The Name That Episode game is played Tuesdays and Thursdays. Players can participate as often as they like. An archive of past rounds can be found here. Today’s image can be found below. Can you name the episode it’s from? Feel free to post guesses in the comments section. As always, the winner gets bragging rights.

And the Winner Is: Mrs. Frank Burns, who correctly identified “Foreign Affairs.”

Name That Episode

The Name That Episode game is played Tuesdays and Thursdays. Players can participate as often as they like. An archive of past rounds can be found here. Today’s image can be found below. Can you name the episode it’s from? Feel free to post guesses in the comments section. As always, the winner gets bragging rights.

And the Winner Is: TrapperJoe, who correctly identified “Bombshells.”

Name That Episode

Believe it or not, M*A*S*H premiered in Canada before its debut in the United States. According to television listings in The Montreal Gazette the first episode of M*A*S*H was seen on Friday, September 15th, 1972 from 8-8:30PM. That’s two days before it aired on CBS on Sunday, September 17th. The show was broadcast by the CBC and was preceded by The Dick Van Dyke Show and followed by All in the Family. I wrote about a review of M*A*S*H from The Montreal Gazette earlier today.

Canada getting new shows or new episodes before the United States was not uncommon and continues to this day.

Sources:
“TV Today.” The Gazette (Montreal). 15 Sep. 1972: 15. (Read Online at Google News Archive)

According to a September 28th, 1972 article in The Montreal Gazette, M*A*S*H was broadcast in Canada on the CBC, Fridays at 8PM. L. Ian MacDonald reviewed the series, suggesting that “successful television series are seldom derived from the cinema and, at first glance, MASH seemed a most unlikely prospect.” He continued, writing that “the film’s essentially anti-bureaucratic plot was certain to be diluted and its rollicking sexual aspects deleted so that TV might employ yet another safe sit-com — a sort of medical Hogan’s Heroes.” And yet, according to MacDonald, “the television treatment of MASH is remarkably faithful and, in its half-hour format, ideally suited to the film’s episodic quality.”

Discussing the second episode (“To Market, to Market,” originally broadcast September 24th, 1972 on CBS), MacDonald noted that its black market theme, “even in the lighest [sic] context, was unthinkable in television’s recent past. Equally inadmissible was most dialogue connoting sex, however funny.” MacDonald ended the review with a look at the cast:

Alan Alda’s perception of Hawkeye is just right. His frivolous carryings-on never entirely conceal a simmering rage against the Catch-22 syndrome and other forms of incompetence.

McLean Stevenson’s reading of the status conscious colonel is not so one sided that his essentially decent qualities are forgotten. Loretta Swit’s Hot Lips, while a bit below Sally Kellerman’s unforgettable film characterization, is nevertheless firm enough, while Larry Linville is perfect as Hotlips’ lover, the hapless Maj. Frank Burns.

The series is a hopeful stirring for television.

Sources:
MacDonald, L. Ian. “Against the odds M.A.S.H. is good TV fare.” The Gazette (Montreal). 28 Sep. 1972: 29. (Read Online at Google News Archive)

The Name That Episode game is played Tuesdays and Thursdays. Players can participate as often as they like. An archive of past rounds can be found here. Today’s image can be found below. Can you name the episode it’s from? Feel free to post guesses in the comments section. As always, the winner gets bragging rights.

And the Winner Is: chuckles, who correctly identified “Hepatitis.”

Name That Episode