The Doctors Are In

When City Hospital premiered in 1952, it set off the medical genre for prime time television.  Naturally, shows about medical implications offer drama that, in the right hands, captivate audiences. St. Elsewhere followed the model of Hill Street Blues by using story...

Visitors at the 4077th

M*A*S*H was a powerhouse show for CBS from 1972 to 1983, depicting the adventures of the fictional Mobile Army Surgical Hospital 4077 staff during the Korean War.  Guest stars populated M*A*S*H, later becoming fixtures of other CBS shows. Joan Van Ark and Knots...

Jim Rockford, Meet Richie Brockelman

Some television spinoffs do very well. Frasier. Laverne & Shirley. The Jeffersons. Others, not so much. Joey. Models Inc. Richie Brockelman, Private Eye. A spinoff of NBC’s The Rockford Files starring James Garner, Richie Brockelman, Private Eye starred...

A Soldier’s Story

M*A*S*H had several memorable characters.  Klinger dressed like a woman to get a discharge from the Army based on a Section 8.  Hawkeye used humor, usually bathed in sarcasm, as an emotional defense mechanism to protect his psyche from getting fully pummeled by the...

“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...