Quote:
Originally Posted by Platapus
To be honest, I thought the first season of MASH wasn't all that good. It took a few seasons to really take off. That first season they were still trying to figure out the differences between the movie and what would work in a TV Sitcom.
They figured it out pretty well.  |
Consider when it debuted; it was 1972, the Vietnam War was still going strong, the nation was divided over our involvement, there was a whole 'hard hat vs. counterculture' antagonism being egged on by the Nixon White House and the FBI; there's an old Irish saying "You don't speak of rope when there's been a hanging in the family" and MASH was talking and commenting about the 'hanging' going on in Vietnam with their story lines; sentiment regarding the War was still very polarized and Nixon had yet to be brought to answer for his crimes; in a climate of "Love it or leave it", MASH was more espousing of "Change it or lose it"; by the time Nixon resigned in Aug 1974, sentiment has changed significantly and viewers who might have been put off by the series's story lines were now more embracing of the series; MASH was just about to start its third season when Nixon resigned; odd thing: when Nixon quit, among those on his infamous "Enemies List" was the TV series MASH and, while Nixon is becoming more of an unpleasant fading memory, MASH is still revered as a milestone in TV and social histories and still airs on TV some 37 years after it went of the air in its original run in 1983...
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