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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
 Posted - 03/22/2007 : 02:16:58 AM
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Now that I think about it, the show was pretty much insufferably preachy and misguided before those cast changes.
I haven't seen an episode in probably a decade, but one in particular springs to mind.
The MASH gang had been contacted through various channels that a North Korean officer wanted to do a prisoner exchange. Some wounded American GIs for some wounded North Korean soldiers. The groups were to meet at a bridge to do the transfer, but that nobody was to bring guns or the deal was off.
Of course, Alan Alda was all for it. Of course, Frank Burns was highly suspicious and the writers had him go into full "John Birch Society" mode about how you can't trust "commies".
You see, regular folks would just take the communists trying to take over the entire country by force and install a stalinist dictatorship at their word.
Only simpletons like Frank Burns would be distrustful of the people who had a history of murdering captured and wounded GIs and who would spend the next 50+ years of their exisitence murdering and torturing their own countrymen (all of which was known to the writers of the series in the 1970s and 1980s).
Also, nevermind that communist armies like North Korea and the Vietnamese showed just about the most callous disregard for their own soldiers. Especially their wounded ones who had been captured. They pretty much considered them dead and perhaps even traitors for allowing themselves to be taken alive. Again, television writers in the 70s and 80s knew this.
So they go off to meet at the bridge. Only Margaret has given Frank a tiny, nickel-plated .25 ACP for protection in case the "dirty commies" try something. My how cynical Margaret and Frank were not to trust the Stalinists!
Anyway, it comes out at the meeting that Frank had brought a gun and the North Korean officer is deeply offended and threatens to cancel the exchange.
Until Frank sheepishly shows off the tiny pimp gun, which illicits howls of deregatory laughter from Alda and the North Korean officer. The exchange continues, with Frank Burns looking foolish, but hopefully "growing" as a person and better able to understand the people would turn North Korea into a hellish prison state for the rest of the century.
And notice how the North Korean officer was so much more cosmopolitan, urbane, and sophisticated than Frank Burns? Kind of like in some westerns like Mel Gibson's "Maverick" where the indian chief sounds and talks like he just stepped out of 20th Century Phoenix, Arizona?
So, Alan Alda and the North Koreans are intelligent, sophisticated people who can make deals, act rationally, and trust one another. Frank Burns is an idiot reactionary.
Got it. |
Edited by - Citizen Carrier on 03/22/2007 02:32:52 AM |
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brandywine
Diocesan Ecclesiarch of the Sacred Order of Jabootu
56 Posts |
Posted - 03/22/2007 : 6:11:43 PM
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| I don't know a lot about it, but what I've read tells me that the Left/Democrats at the time for the Korean War because it was the UN's baby, so if Frank is anti-UN isn't he anti-war? However, the Right at the time had some very, very gay notions about a nuclear war with China. |
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 03/22/2007 : 8:43:15 PM
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| Oh, conservativism in the 1950s was an absolute basketcase, no doubt about it. Pre-Buckley conservatism is something even I'm not eager to claim kinship to. |
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New Hinda
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Israel
469 Posts |
Posted - 03/23/2007 : 03:19:44 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Citizen Carrier
It has been said that M.A.S.H. jumped the shark when they stopped trying to win Emmys and started trying to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Similarly, it was said that Archie Bunker jumped the shark when the show's writers and producers realized that Americans liked Archie Bunker's character. People started sporting "Archie Bunker for President" bumper stickers and whatnot. The writers and producers had an agenda that just didn't seem to be getting through. You weren't supposed to like Archie and agree with him that his daughter and son-in-law were complete idiots.
So they started writing the stories so that Archie would "learn" something. "Grow" as a person. We like our curmudgeonly grandfather figures just the way they are, so the show died off.
Something similar happened also with "Happy Days." When the producers of the show found out that kids liked and identified with Fonzie, the drop-out became a drop-in, teaching auto-repair at a local high school. |
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Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 03/23/2007 : 5:37:42 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Citizen Carrier
Anyway, it comes out at the meeting that Frank had brought a gun and the North Korean officer is deeply offended and threatens to cancel the exchange.
I remember that episode too. Frank went for his gun because the NKs had an armed escort!
But that's OK, because Frank had brought a gun against orders, right?
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935 |
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New Hinda
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Israel
469 Posts |
Posted - 03/25/2007 : 07:17:32 AM
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Originally posted by BradH812
I've never been much of an All In The Family fan.
My friend Diane is pretty liberal, and I'm pretty conservative. We both try to keep politics out of our discussions, because we're not gonna see eye-to-eye on some things, and we're mature enough to not let it become a sticking point in our relationship.
Are you familiar with a British sitcom that's sort of like "All in the Family" BACKWARDS? Its called "Laura and Disorder" and its about a stuffy, conservative young man and his kooky, middle-aged divorced mother. I think its very funny.
My mother was shocked, didn't believe me at first, when I told her I'd voted for Bush. |
Edited by - New Hinda on 03/25/2007 07:19:33 AM |
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New Hinda
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Israel
469 Posts |
Posted - 03/25/2007 : 07:21:05 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Greenhornet
I remember that episode too. Frank went for his gun because the NKs had an armed escort!
But that's OK, because Frank had brought a gun against orders, right?
