan Alda). Surrounded by war and death, the characters had extremes to lean into,...

Warning: The following post contains spoilers about tonight’s fifth season finale of FX’s Fargo, “Bisquik”

Who knew a TV series based on an iconic Oscar-winning Coen Brothers noir movie had so much juice in it five seasons out?

But Fargo series creator Noah Hawley continues to prove that there’s a thousand bodies buried in those Minnesota snow drifts.

Granted, M.A.S.H. ran for 11 seasons; the industry joke being that the CBS show ran longer than the actual three-year Korean War. But similar to how Larry Gelbart pulled a relentless amount of inspiration from that 1970 Robert Altman, Hawley’s mind for ‘true stories’ about folksy Scandinavian-Midwesterners isn’t blank yet like a freshly fallen snow.

Typically, especially in streaming times, a series checks out around season 3, and to see Fargo in a renaissance, testosterone mode this season has even given Hawley a new sense of hope for the FX series.

Sudden success is a hell of a drug. Be it entertainment, sports, or certain, shockingly competitive sectors of the healthcare industry, you can count on numerous fast risers to get high on their own supply and take an ego-fueled torch to their career.

Television actors are especially susceptible to these vain slip-ups, and it's easy to understand why. Before the advent of prestige TV, the small-screen medium was, particularly for young-ish performers, viewed as a potential springboard to big-screen stardom. Sometimes it works out. Chevy Chase bolted from "Saturday Night Live" midway through its second season and instantly became a movie star on the strength of his work in Colin Higgins' sporadically hilarious "Foul Play" (even though he's far from the funniest element of the film). And sometimes you're David Caruso, who quit "NYPD Blue" to topline a pair of 1995 flops in Barbet Schroder's "Kiss of Death" (underrated) and William Friedkin's "Jade".

Generally,...

Recently, more than half a century after its premiere, Fox released a retrospective special about the storied anti-war sitcom "M*A*S*H" that included rare and previously unseen interviews with the show's cast and crew. When they weren't reminiscing about their characters and opening up about cast changes over the years, former members of the fictional 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital discussed episodes of the show that broke the TV mold, pushing the medium beyond its established boundaries and yanking on viewers' heartstrings in unexpected ways.

Among the spotlighted episodes in "M*A*S*H: The Comedy That Changed Television" was "The Interview," the season 4 finale that saw the show briefly take the form of a black-and-white war documentary. The late writer and executive producer Burt Metcalfe said the experiment took inspiration from Edward R. Murrow's 1950s newsreel show "See It Now," which included interviews in Korea during the war. "We'd always had a...

Actors are a confounding creative breed. They can be wonderfully inventive one moment and then turn right around and surrender to their most vain impulses the next. Fortunately, most actors are eminently directable. They might put up a bit of a fight and insist that they know better than their director, but if the director has earned their trust, they'll eventually come to their senses and realize they aren't always the best judge of their own work.

It's also important to understand that, in most cases, actors aren't being difficult out of diva-like entitlement. They're the only person who's spending all of their time on- and off-set thinking about this specific character, so, of course, they're going to get protective every now and then -- especially if they're a television actor who's been playing the same part for multiple seasons. It's a well-meaning impulse and one that a sensitive director...

Mash was initially a ratings failure but found success after changing timeslots. Alan Alda received the Mash script while filming a movie in prison. Loretta Swit had to fight to develop her character, Margaret, beyond the "Hot Lips" persona.

The Mash reunion included several big reveals about the inner workings of making the series, including how some of its biggest elements came to be. When CBS greenlit the project in the early '70s, it was already the second adaptation of Richard Hooker's book — Mash: A Novel About Three Army Doctors. The success of Robert Altman's film was a double-edged sword for the war show, but it eventually proved that the story was so much better with a longer storytelling format. 40 years since it ended in 1983 with the highest-rated TV episode, "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen," Mash remains at the forefront of pop culture, and somehow, eternally relevant.

Due to its cultural impact,...

On Monday, Jan. 1, M*A*S*H fans are invited to ring in the new year with M*A*S*H: The Comedy That Changed Television, a two-hour special airing on Fox and featuring new interviews with series vets Alan Alda (who played Capt. Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce), Loretta Swit (Maj. Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan), Gary Burghoff (Cpl. Walter “Radar” O’Reilly), Jamie Farr (Cpl./Sgt. Maxwell Q. “Max” Klinger) and Mike Farrell (Capt. B.J. Hunnicutt), as well as the late Wayne Rogers (Capt. “Trapper” John McIntyre) and William Christopher (Father Francis Mulcahy).

M*A*S*H executive producers Gene Reynolds and...

Created by Larry Gelbart, M*A*S*H remains a watershed American sitcom that helped redefine the TV format during the 1970s. Based on Richard Hooker's 1968 book Mash: A Novel About Three Army Doctors and adapted from the 1970 Robert Altman film, the TV series lasted for 11 seasons from 1972 to 1983 and remained on the air for 251 episodes.

