By way of continuing my tribute, here are five episodes that Gelbart wrote, co-wrote, produced, and/or directed, or some combination.
From what I remember, he consistently named these as among his favorites. Look for them in the reruns or at your DVD store (they're all from the first, third and fourth seasons):
"The Interview." This is the famous, semi-improvised black-and-white episode that Gelbart directed as well as partially writing. Only partially because some of the dialogue came from the actors improvisations onto tape recordings which Gelbart then turned into script--sharpening what they'd said and adding his own lines. And some of it was purely improvised on-camera.
One line, however, came directly from Gelbart's research, from something a doctor who'd actually worked in a real M*A*S*H during the Korean War had told him. He gave the line to Father Mulcahy, and William Christopher delivered it beautifully, with just enough emotion in his voice, not overplayed:
When the doctors cut into a patient-and it's cold, you know, the way it is now, today-steam...rises from the body. And the doctor will...will warm himself. Over the open wound...Could anyone look on that and not feel changed?
He was also proud of the "Dear..." episodes built around letters home from virtually every member of the medical staff and the enlisted men too. They even brought in the recurring character of Psychiatrist Maj. Sidney Freedman to write a letter "to" Freud as a form of personal therapy.
It was a new way of telling a story on television and it's continued to be used by other writers including one of my other heroes, Aaron Sorkin. A strong episode of West Wing's second season, "The Stackhouse Filibuster," is structured as a series of letters from White House staffers to members of their families--C.J. to her father, Josh to his mother, and so on. Sorkin also used this device on Sports Night.
Unlike those I've mentioned so far, and the others I will in a moment, "The More I See You" is an episode that rarely seems to get included in television retrospectives. AFAIK it was never a critical or a fan favorite, but Gelbart cited it at least once and I've always remembered that.
It's the episode with Blythe Danner as a nurse and old love of Hawkeye's who is transferred to the 4077th. At first their reunion doesn't go well, then it goes too well (given that she's now married); then it doesn't go at all.
It is perhaps M*A*S*H's most convincing love story, in this case, never-ending, though thwarted love. This, in a way makes it a perfect summation of the series. Certainly of the four years Gelbart spent writing, producing and directing it.
In a self-penned "session" between himself and Dr. Freedman (whom he created) written for one of the more than a few books on the show, Gelbart gave himself the line: You try to give pain a certain style. On M*A*S*H, you can't help but notice if you're one of the millions and billions who has seen virtually every episode multiple times, celebrations are rarely allowed to last.
Although not credited as writer or director, as a producer Gelbart said that "Sometimes You Hear the Bullet" was the first episode where they found the balance they wanted between comedy and heartbreak.
This is the episode where a friend of Hawkeye who's joined up to write a book about the war is wounded, and Hawk watches him die on the operating table. Henry Blake had the great line in that one, whether by credited writer Carl Kleinschmitt, Gelbart, or another hand:
Look, all I know is what they taught me at command school. There are certain rules about a war. Rule number one is, young men die. And rule number two is...doctors can't change rule number one.
Speaking of Henry, Gelbart directed and co-wrote (without credit) "Abyssinia, Henry," the classic episode of television in which Blake gets his discharge but is shot down and killed over the sea of Japan.
Famously, most of the cast was not told about this final twist until just before it was filmed so that the shock on their faces would be at least somewhat real. Gary Burghoff did better than his usual best reading the message informing everyone of their former Colonel's death.
And then, as Gelbart described it in his kind-of memoir, the camera panned across the OR. Someone, off-camera, dropped some surgical instrument and it hit the floor with a hollow, sickening clang and clatter.
It was perfect. Gelbart couldn't have written or planned for it, and he didn't, but I hear it every time I watch that scene. And I wouldn't like to count how many times I've watched that scene.
I'd like to close now with another scene, one that, counterintuitively, comes from an episode made some three years after Gelbart left the series. But it features characters he created or co-created (B.J., Potter, Klinger) or developed (Hawkeye, Margaret, Radar, Mulcahy), and it is from one of the "Dear..." episodes ("Dear Sis").
I think you'll see why I'd like to close with it.
And goodbye, Larry.
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