Last night’s Jeopardy! featured a clue that involved M*A*S*H but wasn’t actually about the series. During the Double Jeopardy round, the $1,200 clue in the Emmy Time category was the following:
In 1980 it was James Burrows vs. 4 “M*A*S*H” episodes for directing, & Jim won for this show’s “Love & the Nice Girl” episode.
One of the contestants was able to chime in with the correct answer: Taxi.
For the record, those four M*A*S*H episodes nominated for Outstanding Directing in a Comedy Series were “Dreams” (Alan Alda), “Period of Adjustment” (Charles S. Dubin), “Bottle Fatigue” (Burt Metcalfe), and “Stars and Stripes” (Harry Morgan).
I’ve updated my M*A*S*H on Jeopardy page with this latest clue.
Random question: does anybody remember this episode of Taxi? I’ve never even seen that show (way before my time), but I’m wondering how it beat out M*A*S*H, since M*A*S*H had such stellar directors. Especially with the episodes that were nominated, because I thought that all four of those were very good episodes (especially ‘Dreams’ and ‘Period of Adjustment’). I actually just watched ‘Period of Adjustment’ again today, and I had forgotten how emotional of an episode it was.
I think the title’s wrong– but “Louie and the Nice Girl” was the first episode to feature Louie’s girlfriend Zena played by Danny De Vito’s wife Rita Perlman. I assume someone mixed up the titles, ether at Jeopardy or reporting it here.
David Ogden Stiers thank you for the memories.