#larry gelbart

[radarsmenagerie]

2x12 "The Incubator", written by Larry Gelbart and Laurence Marks

[oldshowbiz]

M*A*S*H premieres September 17 on Channel 50

[mashbrainrot]

Trapper in 'The Interview'

In 2006, Larry Gelbart wrote dialogue imagining Trapper, Henry Blake, and Colonel Flagg had featured in the M*A*S*H episode 'The Interview'. Here is Trapper's, with the original available to read here via Google Groups.

REPORTER: Captain John McIntyre is a surgeon attached here at the 4077. What they call a chest cutter, is that right, Captain? TRAPPER JOHN: Right. I look inside ’em for any souvenirs our troops might be trying to smuggle home as souvenirs. REPORTER: And removing them forthwith. TRAPPER JOHN: I don’t get into a lot of fights from any patients who want to hold on to them. REPORTER: A lot of them are very young, is that true? TRAPPER JOHN: Too young to be doing what they’re doing. Our job’s giving ’em a chance to get old.

REPORTER: You have a most unusual nickname, I’m told. “Trapper John,” is that correct? TRAPPER JOHN: It’s a hangover from college. REPORTER: Would you tell us how you got it? TRAPPER JOHN: The hangover? REPORTER: The nickname. TRAPPER JOHN: Nope. REPORTER: Too personal? TRAPPER JOHN: Sorry. REPORTER: Didn’t mean to pry. TRAPPER JOHN: I’ll tell you the college, if you like. REPORTER: But not how you – TRAPPER JOHN: It happened a long time ago. Happened B.M., you could say. Before marriage. REPORTER: Well, we certainly wouldn’t want to get you into any trouble back home. TRAPPER JOHN: Let me tell clue you in on something: I wouldn’t mind being in trouble back home one bit. I wouldn’t mind anything if I could be doing it back home. REPORTER: It’s not easy being this far away. TRAPPER JOHN: You know what’s easy? Hating being this far away. Hating just being a picture on the mantle that my two little girls say goodnight to. REPORTER: General Sherman was right, huh? About war being hell? TRAPPER JOHN: If generals hate war so much, how come they can never wait to get into the next one? REPORTER: I understand you tried to adopt what you thought was a Korean orphan some time back. TRAPPER JOHN: I thought I could make us both a little less miserable about what was going on here. Happily, the kid’s mother was still alive. REPORTER: That would have been a lovely gesture. TRAPPER JOHN: I’m not big on gestures. Unless there’s some kind of payoff. REPORTER: Would you like to say hello to your own children right now? TRAPPER JOHN: Not really. Not as just one more picture in our living room. It’s enough they’re seeing me. That’s a big enough kick for all of us. REPORTER: Do you feel this experience has in any way helped you as a doctor? TRAPPER JOHN: Let me ask you a question: just how many people you figure’re going to be carried into my office someday with a chunk of shrapnel sticking out of their heads? I don’t know where you live, pal, but where I come from very few folks ever step on a landmine in the middle of trying to cross the street. REPORTER: Would you say there’s been any positive aspect of any of this for you at all? TRAPPER JOHN: Of course, there is. You see people at their best around here – see them coping with the results of what some people can do when they’re at their worst. REPORTER: The doctors, you mean? TRAPPER JOHN: The doctors. The nurses. The orderlies – Koreans, mostly. Every day kind of bleeds into the next around here – in every sense of the word – the routine gets to be fairly unmemorable. But I have the feeling that years from now I’m gonna remember each and every one of them. And the face that goes with each one. (A PAUSE; THEN TO THE CAMERA) Hi, sweetheart. Hi, Becky. Hi, Cathy.

[sondheims-hat]

February 9, 1997: Nathan Lane departs Forum, introducing Whoopi Goldberg as his replacement.

[doyouknowthismusical]

[majorbaby]

Interview with Larry Gelbart on Charlie Rose, 1998

[mash4077confessions]

[citizenscreen]

‘Television is a weapon of mass distraction.’

– Larry Gelbart, #botd in 1928

[mashhistorian]

Happy birthday to the incomparable Larry Gelbart (1926-2009), series creator of M*A*S*H. He also served as executive producer, a writer, and a director throughout the first four seasons of the series.

[tuttle-did-it]

40 years today.

Hawkeye: Look, I know how tough it is for you to say goodbye, so I'LL say it. Maybe you're right, maybe we WILL see each other again, but just in case we don't, I want you to know how much you've meant to me. I'll never be able to shake you; whenever I see a pair of big feet or a cheesy mustache, I'll think of you. 

B.J.: Whenever I smell month-old socks, I'll think of YOU. 

Hawkeye: Or the next time somebody nails my shoe to the floor... 

B.J.: ...or when somebody gives me a martini that tastes like lighter fluid. 

Hawkeye: I'll miss you. 

B.J.: I'll miss YOU. A lot. I can't imagine what this place would've been like if I hadn't found you here.

Happy 40th to the most romantic divorce in cinematic history.

[genevieveetguy]

. - I'm just an untalented old has-been. - Were you ever famous? - No. - Then how can you be a has-been?

Tootsie, Sydney Pollack (1982)

[theoscarsproject]

Tootsie (1982). Michael Dorsey, an unsuccessful actor, disguises himself as a woman in order to get a role on a trashy hospital soap.

