I confess that after seeing the movie MASH, I made it a matter of principle NEVER to see the TV show. I had the definite impression that the MASH crowd on screen were generally not too eager to defeat the North Korean and Red Chinese enemies of our country but rather just to get home and party on! The left's most effective slogan of the early 1970s was: Dare to struggle! Dare to win! (over the USA of course). We satirized them by changing their cherished slogan to: Dare to snuggle! Dare to Sin! A lot of what the New Left was about was the implied promise of morals free sex. Of course, few of them could be credible on that up close.
Alda's entire life is one of unrelieved leftist airheadedness. See most of his cinematic roles and all of his talk show appearances.
Korea was the first war that we did not win in nearly two hundred years. It was in Asia, against some Asians, against the sainted communists during our next war (Vietnam) which became our first outright loss. MASH was a natural for the Hollywood left and they also got to make it into a comedy poking fun at our efforts to resist the inevitable (as they saw it), communization of Asia.
I wish I could give you a more humorous response but I am a bit tired. I had a first cousin (one of my favorites) who was a Marine Corps veteran of Korea. I find little humor in the Korean War or its outcome.
I'd like to see Alan Alda yukking it up over Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath at a convention of armed Korean War veterans with, perhaps, a contingent of North Koreans now suffering under Kim Jong Mentally Ill as the did under his father and grandfather.
There is one consolation. Obozo has not figured out how to arm treasonous Hollywood with nuclear weapons.
Sorry for the gloom and doom. You know I value you above almostal other FReepers. God bless you and yours!
Not at all ... it's always interesting to get another perspective. I recall seeing only one movie with Alan Alda; I think it also had Jane Fonda. I went with my mother. She didn't particularly like either of them, but was a fan of some other actor in the same movie. Interviews and so on, I've completely missed.
You're one of my completely most favorites, too! Every time I see your name, I'm grateful that you're still here.
Mark Steyn summed up MASH well, “it was set in the Korean War, but was really about the Vietnam War, and seemed to run as long as the Hundred Years War”.