37 years ago today, "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen."

On February 28, 1983, "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" -- the 256th and final episode of M*A*S*H in the series' 11th season -- aired to a viewership of 105.97 million and a total audience reckoned at 121.6 million, both records. Only one other event, Super Bowl XLIV, has surpassed it in terms of total viewership, although not in ratings or share.

Mortality is steadily whittling away at the show's cast and crew. McLean Stevenson and Larry Linville are long gone. Harry Morgan died in 2011, Wayne Rogers in 2015, William Christopher in 2016 and David Ogden Stiers in 2018. Producer and writer Gene Reynolds died at 96 earlier this month.

An old W.C. Fields line comes in handy at times like these: "The ranks are thinning."

It has been a very long time since I gave a damn about any television show, but M*A*S*H was very important to me when I was younger. I've always wanted to be a member of a team like that, not a solo performer -- part of a band or of an ensemble. There have been glimpses here and there, and these have been the best of times.

A link from 2018; make that "37."

'M*A*S*H' Finale, 35 Years Later: Untold Stories of One of TV's Most Important Shows

So, what was M*A*S*H's secret? The dramedy about the trials and tribulations of a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital unit during the Korean War was really a love story. In building the landmark series, its cast and crew forged a bond of love and respect that lives to this day: a love for truth in storytelling, a love for the audience they were entertaining and a love for each other.

Someone once asked Harry Morgan (who played Col. Sherman Potter from seasons four through 11 and who died in 2011) if working on M*A*S*H had made him a better actor. He responded that it had made him a better person.

The ranks are thinning: R.I.P. David Ogden Stiers.

As regular readers know, I'm an unreconstructed fan of the television series M*A*S*H. Two articles by Marc Freeman in The Hollywood Reporter recall David Ogden Stiers, as well as the show's final episode in 1983, and its legacy 35 years later.

'M*A*S*H' Stars Recall the Heart and Humor of David Ogden Stiers.

The actor who played Major Charles Emerson Winchester III died Saturday.

Although a role can't define an actor, an actor can define a role. That's what David Ogden Stiers did with M*A*S*H favorite Major Charles Emerson Winchester III. Stiers and the CBS drama's writers created a brilliant surgeon with a rather aloof disposition whose talent and education made him a worthy adversary to Alan Alda's "Hawkeye" Pierce and Mike Farrell's B.J. Hunnicutt, a stark contrast to the buffoonery and prickly nature of Larry Linville's Frank Burns. Stiers died Saturday after a battle with bladder cancer.

Stiers' testimony is missing from Freeman's earlier piece, undoubtedly owing to the gravity of his illness.

'M*A*S*H' Finale, 35 Years Later: Untold Stories of One of TV's Most Important Shows.

Thirty-five years after ending its 11-season run, the cast and creators behind the CBS military comedy look back on one of the most beloved shows in TV history.

Feb. 28, 1983, represents a watershed moment in the history of American pop culture. On that night, the nation seemingly shut down to watch the final episode of CBS' groundbreaking military comedy M*A*S*H. The series would wrap its 11-season run with a two-hour finale that would unite 106 million in front of their TV screens with the same purpose: to say goodbye to what had become a family of overfatigued doctors and nurses.

When the series launched in September 1972, CBS executives thought they had greenlighted a comedy. Series creators Gene Reynolds and Larry Gelbart instead gave the network seriocomic vignettes of universal truths about the human condition. "We helped break the boundaries of the boss coming to dinner and burning the roast," series star Alan Alda (aka Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce) tells The Hollywood Reporter.

Viewers laughed at the characters' antics in Rosie's bar or The Swamp with Hawkeye, nestled in his purple robe, the color of royalty. They mourned losses in the operating room, sensed how tightly Radar (Gary Burghoff) clung to his teddy bear at night, and felt Maxwell Klinger's (Jamie Farr) pride in his Statue of Liberty outfit and B.J. Hunnicutt's (Mike Farrell) broken heart as he missed his daughter's childhood. Remember Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan's (Loretta Swit) shaky first attempt at a joke or when her walled emotions leaked out? Millions saw the fatigue of meatball surgery and exasperation knowing the soldiers they healed would soon return with new wounds or in body bags.

