M*A*S*H*: #49 in TV’s Greatest Theme Songs; Plus, the Original, Movie Theme (Two Videos)

[Previously: “#50, Sanford & Son.”]

By N.S.

In 1972, the Korean war sitcom (but really about the War in Vietnam, natch) M*A*S*H* debuted on CBS. It was an immediate hit, with a great staff of comedy writers, led by Larry Gelbart, and starring Alan Alda, Wayne Rogers, and McLean Stevenson. And for about three years, M*A*S*H* was one of the funniest sitcoms on TV.

[It was one of the few powerhouse comedies on CBS that wasn’t produced by Norman (King) Lear.]

However, when the producers tried to get Rogers to sign a morality clause, he told them to go to heck. Then they killed off Stevenson. That left Alda, who took over the show, making it uber-pc. They replaced Rogers with Mike Farrell, a humorless, talentless communist, and got Harry Morgan to fill Stevenson’s role. And Larry Gelbart (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Tootsie, etc.) bid the show adieu. While I generally liked Morgan in Westerns, he was idiotic here.

And yet, the show continued to get great ratings.

The show’s idea of humor was to have Cpl. Klinger (Jamie Farr), who was trying to get a Section 8 discharge, appear every episode in a ridiculous dress, and one of the other characters say, “Nice dress, Klinger.” Every week, for eleven years.

Each episode opened with the movie theme song, sans lyrics.

M*A*S*H* 1970 Movie Theme Song (Music by Johnny Mandel, lyrics by Michael Altman, as sung by John and Tom Bahler, Ron Hicklin, and Ian Freebairn-Smith)

The funny thing is, as silly as the lyrics are, the movie theme sounds much better than the TV version, thanks to the singing by the Bahler Brothers, Hicklin, and Freebairn-Smith.

“Robert Altman had two stipulations about the song for [Johnny] Mandel: first, it had to be called ‘Suicide is Painless’; second, it had to be the ‘stupidest song ever written.’ Altman tried to write the lyrics himself [N.S.: he’d reportedly earlier written song lyrics], but found that it was too difficult for his 45-year-old brain to write ‘stupid enough.’” Altman then gave the job of writing the song’s lyrics to his son, famously saying:

“I can’t get anything nearly as stupid as I need. But all is not lost. I have this kid who is a total idiot. He’ll run through this thing like a dose of salts.”

According to araho,

“During an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in the 1980s, Robert Altman said that his son had earned more than a million US dollars for having co-written the song while he only made US $70,000 for having directed the movie.”

[N.S.: Altman was surely exaggerating.]