With a marked shift from comedy to drama after Season 3, M*A*S*H won a total of 14 Primetime Emmy Awards during its unforgettable run. Frankly, there hasn't been a show like it since, although that might be based on a variety of factors. Set during the Korean War from 1950 to 1953, M*A*S*H follows a ragtag unit of Mobile Armed Surgical Hospital soldiers led by Hawkeye (Alan Alda), a wisecracking doctor with a pacifistic viewpoint.

Along with his fellow soldiers, Hawkeye tries to keep morale high while nursing injured soldiers back to health as the war continues in the background.

Without hyperbole, "M*A*S*H" is one of the greatest TV shows ever made. Centered on the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War, the anti-war comedy-drama became one of the most-watched shows in history and is continually revered by younger generations discovering it for the first time. The show boasted a phenomenal ensemble cast, with Captain Benjamin "Hawkeye" Pierce (Alan Alda) serving as the defacto main character. He's the chief surgeon after all, but he's also a bit of a lush. Then again, just about everyone on "M*A*S*H" drank from time to time. This is the show that gave us the iconic line, "War isn't Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse," so it isn't surprising that there'd be a bit of self-medicating happening. But a few years into the series' run, there was a noticeable shift in how...

Comedic breaking: it's been around for pretty much as long as performances. Flip through classic TV channels and you'll find Rue McClanahan delivering her lines into the back of her hand to hide giggles in episodes of "The Golden Girls," Mary Tyler Moore barely suppressing her grin in"The Dick Van Dyke Show," and Horatio Sanz wiping away tears with Mickey Mouse waffles on "Saturday Night Live." Breaking seems like an unstoppable phenomenon, especially once more than one castmate well and truly gets the giggles, but it's also a surprisingly controversial one: for every person who laughs along with the actors, there seems to be another who thinks breaking is unfunny and unprofessional.

Larry Gelbart, who created the influential and long-running '70s sitcom "M*A*S*H," was apparently not into character breaks, and he told author Ed Solomonson that one actor in the show's ensemble cast did it more than any other.

When Larry Gelbart brought "M*A*S*H" to television, he had dauntingly spacious shoes to fill. Robert Altman's 1970 film, based on a novel by Richard Hooker, was a New Hollywood sensation that mined the Korean War (an obvious Vietnam substitute) for edgy, hard R-rated laughs. It was the third-highest-grossing movie of the year and racked up five Academy Award nominations (including one for Best Picture). Matching the quality of the film was challenging enough. The biggest problem facing Gelbart was retaining the ribald tone, a tall order considering network television's conservative content standards in the early 1970s.

Gelbart's solution was to sand down the sharp misogynistic edges of the characters and embrace a more humanistic gallows sense of humor. The small-screen version of the 4077th was certainly mischievous, but they weren't mean-spirited. They would've never pulled the humiliating shower prank on Hot Lips from the film. Yes, there were extreme personality clashes,...

I was about 8 years old when I first met Norman Lear.

My dad, Carl Reiner, was working on Sid Caesar’s Show of Shows and Norman was writing for Colgate Comedy Hour, so they were both in New York. In those days, it was a small world of people who trafficked in sketch comedy. Mel Brooks, Larry Gelbart, Dom DeLuise — all these guys and their families would hang out together. My family and Norman’s family used to have summer houses near each other on Fire Island, and Norman had a daughter, Ellen, who was around my age, so we used to play together.

One day Ellen and I were playing jacks — I was teaching her how, explaining the rules, showing her what to do. Norman came over to watch and he started to laugh. Apparently, I was teaching her in a funny way, which he found hysterical. And he...

Several original cast members of the classic TV series M*A*S*H will reunite once again for an all-new television special.

Per TVLine, it was announced that a two-hour special reuniting M*A*S*H cast members while looking back at the hit show will air on Fox on Jan. 1, 2024. The special will include all-new interviews with Alan Alda (Benjamin "Hawkeye" Pierce) along with several other surviving cast members. That includes Mike Farrell (B.J. Hunnicutt), Gary Burghoff (Walter "Radar" O'Reilly), Jamie Farr (Maxwell Q. "Max" Klinger), and Loretta Swit (Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan). Executive producers Gene Reynolds and Burt Metcalfe will also be included.

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Fox is touting the special as a "definitive" look into the history of M*A*S*H.

Few shows in the history of broadcast television can ever claim they were as successful as "M*A*S*H." Based on Richard Hooker's book "Mash: A Novel About Three Army Doctors," and the Robert Altman film that previously adapted that same book, the series aired for 11 seasons on CBS from 1972 to 1983 totaling a whopping 256 episodes. Its series finale remains the most-watched finale of any TV series. Unfortunately, the spin-off "AfterMASH" couldn't recapture that same magic — and the show's creator thinks he knows why.