This is one of the movies that really feels like a product of its time, and needs to be viewed that way. Is it messy with its approach to gender and sexuality? Definitely, but it's also well-intentioned and I think wanted to explore gender, sexuality and companionship in a way that must've felt exciting in '82. Plus the performances are genuinely pretty great, so looking at it as a bit of a time capsule isn't a bad way to spend two hours. 7/10,

[oldshowbiz]

Roll Out (1973) was pitched to the networks as the all-Black equivalent of M*A*S*H.

[mashbrainrot]

Henry Blake in 'The Interview'

In 2006, Larry Gelbart wrote dialogue imagining Trapper, Henry Blake, and Colonel Flagg had featured in the M*A*S*H episode 'The Interview'. Here is Henry's, with the original available to read here via Google Groups.

REPORTER: How does it feel, having the responsibility for saving such a great number of lives? HENRY: We just take ’em one or two, sometimes maybe twenty at a time. The big trick is not to start thinking of ’em as numbers – as just so many stats that go into a report that winds up in somebody’s filing cabinet under “out of sight, out of mind.” You’ve gotta always remember that what you’re dealing with is hurt people, people that have been run over by a war. REPORTER: And not just – HENRY: You gotta remember to take a peek at the odd dog tag now and then and remind yourself that that dangling leg or busted gut you’re going to try and put back together again is somebody’s dad or son or boyfriend – that all that blood and guts soiling your linen belongs to somebody that’s got a name attached to him.

REPORTER: You can’t afford to lose your sense of humanity. HENRY: There’s just so many senses you can lose over here. REPORTER: Humor not being one of them, obviously. HENRY: Around here laughter’s just crying without the tears. REPORTER: You have a family back home, sir? HENRY: In Bloomington. The one in Illinois, not in Indiana – unless things have changed since I went away. REPORTER: You keep in touch with them, of course, your family. HENRY: We write, we phone. Far apart as we are, I don’t think we’ve ever been closer. REPORTER: Would you like to say hello to them on television? HENRY: Be better if this was kissovision, but, yeah, can I? REPORTER: Go right ahead. HENRY: Lorraine? Hi, honey. Hi, kids. I got your report cards this morning and I had Radar go out post ’em on the bulletin board here so everybody can see why I’m so darn proud of you. Especially how you’re doing in math. You must get those brains from your mom. Got to be. Old as I am, I still don’t know how many tens to give someone for a five-dollar bill. (TO REPORTER) Thanks. REPORTER: That it? HENRY: That’s it. (TO CAMERA) Except I’m counting the days till we’re back together again. REPORTER: You have any idea when that will be? HENRY: I try not to have too many ideas. There’s always someone who ranks you who’s sure you’ll agree he’s got a better one. REPORTER: When you do finally get home, what are you going to tell your children is the biggest lesson being over here has taught you? HENRY: To always try to work things out, I guess. Whatever those things might happen to be. You don’t make your point killing the other guy. Even if you do it’s kind of wasted if the other guys not around to get the message. REPORTER: You seem – if all may so, Colonel – you seem near exhaustion. HENRY: What I am mostly is tired of being tired. We’re supposed to be a hospital but it’s more like a chop shop around here. We’re up to our elbows in people that other people are doing their best to chop down. REPORTER: That doesn’t lead to a lot of sleep, I would imagine. HENRY: I used to think of sleeping in terms of hours. How many did I get last night, how many will I get to steal tonight. I’m down to minutes now. It’s like somebody broke one hand off the clock. REPORTER: Does that ever affect your performance? HENRY: I fell asleep a few weeks ago in the middle of resecting a patient’s bowel. How’s that for exhausted? REPORTER: Does that fishing hat mean there are those times when you do get to get away from it all? HENRY: What it means is that I have to fish for those times. And let me say, the biting’s pretty poor. REPORTER: Business is too good around here. HENRY: Let’s just say it takes a whole lot longer to take a bullet out of a belly than it does putting one into one. REPORTER: Thank you, sir. HENRY: Can I say one more thing? REPORTER: Of course. HENRY: I just want you to know we all here are grateful for this visit you’ve paid us, this attention you’re paying to the job we’re doing. You get the feeling sometimes, being over here that, aside from our families, we’ve kind of dropped off the planet, that we’ve been kind of disinvited to the party – like everyone back home is busy living their real lives and for us to give them a call when we get back to town. (TO REPORTER) That sound too preachy? REPORTER: It sounded just fine, Colonel. HENRY: Henry. I’m a lot more a Henry than I’ll ever be colonel. REPORTER: Thank you, Henry. HENRY: Tell me the truth: didn’t that feel better? REPORTER: You’re an excellent doctor. HENRY: Hey – that’s why I’m over here getting 300 hundred dollars a month.

[sondheims-hat]

March 18, 1996. Forum begins previews at the St. James.

[tuttle-did-it]

@thequeeninyellowlace Yep, and I have proof. Larry Gelbart himself states it in the link below. In fact, if I recall, they accidentally aired a laugh-tracked version in the UK and got a LOT of calls of complaint.

When I lived in America, I caught an episode of M*A*S*H with a laugh track and thought it was a mistake. Then it happened again. I was horrified and turned it off, and refused to watch it until I left the US and could see it properly.

Included in the link is Larry talking about how much he loathed the laugh track and how it cheapened the show. They fought hard to get rid of it, but CBS wouldn't budge. They managed to negotiate it that it would never be on during the surgery scenes, but yeah, CBS cut the show with the worst additive you can get on exceptional quality television.

Worth watching the short interview with Larry, and try to get the DVDs with the option to take the wretched thing off.