1. “M*A*S*H*” — “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen”<\/strong> (Feb. 28,
\n 1983)<\/p>\n
We know, we know, there are lots of you out there who think the two-and-a-half-hour finale is pure genius, but we think after 10-and-a-half increasingly sentimental seasons, the still top-rated show had lost the plot — literally. In the syrupy, self-righteous swan song, earnest Everyman surgeon Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda<\/a>, who co-wrote and directed) suffers a nervous breakdown after witnessing a mother smother her baby on a bus. He recovers and returns to the 4077th in time for the war to end. Tears, manly hugs, and more tears build up to the big heart-tugging conclusion. As Hawkeye’s helicopter takes off, he sees that best bud B.J. (Mike Farrell<\/a>) has spelled out “goodbye” in stones on the ground. Someone give us a schmaltz-ectomy — stat! Still, 106 million people tuned in for the pop-culture event (it’s still the all-time ratings champ), many of whom we expect will write in to tell us just how wrong we are.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Undoubtedly, they’ve already gotten numerous letters pointing out that Honeycutt spelled out goodbye with rolls of toilet paper, not stones.<\/p>\n
I just wanted you, gentle reader, to know that I am much smarter than someone who’s actually figured out a way to earn money getting paid writing for the Internet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MSNBC has picked the Worst (and Best) Television Series Finales, wherein they find M*A*S*H worst of all: 1. “M*A*S*H*” — “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen” (Feb. 28, 1983) We know, we know, there are lots of you out there who think the two-and-a-half-hour finale is pure genius, but we think after 10-and-a-half increasingly sentimental seasons, the still […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-television"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=959"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23302,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959\/revisions\/23302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}