The spin-off series only lasted two seasons, with the second season having its run cut short after the ratings plummeted. It was a short-lived experiment that failed to live up to its predecessor. In "TV's M*A*S*H: The Ultimate Guide Book," author Ed Solomonson spoke with "AfterMASH" co-creator Larry Gelbart, who also developed the original show. When asked about the spin-off, Gelbart first...

M*A*S*H reunion happening after 40 years, titled "The Comedy That Changed Television," airing on January 1st on Fox. The show celebrates the iconic sitcom's achievements through interviews with surviving cast members and executive producers. Special pays tribute to deceased cast and crew through clips, archival interviews, and behind-the-scenes footage.

A M*A*S*H reunion is happening on Fox, with the network announcing that the original cast will get together after 40 years for what has been described as the “definitive” reflection on the beloved comedy-drama series. The reunion special, titled M*A*S*H: The Comedy That Changed Television, is now all set to air in the new year on January 1st, and promises to bring together Alan Alda, Gary Burghoff, Jamie Farr, and more (via TV Line).

“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.

Fox is ringing in the new year by turning back the clock four decades.

The network announced Wednesday that on Jan. 1 it will air M*A*S*H: The Comedy That Changed Television, a two-hour special featuring new interviews with surviving cast members 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.

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Fox will celebrate Mash: The Comedy That Changed Television in a new two-hour special set to air Monday, January 1 at 8 pm on the network.

A definitive look at the 14-time Emmy-winning television classic, the special centers around new interviews with original cast members Alan Alda (Capt. Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce), Gary Burghoff (Cpl. Walter “Radar” O’Reilly), William Christopher (Father Francis Mulcahy), Jamie Farr (Cpl./Sgt. Maxwell Q. “Max” Klinger), Mike Farrell (Capt. B.J. Hunnicutt), Wayne Rogers (Capt. “Trapper” John McIntyre) and Loretta Swit (Maj. Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan) and series executive producers Gene Reynolds and Burt Metcalfe.

“In these intimate, highly personal remembrances, the creation and evolution of the show’s iconic characters are revealed, alongside rare and never-before-seen behind-the-scenes footage, photos and stories,” according to Fox.

Writer/producer Larry Gelbart, as well as additional series stars Larry Linville (Maj. Frank Burns), Harry Morgan (Col. Sherman T. Potter), McLean Stevenson (Lt.

Over its 11-season run, "M*A*S*H" earned a reputation for pushing the boundaries of the sitcom format. Amazingly, mainstream audiences generally rolled with this conceptual adventurousness. Indeed, one of the series' most famously experimental episodes, "The Interview", is both a critical and fan favorite. As long as the writers stayed true to the characters, viewers were down for just about anything.

This boldness inspired the show's actors to get in on the fun and conjure up unconventional stories that dug deep into their characters' psyches. Cast members Alan Alda, Mike Farrell, Mary Kay Place, and McLean Stevenson all wrote episodes, many of which were excellent.

But not everyone got their scripts into production and on the air. Gary Burghoff, who played the 4077th's boyish company clerk Corporal "Radar" O'Reilly, had a fascinatingly fanciful idea for an episode that impressed series creator Larry Gelbart. He was hopeful his script would go before cameras,...

The old saw that holds "drama is easy, comedy is hard" typically refers to the fact that it is extremely difficult to actually be funny. Obviously, engaging an audience on stage or through a theater/television screen is a challenge regardless of the genre, but there's a particular skill to getting a laugh (i.e. timing) that some people simply don't possess.

And some actors are so skilled at this craft that their co-stars occasionally have a hard time keeping it together in the moment.

There are loads of stories out there about actors who were just so effortlessly funny that cast and crew members had a hard time holding it together while shooting a scene. It should come as no surprise that Robin Williams was especially adept at this. Directors aren't always as amused as everyone else, as it's their job to make sure they get at least one...

At the conclusion of its fourth season in 1976, "M*A*S*H" finished a disappointing fourteenth in the Nielsen ratings, a sizable step down from ranking fourth and fifth in the two years prior. It wasn't the show's fault. The series was still one of the most critically acclaimed sitcoms on television; it earned eight Primetime Emmy awards for that season and won two. The reason for the ratings slip was some puzzling time slot shuffling by CBS, which moved "M*A*S*H" from its Tuesday perch to Friday, a notoriously off night for TV viewing. When the series' audience precipitously declined, the network moved it back to Tuesday halfway through the season, where it quickly recovered. All, it appeared, was well with the 4077th.

Except it wasn't, at least not with series creator Larry Gelbart. The veteran TV comedy writer was getting sick of the medium and feeling hemmed in by his hit series.