Mash

M*A*S*H was an American comedy television series based on an earlier 1970 film. The series first aired between 1972 and 1983.

The series follows the adventures of the crew of a mobile field hospital during the Korean War in the 1950s. The tragedy and misery of everyday life is pushed aside by humor. The acronym M.A.S.H. officially stands for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital.

William Self, director of 20th Century Fox, decided to make a television series based on the film. The sets were still available and Fox held the rights to the storyline, so the production of the series was relatively inexpensive. Gary Burghoff, who played the character Radar O'Reilly, was the only actor from the film who was asked to appear in the series. McLean Stevenson played the role of Henry Blake, though he would have preferred to play Hawkeye. The right person for the role of Hawkeye was only found at the last moment. Alan Alda held back until the very last moment because he had doubts about acting in what could become a long-running series and because he did not want to make the war seem lighter than it was in reality. To prevent this, he had it written into his contract that every episode must contain at least one scene set in the operating room. Alda, who also partially directed the series, was the only character to appear in every episode. During the eleven years the series ran, he traveled every weekend from Los Angeles, where the series was filmed, to his family in New Jersey. In 1980 he earned 200,000 dollars per week for his contribution to the series.

The series came to an end after 251 episodes, after winning numerous awards, including 14 Emmy Awards. The final episode is one of the most-watched programs ever.

In the Netherlands, the comedy series M*A*S*H was broadcast by AVRO. The series was repeated several times by commercial broadcasters.

The entire series is now available on DVD.