Television History – Sharing History

On February 28, 1983, over 106 million Americans gathered around their televisions to watch the series finale of the incredibly popular television show “M*A*S*H.” This episode remains the most-watched program (outside of the Super Bowl) of all time. The finale aired after 11 seasons of the show: a situational dramedy about a mobile army surgical hospital during the Korean War. “M*A*S*H” not only broke the mold of television sitcoms, but also, in the shadow of the Vietnam War, addressed antiwar sentiment in a groundbreaking way.

The “M*A*S*H” storyline, based on a movie by the same name that had been released several years prior, featured two surgeons, Captain Benjamin Pierce, played by Alan Alda, and Captain John McIntyre, played by Wayne Rogers. The two, while talented doctors, are consistently caught up in silly hijinks, flirting with the nurses (though today we’d consider much of their flirting harassment), and drinking away the horror of war. The two are supported by a bevy of colorful characters, including the uptight nurse, Major Margaret Houlihan and her side-kick, Major Frank Burns, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake, whose shocking death was one of the greatest television blindsides in history, the company clerk Corporal “Radar” O’Reilly, whose uncanny ability to anticipate needs earned him his nickname, and Corporal Max Klinger, who did anything he could think of to earn a medical discharge.

Though the characters were interesting and relatable, it was the commentary on war that captured the hearts and minds of the nation. At the time of the series’ first season in 1972, the U.S. was embroiled in the conflict of the Vietnam War. By this point, antiwar sentiment was high. As James Poniewozik of The New York Times wrote, “the covert operation ‘M*A*S*H*’ pulled off was to deliver a timely satire camouflaged as a period comedy.” The show looked like a sitcom and the laugh track could convince you that’s all it was, but “M*A*S*H’s” ability to lay sitcom lightness on a backdrop of dark, dark war. In doing so, according to Poniewozik, “even the sitcom-standard high jinks—dealing with the black market for medicine, inventing a fictional officer in order to donate his pay to an orphanage—were forms of protest.” CBS executives were unsure about this move. In fact, star Alan Alda remembers that after the season one episode “Sometimes You Hear the Bullet,” in which a friend of Hawkeye’s turns up on the operating table and dies, the network was convinced the show was ruined. Someone from the network said, “What is this, a situation tragedy?” But America loved the drama. And so, the show went on. For ten more years. And, as Alda observed, “the element that really sinks in with an audience is that, as frivolous as some of the stories are, underneath it is an awareness that real people lived through these experiences . . . the crazy behavior wasn’t just to be funny. It was a way of separating yourself for a moment from the nastiness.”

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On September 26, 1969, the first episode of acclaimed television show “The Brady Bunch” appeared on ABC. While most of us now are familiar with the Bradys and can probably sing at least one verse of their iconic theme song, the show was actually not very popular during its original five seasons. It wasn’t until the late 70s, when the show was in reruns, that children and teens became infatuated with this ideal American family. What was it about the Bradys that drew such a dedicated fan base almost a decade after its original airing?

“The Brady Bunch” was created by Sherwood Schwartz, who was also the creator of the famous 1960s sitcom, “Gillian’s Island.” Apparently, Schwartz got the idea for the show when reading an article in the Los Angeles Times that said that in 1966, “30 percent of marriages involved children from a previous relationship.” Schwartz wrote the pilot and submitted it to several networks who weren’t sure about a television show with such an unfamiliar premise. Shortly after, however, the movie Yours, Mine, and Ours starring Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda premiered and became a hit. After its success, ABC picked up Schwartz’s pilot with a similar premise and began filming the first season.

The show, in which Carol Martin and Mike Brady get married and bring their six children (her three girls: Marcia, Jan, and Cindy and his three boys: Greg, Peter, and Bobby) to live in a beautiful home in an LA suburb, revolved around the children and the pitfalls they faced in the process of growing up. During the years it originally aired (1969-1974), critics did not have great things to say about the show, claiming it was too cheesy. After its cancellation, ABC began rerunning the episodes on weekday afternoons. Children and teens who were just getting home from school gathered around the television set to watch. An article in Entertainment Weekly from the 90s suggests that the show resonated so deeply with this group because “the show was a picture of stability while Vietnam and the sexual revolution rocked the rest of the world. While our real-life parents were splitting up at an alarming rate, those goody-goody Bradys were telling us a shameless lie about family life. We desperately believed it. Most of all, this was the family that the latchkey kids came home to every day after school, the family we could always count on.”

In the 50 years since the Bradys appeared on television, many television shows featuring unique family structures have become national treasures, including “Full House,” “Modern Family,” “Gilmore Girls,” and “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.” What television executives learned from the Bradys and then applied to these other shows is that we love to see a family that takes a difficult situation and makes it good and funny and wholesome.

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Tag: Television History

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