When oneMASHcast member refused to return for the show’s spinoff, a jaw-dropping replacement idea was suggested.MASHran for 11 seasonsbetween 1972 and 1983 and proved groundbreaking for many reasons. From the shocking death of Henry Blake to the record-breaking finale, the impact and legacy of the show are still being felt.It was aMASHcast vote that ended the show, with the ensemble sensing during the tenth season it was time to wrap things up before the quality took a serious nosedive.
Of course,MASHwas still a solid ratings success, and CBS wanted to keep it running. It was then suggested that the actors who voted to keep it on the air (Jamie Farr, Harry Morgan and William Christopher) should front a spinoff instead. On paper, this sounded like a solid pitch, but in reality,AfterMASHwas a disaster. Taking place in a Veteran’s Hospital, the spinoff may have been better served as a drama instead of a sitcom,andAfterMASH’sratings tanked so hard its final episodenever aired and was lost for 30 years.
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WALTE*R
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Famed comedy writer Ken Levine (Cheers) worked on bothMASHandAfterMASHand in 2022 recalled the original plan to build a series that wasn’t dependent on bringing back former cast members. On his blogBy Ken Levine, he then recalls thatCBS started to worry when the ratings started to dip, and the network wanted to bring back as manyMASHactors as possible. The only issue there was that most of them had moved on already.
Well Alan Alda and Mike Ferrell were not remotely interested. Neither was David Ogden Stiers. We did manage to get Gary Burghoff to do an episode (which turned out to be one of our better episodes).
Considering how acclaimedMASH’sfinale was in 1983, it makes sense that Alan Alda or Mike Farrell had zero interest in returningfor guest appearances only a year later. The finale was the perfect farewell, so ifAfterMASHwas going to succeed, it had to do so on its own terms. An appearance by Alda’s Hawkeye or Loretta Swit’s Margaret may have helped ratings in the short term, but the show had fundamental issues that no guest appearance was going to solve.
20th Century Fox Wanted To Recast Margaret After Loretta Swit Passed
The studio felt bringing “Hot Lips” back would be an event no matter who played her
According to Levine,20th Century Fox executives were particularly keen to bring back Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan forAfterMASH. That issue there was that Swit passed on returning, just as pretty much every other OG cast member did. While plenty ofMASHactors exited the seriesduring its run, Swit and Alda were the only actors to have appeared in both the show’s pilot and finale. In short, she was as closely identified with the character as Alda had been with Hawkeye.
Sally Kellerman played Margaret in Robert Altman’sMASHmovie.
Despite this, the executives at Fox felt they could bring back Margaret with a new actor. While Levine underlined that bringing Margaret back would only be an event if she was played by Swit, they pushed the notion thatanyactress could play the role and that other shows had substituted actors.When the writer jokingly suggested they could get singer Diana Ross to play Margaret, Levine was stunned the response was “Say… that’s kinda interesting"by the executive he was speaking with.
AfterMASH Never Approached Diana Ross About Playing Margaret
None of the Supremes were offered roles on AfterMASH either
… it would have been a truly bizarre move to bring Margaret back onAfterMASHand reunite her with Morgan’s Potter or Farr’s Klinger but have her played by Diana Ross instead.
In the same blog post,Levine made it clear that despite the suit finding his Diana Ross pitch “interesting,” the singer wasn’t approached. Ross may have few acting credits to her name, but she proved with projects like the 1994 TV movieOut of Darknessthat she was a fine actress. Still, it would have been a truly bizarre move to bring Margaret back onAfterMASHand reunite her with Morgan’s Potter or Farr’s Klinger but have her played by the “Upside Down” singer.
If nothing else, Levine’s story highlights how desperate the network became.AfterMASHwasn’t a disaster during its first season and even earned respectable ratings and reviews. Regardless, CBS wanted it to be as successful as its parent series had been and was willing to resort to gimmicky guest appearances to make that happen. Mercifully,the notion of recasting Margaret or any otherMASHcharacter was dropped.
Alan Alda’s Least Favorite MASH Episode Is A Harsh Reminder Of Why It Came So Close To Cancellation After Just 1 Season
Alan Alda’s least favorite episode of MASH comes from season 1, and its quality underlines why the classic sitcom came so close to being canceled.
As Levine mentions, bringing back Gary Burghoff’s Radar resulted in one ofAfterMASH’smore affecting episodes. Even then, the network took the wrong lesson and tried to develop a Radar spinoff calledWALTE*R, where Burghoff’s lovable farmboy became a police officer; the idea never made it past a badly received pilot. HadAfterMASHbeen given more of a chance to develop its own tone and voice, maybe Alda or Swit could have been talked into an appearance in a later season.
CBS doomedAfterMASHby pitting it against ratings juggernautThe A-Teamduring its second season. This was a huge error, and the spinoff tanked so utterly against its rival that it was canceled only nine episodes in. Incredibly,AfterMASHhas never been released on home media (be it VHS, DVD or Blu-ray), or been made available on streaming.
The pilot forWALTE*Rwas directed by Bill Bixby, best known for playing David Banner onThe Incredible HulkTV series.
Bringing Back More Characters Wouldn’t Have Saved The MASH Spinoff
AfterMASH was a flawed idea from its inception
A cameo by Hawkeye or B.J. Hunnicutt may have givenAfterMASHa ratings bump, but it wouldn’t have masked the core issues with the offshoot. It’s been noted that the central premise of doctors treating war veterans had potential in itself, but it would have worked better as a straight drama. Instead,theMASHspinoff attempted to merge comedy and drama and fell flat on both counts. It also lacked a leading man in the Alda mold to pull it all together, while placing characters like Klinger front and center was a bad idea.
Again, the series was a modest success in its first season, but it was CBS' unwillingness to let it be its own thing that led toAfterMASH’sswift end. If nothing else, the cancellation of the spinoff convinced the network thatMASHwas truly done, and no further attempts have been made to continue or reboot it - not yet, at least.
MAS*H
Cast
MAS*H is a drama-comedy series set during the Korean War, centering on the lives of the staff at the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital as they navigate the challenges of wartime medical service with humor and resilience.
