Here’s a two paragraph review of M*A*S*H by Gerald Clark for TIME magazine, originally published on October 16th, 1972. Be forewarned, it’s brutal:
This show, which began as one of the most promising series of the new season, is now one of its biggest disappointments. Based on the 1970 movie of the same name, which followed the misadventures of an Army medical unit during the Korean War, M*A*S*H started out as television’s first black comedy. It is now as bleached out as Hogan’s Heroes.
The creeping blandness was probably foreordained. Commercial television is simply not prepared to accept the savage satire of the movie original. Beyond that, no series could hope to recreate the film’s peculiar tension between comedy and horror. The writers seem to have given up their initial efforts and now stand on their cliches.
Ouch. I think the phrase “creeping blandness” hurts the most. But Clarke makes a good point in his second paragraph. No network sitcom could ever hope to match the film MASH. On the other hand, by Monday, October 16th, 1972 M*A*S*H had been on the air just five weeks. And I doubt Clark had a chance to view the Sunday, October 15th episode prior to writing this review. That’s not a lot of time to go from “television’s first black comedy” to being “as bleached out as Hogan’s Heroes.”
The review was found through TIME‘s online archive and was published alongside Clark’s reviews of Anna and the King (another CBS sitcom) and Vanity Fair (a British drama shown by PBS). I plan on presenting other reviews of the series from the early 1970s as I find them.
