from: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
Brand: MASH
EAN: 0024543006183
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Full Screen, NTSC
Label: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Number Of Discs: 1
Number Of Items: 3
Publisher: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Region Code: 1
Release Date: January 08, 2002
Running Time: 624 minutes
Sales Rank: 5043
Studio: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Theatrical Release Date: September 17, 1972
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Editorial Review:
Description:
Korea, 1950. They were a MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) unit stationed three miles from the front. Incoming helicopters full of wounded brought the horrors of war to them daily and sometimes bullets flew right outside the operating room door. Occasional hilarity and constant hijinks were all that kept them sane.
Loosely based on real-life MASH unit 8055, life at the 4077 revolved around the day-to-day routines of Captain 'Hawkeye' Pierce, Captain 'Trapper' McIntyre, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake, Major Margaret Houlihan, Major Franklin Burns and Corporal 'Radar' O’Reilly. Through these characters, viewers traveled beyond the long hours and the horrors of the operating room to a place where friendships were forged, laughter was found and drinks were served.
Amazon.com:
Like the TV incarnation of The Odd Couple, the M*A*S*H series has supplanted the original film in the public's consciousness. Legendary comedy writer Larry Gelbart (Your Show of Shows) deserves a medal for developing Robert Altman's bloody, funny 1970 classic for television with much of its anti-establishment spirit intact. These 24 first-season episodes--bracingly less politically correct than the shows in the final seasons--chart the program's sometimes bumpy evolution as it tried to remain true to the film's anarchic spirit while finding its own voice. The most memorable episodes include 'The Pilot,' which establishes the characters in broad strokes; 'Sometimes You Hear the Bullet,' in which a friend of Hawkeye's (Alan Alda) dies on the operating table (look for 'Ronny' Howard as an underage soldier); 'Cowboy,' in which someone is trying to kill clueless commander Henry Blake (McLean Stevenson); and the pivotal 'Dear Dad,' the first of what would be a series of multistory episodes in which Hawkeye writes to his father about life at the 4077th. It is interesting to note film characters who made early exits from the series, including Timothy Brown's Spearchucker and Karen Philipp's Lt. Dish (George Morgan, who plays Father Mulcahy in the pilot, we hardly knew ye). Klinger (Jamie Farr), bucking for his Section 8 discharge, doesn't appear until the fifth episode, 'Chief Surgeon Who?' And Gary Burghoff's Radar is a much more wily and savvy partner in crime to 'Yankee Doodle Doctors' Hawkeye and Trapper John (Wayne Rogers) than in later seasons. In its 11-year run, M*A*S*H earned 14 Emmy Awards, and it remains one of TV's most beloved series. Though it is a staple of syndication, the episodes are presented here uncut, probably for the first time since their original broadcast. For M*A*S*H devotees, this three-disc set is just what the doctor ordered. --Donald Liebenson
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Best show in the world.
This is the best show in the world. It's that simple. I didn't find a thing wrong with it. And the laugh track is a cool bonus. If you like M*A*S*H but your not getting your fill of it on tv then this is what you want. I've said it once and I'll say it again this is the best show in the world. If I could I would give it ten stars. Same goes for all the seasons.
Rating:  - Just what I wanted!
I got this as a gift for my father for fathers' day, he loved it! He has always been a huge fan of the show and loved that he could now watch the episodes whenever he wants! I'll definately be getting him the rest of the seasons for future gifts.
Rating: - The Greatest TV Show EVER!
Every once in a great while someone comes along with a great idea for a TV show. They tell just the right person and they just happen to come together and are the best possible writers for this kind of show. They just happen to find some broadcasting company crazy enough to trot out a pilot.
Then by chance they assemble actors that are so good at playing their roles that they become synonomous with them.
You add in some of the greatest TV directors of all time and you have M*A*S*H.
Season 1 starts out with a bang with some of the more memorable episodes like, the desk and yankee doodle doctor.
I love this show, and would reccomend it to everyone.
Rating: - War is Hell but MASH is Comedy Heaven
'MASH' is one of the finest American TV series ever to come out of the old network system. As practically everyone who searches Amazon for information on this great show will have undoubtably already read the excellent highlighted reviews, I'd like to add my case for starting your 'MASH' collection with this particular DVD set.
First, as this was the first season, the show has yet to fully evolve into what we all remember it as from syndication. There's an endless parade of cute young nurses, and multiple characters from the film appear here and nowhere else in the series. Also, much of the comedy leans toward what other military-based sitcoms had already done. Thus, certain things happen in this DVD set that we don't usually associate with MASH. I don't regard this as a debit as it keeps this particular box set from being predictable.
Second, continuing with the shock of surprise comes the revelation that the producers seldom insisted on period accuracy. The aforementioned nurses, for example, wear 'mod' hairstyles and Radar O'Reilly reads comic books that weren't published until the 1960s long after the Korean War was over. The nonconformist attitudes of many of the doctors is definitely not what one would have expected in the 1950s and neither are most of their haircuts. Back in the early 1970s, this might have been seen as a flaw. Today, it helps to remove the 'period piece' stigma that so many other early 1970s sitcoms suffer from. Coupled with the use of film stock ... Read More
Rating:  - A great series, good quality transfer, no extras
Season 1 of M*A*S*H is sometimes uneven but shows flashes of the brilliance that is yet to come. Perhaps because it was a film first, the main characters spring to life fully-formed in the pilot episode (which I had never seen before). And they are a great bunch of characters - the anarchic surgeons Hawkeye and Trapper, the laid-back C.O. Henry, Radar with his sixth-sense ability to anticipate everyone's needs (and to sense when the Medivac choppers are on the way), etc. Even Father Mulchahy and Klinger are here in a few episodes, although neither are theme-song identified. The only problem (which will continue through more than half the series) is Frank, foil for Hawkeye and Trapper. He's just not bright enough to provide much challenge (unlike the later Winchester), and is basically the one-note incompetent boob that always bumbles around and provides the comic relief. Not much better is Hotlips Hoolihan, although we know she eventually comes into her own and so we can cut her some slack. Memorable guest appearences by "Ronnie" Howard and Leslie Neilson round out the casting for the season.
The writing is somewhat uneven this early in the series. There are some truly brilliant episodes (some that are laugh-out-loud farce, some full of that bittersweet cynical humour for which the series is best known). Unfortunately, there are some forgettable and even bad episodes that are cringe-inducing to watch.
So, for the season itself, I'm willing to give it about a 3.5 ... Read More
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