“Ball Four Goes Hollywood”

When Jim Bouton’s book Ball Four hit bookshelves in 1970, it exploded myths, revealed secrets, and offered tales of baseball, theretofore kept protected from the public.  If reporters knew about Mickey Mantle’s alcohol problem, for example, they...

My Favorite Things

Greg Brady getting selected to be the next “Johnny Bravo” because he “fit the suit” on The Brady Bunch. Jimmy McNulty on The Wire. Any Seinfeld episode involving Frank Constanza or David Puddy. Howard Cosell on Monday Night Football. The theme...

“M*A*S*H” Is Anti-War But Not Antiseptic

On September 17, 1972, CBS introduced television viewers to M*A*S*H, a half-hour comedy filmed with a laugh track and set in an Army hospital situated approximately three miles from the front lines of the Korean War.  The M*A*S*H acronym stands for Mobile Army...