M*A*S*H won’t have been the primary sitcom to kill off a personality — Make Room For Daddy did a between-seasons, offscreen dying for Danny Thomas’s spouse after actress Jean Hagen left in a huff — however it was the primary to off one in every of its main gamers then cope with the emotional aftermath.
To make the destiny of Henry Blake, performed by McLean Stevenson, much more devastating, the present’s producers employed an uncommon, emotionally manipulative tactic. “We didn’t get the ending of that,” Jamie Farr, who performed Corporal Klinger, lately instructed PEOPLE. “We didn’t know that Colonel Blake was gonna die.”
Not like Danny Thomas’s spouse, who merely disappeared, M*A*S*H’s docs and nurses received an opportunity to bid farewell to Blake, the 4077’s fearless chief, after he acquired an honorable discharge and headed for dwelling. “I believe I used to be in that Carmen Miranda outfit or one thing, and we waved goodbye to him on the helicopter when he was taking off to go stateside,” Farr remembered. “We completed that and all of us went dwelling afterwards.”
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However quickly, the forged was summoned again to the set. “We received a name, all of us did,” Farr mentioned. “They mentioned there’s an added scene and that they wanted us within the OR.”
That was … bizarre. The forged had already filmed what felt like a whole episode. “What do you imply, added scene?” mentioned Farr. “We mentioned goodbye.”
However there was nonetheless extra. The present’s producers didn’t whisper a phrase to anybody, not the extras or the digital camera crew. They merely offered one extra web page of script, explaining that Blake’s airplane had been shot down. There have been no survivors.
“I do know Gary Burghoff, Radar, who needed to ship that line, was upset,” Farr mentioned.
The emotional wallop represented a tone shift for the present, evolving from sitcom to that new time period, dramedy. “What they needed to point out was that folks that you just love die in battle,” mentioned Farr. “They usually thought that was a great way of doing it as a result of … Colonel Blake was such a lovable character.”
Whereas critics applauded, not all viewers have been on board. The present acquired greater than a thousand letters, many from followers who didn’t suppose dying belonged in a scenario comedy. Producer Larry Gelbart responded to tons of of the letters by hand, in keeping with Making M*A*S*H. CBS and twentieth Century Fox have been additionally upset, with the community reducing off the ultimate scene in a minimum of one rerun. “It was a shock, it was any person they liked,” mentioned the present’s co-creator Gene Reynolds. “They did not anticipate it, however it made the purpose. Individuals like Henry Blake are misplaced in battle.”
“To have any person that is a fundamental character like that really get killed,” mentioned Farr, “was one thing that was shattering to everyone.”
