That last episode of M*A*S*H must have been a mutha

The tombstone reads, "Died of BJ Hunnicut."
The least funny character in the history of television.
And the "finale" made "Steel Magnolias" look like South Park.
Hawkeye goes nuts, Mulcahy goes deaf, the awful Hunnicut goes home and COMES BACK?
Gawd, it was a nightmare.

 

Amen, bubba...

 

it did go from a show that was comedy first and foremost to preachy message focused. But, I'll have to admit the room got a little dusty watching that final episode...

 

Wow.

And all this time I thought it ended because Jamie Farr was too distracted by "The Gong Show."

 

The last episode was awful, indeed the last few seasons were shit. They were clearly running out of story ideas and I recall one of the producers saying they took a trip to Korea to see if they could get any new ideas.

Having said that, I was always a big fan, particularly when CITY-TV would run their annual Colonel Flagg week, showing every episode the great man was in.

 

BJ was funnier than Charles Emmerson Winchester III
Hunnicut got rotated home and then called back to duty from the airfield in Korea where he was supposed to take his flight home.
In talking about the finale you forgot to mention Winchester's POW orchestra.

The finale was too serious, but you knew that Hawkeye had to crack at some point.

But some of the serious episodes during the last few years were solid episodes (point of view, the one with the clock in the corner of the screen, and a bunch of others).
BJ delivered a different style of humor than the Trapper John, but he was still funny.
Winchester on the other hand, wasn't as funny as Frank. His pompousness came off too serious vs. Frank's whiny insecurities.

 

Winchester existed primarily as a punching bag. It was with him that Hwk 'n Beej were at their most insufferable -- and hypocritical.
Show should have ended in 1976.

 

Nobody. I mean nobody was funnier than Maj. Frank Burns.
Col. Flagg was great as a guest, but the cast, Frank Burns was the Alpha and Omega.

The finale out and out sucked. A total sack of sympathetic shit written by the same person who envisioned an unlimited amount Valerie Bertinelli movies on Lifetime.

 

I remember one cousin of mine who worked at a bicycle plant being pissed that they didn't get time off to watch the episode. It really was that big a deal.

As for awful spinoffs, AfterMASH was bad, but how about Radar O'Reilly as a cop in W*A*L*T*E*R?

http://www.tvobscurities.com/articles/walter.php

 

"You're dumb, Freedman. Very dumb. But you've met your match with me."

 

Frank Burns eats worms.

 

"Some day, every kid in America will wish he were me."