The network refused to allow just one M*A*S*H script
"The network said that it implied dalliance."
M*A*S*H pushed boundaries on television. That's an understatement. It broke records, went places where other TV shows were afraid to go, and became a major force in pop culture.
The writers of M*A*S*H were able to get a lot of scripts involving controversial topics at the time on air, which is one of the reasons it became so memorable. However, there was one script that the network refused to let the team produce.
That script was for an episode in the first season called "Hawkeye on the Double". In it, Hawkeye (Alan Alda) is two-timing with two different nurses on two different shifts. When the nurses learn that neither of them is the only one he's seeing at the moment, they get payback by claiming that Hawkeye has gotten them both pregnant.
According to an interview with The Archive of American Television, Larry Gelbart, the co-creator of M*A*S*H, said that "Hawkeye on the Double" was "one and only script that CBS said under no circumstances will you be able to do this script."
Apparently, the idea of Hawkeye juggling two women at once was too risqué for television audiences in the early 1970s. In the book The Complete Book of M*A*S*H, Gene Reynolds said the script got blocked because "the network said that it implied dalliance and we couldn't do that." He felt that the reasoning was absurd, pointing out "What were Frank and Hot Lips doing?"
While this was the only script the network out-and-out said they couldn't do, that doesn't mean it was the end of M*A*S*H's battle to continue pushing the envelope. "Most of the battles with Army brass on the screen," Gelbart said in the same book, "came out of our battles with the network."
34 Comments
I really think your programming ideas need a major revamp.
As a long time viewer I'll say you are going to the dogs.
ENOUGH ALREADY!!
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