That's right. The enemy's orders. |
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Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 03/25/2007 : 08:10:30 AM
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New Hinda I heard that "All In The Family" was based on a British show! I heard that "Sanford And Son" was too. "Steptoe And Son" I believe it was called.
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935 |
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zombiewhacker
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1475 Posts |
Posted - 03/25/2007 : 4:07:04 PM
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Well, let me defend M*A*S*H just a bit. Pace my colleagues here, I thought the earliest seasons were the weakest. Season one was probably the worst. Only a tad smarter than Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C. and a breath wittier than F-Troop. And, oh, that annoying laugh track.
When Harry Morgan and Mike Farrell joined the cast, I felt that's when the show was really hitting its stride. The cast changes also gave the series something its detractors here fail to recognize; a reputable, intelligent, honest authority figure in the form of Colonel Potter. Previous to Potter's arrival, all the military characters appearing on the show (guest generals and so forth) were either portrayed as cretins or SOBs. Colonel Potter's presence gave the show some much needed balance.
The script quality of those seasons was excellent. I don't buy the notion that the writing suddenly went downhill during these years. That said... it's unfortunately true that around this time that the show starting giving itself over to being Alan Alda's soapbox. Now what do I expect: a army surgeon knee-deep in blood and guts singing the praises of war? Of course not. But it's one thing to advance a political perspective; it's quite another thing to be politically clueless. Hence we have scenes where Hawkeye storms into top U.S. military staff meetings, chastising our leadership for the war, even though it was the North Koreans who started the conflict. (Memo to writing staff: get your facts right.) South Korean officials were invariably portrayed as loathsome and corrupt, but with very, very few exceptions, North Koreans were presented with a human face. (Incidentally, in that episode everyone's citing, that was Mako playing the sympathetic North Korean doctor willing to exchange prisoners. Soon-Tech Oh played his share of humanistic North Koreans as well.)
I really didn't watch the show much during its final years. There were a few good episodes here and there, and I was glad to see the laugh track was long gone. And as to the point that started this thread: I thought the series finale was terrific. Of course, I haven't seen the episode since it first aired, so my perspective may have changed over the years, but I had no bones to pick with the episode when it first aired. |
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Sardu
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1126 Posts |
Posted - 03/25/2007 : 7:39:03 PM
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I think the best that can be said about MASH was that they wound up with a legitimately interesting and complex character in Winchester and they hired a great actor to do the role. He should have had his own show. I also agree with your sentiments about Potter but he would up being a pretty one dimensional cranky wise old man in the long ruin, IMO. Give me the zany early seasons (seriously, F-Troop? C'mon! *lol*) over the over-wrought socially conscious years any day.
"Meeting you makes me want to be a real noodle cook"
--Tampopo |
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 03/25/2007 : 8:38:44 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Greenhornet
quote:
Originally posted by Citizen Carrier
Anyway, it comes out at the meeting that Frank had brought a gun and the North Korean officer is deeply offended and threatens to cancel the exchange.
I remember that episode too. Frank went for his gun because the NKs had an armed escort!
But that's OK, because Frank had brought a gun against orders, right?
Actually, no. Frank didn't "go for his gun", as I remember it. It slipped out that he was in possession of a gun. He didn't draw it except to show the NK officer what a dinky and laughable pistol it truly was.
Again, the premise that the North Koreans would even waste medical care on wounded GIs at the time is just to far beyond my ability to suspend disbelief. I read history. For that matter, I was stationed in South Korea for a year and got quite a few intelligence briefings on the nature of the DPRK.
When the full horror of Nazi Germany became known to the world following 1945, Charlie Chaplin said something about his 1940 movie "The Great Dictator".
He said that if he'd known how bad the Nazis were, he wouldn't have made a comedy.
Chaplin can be excused because he didn't know when he made that movie.
The writers of MASH have no such excuse, assuming they'd read anything about the Korean War before writing scripts for TV shows about it. |
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andy80
Diocesan Ecclesiarch of the Sacred Order of Jabootu
81 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2007 : 1:39:41 PM
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| Everyone's forgetting that the writers probably saw the Korean War as a symbol for Vietnam, and the North Koreans as the Vietcong; so the writers may have had sympathy for the "North Koreans" on the show. Of course I'm not saying thats much better. |
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2007 : 2:13:00 PM
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No, I didn't forget it.
The Vietnamese communists didn't deserve sympathy. Ask the 5000 or so non-combatant men, women, and children they executed and dumped in the river in Hue City during the Tet Offensive.
The Vietnamese regime in Hanoi was Stalinist. Why would anybody have sympathy for Stalinism? |
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andy80
Diocesan Ecclesiarch of the Sacred Order of Jabootu
81 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2007 : 2:45:02 PM
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| Not sure why but I'm pretty sure some people did. |
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2007 : 8:02:17 PM
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Yes, it is true. For some people, it is enough merely to oppose the United States. They can ignore a whole lot of other stuff so long as that criteria is met.
And yes, such people reside in Hollywood.
This discussion of MASH has had me comparing to to another "war-based" sit-com, Hogan's Heroes.
At the very least, the Nazis were uniformly portrayed as inept buffoons. Never in a sympathetic light. That and Hogan's boys would routinely blow them up or shoot them.
Werner Klemperer, who played Colonel Klink, had to flee from Europe with his family as a child (Jews) in order to escape the terror. I believe he relished hamming it up as the incompetent commandant. |
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