MAS*H: The Story of the 4077th

The most-watched television episode in American history—until Super Bowl XLIV finally surpassed it in 2010—was the two-and-a-half-hour finale of a show about alcoholic surgeons during the Korean War. 121 million people tuned in to see how the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital would say goodbye. That number represented roughly 75% of American television viewers at the time. And the show that produced that finale had itself outlasted the actual war it depicted by nearly four times: MAS*H ran for 11 seasons, while the Korean War lasted three years.

From Book to Movie to Television

The show began as a 1968 novel called MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors, written by Dr. Richard H. Hornberger under the pseudonym Richard Hooker. Hornberger was a real MASH surgeon who served in the 805th MASH unit, and his book was essentially a loosely organized collection of anecdotes about drunken pranks, partying, and the occasional surgery. He brought in sportswriter W.C. Hein to help whip the manuscript into shape. The book was optioned almost immediately, and Robert Altman's film adaptation arrived in 1970—a critical and commercial hit that won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and an Oscar for Best Screenplay. But the film was very much of its time: sexist, racist, and full of the kind of casual cruelty that younger generations would later recoil from.