2019 Year in Review

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I’m a little late with my 17th annual Year in Review post, which looks back at all the anniversaries and M*A*S*H news from 2019.

Cast Reunion on Alda’s Podcast

On February 5th, the five surviving members of the M*A*S*H cast reunited for an episode of Alan Alda’s “Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda” podcast. Loretta Swit, Gary Burghoff, Jamie Farr, and Mike Farrell joined Alda to reminisce about their time on M*A*S*H and how communication helped them on screen and off.

Disney Owns M*A*S*H

In March, The Walt Disney Company spent $71.3 billion acquiring large chunks of 21st Century Fox. That means Disney now owns M*A*S*H, AfterMASH, and the unsold sitcom pilot “W*A*L*T*E*R” starring Gary Burghoff (plus the original movie).

Other News

Amazon Prime Video began selling digital downloads of the newly remastered high definition and widescreen episodes of M*A*S*H. Digital downloads are also available from iTunes, YouTube, and Google Play. Also, MeTV began airing the same high definition and widescreen episodes. Finally, a newly restored version of “Our Finest Hour” debuted on Hulu and iTunes.

Anniversaries

“Goodbye, Farewell and Amen” celebrated its 36th anniversary in February. In September, M*A*S*H marked its 47th anniversary.

Site Related

MASH4077TV.com turned 20 in 2019. I celebrated the milestone with a newly redesigned website. Also: I finished reviewing every episode of AfterMASH, launched the fifth round of the Name That Episode game, and added a page about classical music to the Music of M*A*S*H section.

Happy New Year

I also wrap up my Year In Review posts with the following quote from Season 9’s “A War For All Seasons” for years:

Colonel Potter: “Here’s to the new year. May she be a damn sight better than the old one, and may we may we all be home before she’s over.”

Why? Because there aren’t very many references to New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day on M*A*S*H. There was this exchange from “Hot Lips and Empty Arms” during Season 2:

Margaret: “Did either of you ever kiss Frank?”
Trapper: “Not me. How about you?”
Hawkeye: “I was hoping maybe this New Year’s Eve.
Margaret: “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but Frank Burns is a lipless wonder.”

Also, there were jokes about New Year’s Eve or Day in “Yankee Doodle Doctor” (Season 1), “The Army-Navy Game” (Season 1), “Out of Sight, Out of Mind” (Season 5), “Your Hit Parade” (Season 6), and “Communications Breakdown” (Season 10).


Happy New Year, everyone. I hope to continue exploring M*A*S*H memorabilia in the coming months. If possible, I also want to update and expand the Nurse of the 4077th section of the website at some point in 2020.

5 Replies to “2019 Year in Review”

  1. And ……….. the original Father Mulcahy, Rene Auberjonois from the “M*A*S*H” movie, died on December 8. (Any chance we can still get a post initiated about that?)

    1. I tend not to report news relating to the movie (which I’ve never seen all the way through). I am a big fan of Rene Auberjonois from his work on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I’d almost forgotten he played Father Mulcahy on the big screen,.

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