“M*A*S*H” Producers Recount Empty Streets During Series Finale: 'Like an Atomic Bomb Went Off'

NEED TO KNOW

• The cast and crew of M*A*S*H* are remembering the show's iconic finale episode

• The 2.5-hour series finale "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" aired in 1983

• In a new Veteran's Day special, those involved in the filming say disaster almost struck but was ultimately woven into the show itself

The stars and production crew behindM*A*S*Hare recounting their memories of the 1983 series finale — which was so popular that the streets outside were nearly empty as everyone remained indoors to watch the show.

In a Veteran's Day special forMETV, former crew members recalled the streets looking like "an atomic bomb had hit" when the show came on televisions.

"A bunch of us were going out to eat," series editor Stanford Tischler recounted, per a report inWoman's World."I remember we ran the show in the projection room about an hour before it aired, and then came out of Fox Studio onto Pico Boulevard, heading to the restaurant. By that time, the show was airing on television—and the street was empty. It was like a ghost town. It was eerie. Everybody was inside watching that show. There wasn't a car on the street. We drove up Pico Boulevard, Westwood Boulevard—not a car anywhere. It was like an atomic bomb had hit. A real eerie feeling."

The '70s sensation was developed by Larry Gelbart from the original 1970s film and aired on CBS for the first time on Sep. 17, 1972. The show followed a team of doctors stationed at the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in South Korea, and lived on audiences' screens for 11 seasons.

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The show starred the late actorAlan Aldaas Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, the chief surgeon of the 4077thM*A*S*Hunit.  Alda also wrote 19 episodes, which included the 2.5-hour series finale "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen," and was the onlyM*A*S*Hcast character to appear in all 256 episodes.

Executive producer Burt Metcalfe told METV that the finale "was always intended to be a two-hour movie—that was the agreement from the start."

But as the cast and crew began shooting, it became obvious they would need even more air time.

"One day I called CBS and said, 'We've got more material here. We could easily go two and a half hours. Would that be of interest to you?' They called back and said, 'You bet,'" Metcalfe added.

There was a near-disaster, however, when a fire broke out at the Fox Ranch studio where the show filmed. So the crew incorporated the fire into the episode itself.

"It was completely accidental, not something that happened during production, but it destroyed parts of the ranch where we filmed," Metcalfe said, perWoman's World. "Suddenly, scenes we'd planned couldn't be shot. Alan and I went out to assess the damage, and that's when we decided to use it—to make it part of the story."

The fire became a central theme of the episode, Metcalfe added: "That became the thread where the unit has to 'bug out,' which is what they really did in wartime: pick up and move the entire camp. When they returned, everything was burned. That's how we turned disaster into story."

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