Shark Bytes

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…

I have returned (part seven)…

Here is YET ANOTHER classic J*U*M*P: the UNFUNNY JOKE ABOUT BIRD IMITATIONS episode. You remember when Dr. “Bill Cosby” Pierce told the (really unfunny) joke about bird imitations to Dr. “Flip Wilson” Hunnicutt. “Flip” told “the Cos” that he didn’t think the joke was very funny. Then “Flip” told the same joke to everybody else in the camp and suddenly everybody else thinks it’s hilarious (God only knows why) and then “the Cos” became jealous of “Flip” and it nearly ruined their friendship.

Watching these two overgrown adolescents behave like.. um, well… overgrown adolescents was about as funny as a M*I*G*R*A*I*N*E

Ron, you are right. MASH USUALLY portrayed the regular US Army in bad light but there were exceptions(like the 100% decent generals played by Gerald S. O'Laughlin and John Randolph). And MASH was more than a tv show as there was reallife documentary footage in a few eps. About Jane Fonda (Hanoi Jane) giving out social security numbers to North Vietnamese-- first I ever heard of that particular action(I was aware of generally how she got her nickname though).

I changed my mind. I love this show now and can't turn it off. It never jumped and I pity the fool who claims it did.

Yep, worse show ever. Alan Alda was awful.

I changed my mind. I hate this show and Alan Alda ruined it.

Jumped Day One. Although it had some funny gags in the early years this show was a slap in the face to the military by a bunch of sheltered little liberal snots. Who are the heroes of MASH? The compassionate doctors who are are 'brave' enough to buck the heartless military establishment, or the lovable misfits, like Klinger. The Army was usually protrayed as either buffoons (Frank Burns, Col. Flagg), heartless, racist, killers or sensitive, shell-shocked victims of the Evil White War Machine, waiting to be rescued by Hawkeye. Hawkeye also jumped at the chance to help out any North Korean POW, who were always portrayed as just regular human beings caught up in a bad situation. Look, we can hug them, because we all know who the real enemy is! Just a show, you say? Remember Hanoi Jane meeting with our own POW's in Viet Nam and turning the social security numbers one of them tried to pass her over to their captors. People who admired that action wrote and starred in MASH. As someone who comes from a family of Veterans and having served myself (in peacetime) I would say that this show was a complete disgrace.

Jumped and should've been canceled:
#1-after the death of Henry Blake,maybe
#2-when Frank Burns left,maybe
#3-when Radar left,Definately!
After that,the stories and especially the very bad puns jumped the shark and then went downhill like a snowball.And the last episode,which I only watched just to make sure it WAS ending,terribly overacted and poorly written.This from a guy who really liked the first four years...Really!

I would say it never jumped. I like all seasons (although season 10 and 11 had a few clunkers, but the final tv movie was awesome and very moving). I do agree with the other poster here that said that it could have jumped if Blake had remained there and Potter not taken over. Don't get me wrong Blake was very funny, but Potter was more realistic as the C.O. and kept the other characters a little more grounded. I think Hawkeye's character improved as well as the series progressed. I did think some stories (remember the one where Hawkeye couldn;t stop sneezing) where tiresome, but most episodes I can watch over and over. One of my 5 favorite shows ever.

I still watch the show in reruns and the earlier episodes with the original cast was far more funnier. Where it started to fail...

Blake killed off...
Burns character never was expanded to make him more "human"
BJ, his mustache and his two affairs..we got it the first time.
Hawkeye turns all moral and dull
Radar stops being "radar" and becomes an adult...boring
Margaret and her 70's hairstyle
Potter who at first was a tough old coot seems to become increasingly retarded towards the end.
Winchester although the perfect nemesis, could have been expanded to show his more human and humbler side which was RARELY shown
Klinger gives up wearing women's clothes.
The final episode is just dreadful. Hawkeye goes insane, BJ and the motorcycle, Klinger marrying the Korean chick and staying in Korea, the fire of Hollywood hills...err Korea.

But I'll still watch the reruns. But there is a definite loss of quality towards the last few seasons.

I think it would have jumped if blake remainedthe C.O.Potter was better.
there wsn't much they could do with Blake. While potter alowed the chariters to be better developed.
With out Potter Mash would have been just flat.

Why is this website running so damn slow? It takes nearly three minutes just to download the homepage. And I have DSL!!

Jumped when Colonel Blake was killed. It was supposed to be a comedy. The show totally changed after that. It become about his holiness Alan Alda.

The character that made no sense was Colonel Potter. He hated war but he was a career army man. What a freakin hypricate.

I liked the show when it was in prime time - at one time I knew all the lines and jokes on every show. but the last time I watched it was maybe 1985, I would watch 5 times a day in reruns but doing that I just got so totally and completely sick of it. As years go by MASH gets more irrelevant, and catching a few minutes of reruns now, it is almost painful to watch. The annoying, incessant laugh track, the moronic plot lines, the 1970s hairdos and attitudes, the degrading treatment of women - yes I am talking about the early shows here with Trapper and Henry Blake! With 20/20 hindsight they suck pretty bad, and the later years are not much better. At the time I did not see how the show had fallen but now it is painfully obvious. I wish that they would put this show in its grave and never show it again, enough is enough.

Jumped when Nurse Kelly and Zale became main characters.