Everyone wanted a part of M*A*S*H. Stars flocked to the set. Prince Charles flirted with the nurses over lunch at the commissary. The Harlem Globetrotters dropped by. You'd be as likely to see Jane Fonda as you would Henry Kissinger waiting in the wings. Years later, Barack Obama would claim to have learned many value lessons from the show.

So, what was M*A*S*H's secret? The dramedy about the trials and tribulations of a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital unit during the Korean War was really a love story. In building the landmark series, its cast and crew forged a bond of love and respect that lives to this day: a love for truth in storytelling, a love for the audience they were entertaining and a love for each other.

Someone once asked Harry Morgan (who played Col. Sherman Potter from seasons four through 11 and who died in 2011) if working on M*A*S*H had made him a better actor. He responded that it had made him a better person.

In honor of the 35th anniversary of the series finale, THR looks back at the history M*A*S*H — as told by those who built it.

R.I.P. William Christopher, whose Father Mulcahy character speaks to the here and now.

In the main, I view celebrity culture as bunk, a convenient way of distracting lemmings from the real issues in their world. Modern social media culture didn't invent this phenomenon, which in America probably dates from the advent of Hollywood, although it surely exacerbates it (sorry, Shane).

Yes, lots of famous musicians, actors and athletes died last year. So did lots of ordinary people in places like Syria. Granted, these unfortunate victims of war by proxy weren't beloved icons of our collective Western youth, which was free and easy compared with that experienced by most people in the world.

Having said all this, naturally I find it disconcerting when musicians (especially) and artists pass on. Business leaders and politicians, far less so. My parents raised me to appreciate big band music, the foremost practitioners of which were in their sixties when I was a kid. Most of them were gone by the time I was 30, and I felt as sad about Duke Ellington's or Count Basie's death as many readers have recently about George Michael or Carrie Fisher.

I'm not a complete curmudgeon. Close, but not entirely.

On the final day of 2016, it was announced that the actor William Christopher had died. By all accounts, he was a stand-up guy, but of course we know him though his vocation. Christopher played many roles, and yet he'll be remembered as Father Mulcahy on the long-running television series M*A*S*H, the last episode of which aired 34 years ago this coming March.

Christopher's small role grew as the series progressed, and I believe the character speaks strongly to the emerging zeitgeist.

As chaplain attached to a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, Father Mulcahy's personal Roman Catholic orientation, while bedrock, was secondary to his job of ministering to all comers -- and maintaining good humor in the face of the secularist's escapist bacchanal.

Fr. Mulcahy: There's someone you want me to talk to?
Hawkeye: Yeah, I got kind of an unusual case for you, Father.
[Mulcahy sees the dog]
Fr. Mulcahy: Oh, my! What denomination is he?
Hawkeye: He's a German shepherd; I guess that makes him a Lutheran.

---

Radar: [Father Mulcahey is about to bless Radar's cow in Iowa over the phone] Do you think you can do it in Methodist?
Father Francis Mulcahy: I'm a piano player, Radar. I'll transpose.

Apart from training in boxing at seminary school, Father Mulcahy was not adequately prepared for the violent situation he was thrust into. He adapted gradually to the routine of war, first the crushing boredom of camp life, alternating suddenly with frenetic activity once the shooting began yet again. Over time, he made himself useful.

Father Mulcahy: [offering to go through the local black market, for needed medicines] You'd be surprised what a priest can get away with.

Father Mulcahy's example was invaluable, not specifically because of his religious bearing, which was taken for granted, but because he was a fundamentally decent man in a fundamentally indecent setting, trying his best to be helpful and generally succeeding, even without medical credentials or a weapon.

Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce: You're not eating, Father. You know something I don't know?
Father Mulcahy: Something's troubling me.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce: Think of me as your mother, Father.
Father Mulcahy: May I make a confession?
Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce: As long as you don't use any real names.
Father Mulcahy: For some time now, I've been comparing the disparity of our callings - Doctor versus priest. You fellows are always able to see the end result of your work. I mean, you know immediately if you've been successful. For me, the results are far less tangible. Sometimes... most of the time... I honestly don't know whether I'm doing any good or not.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce: I used to have a professor in med school who always said, "God cures the patients, but the doctor takes the fee."
Father Mulcahy: Do you think that's true?
Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce: I'm able to do a lot of things in surgery that I'm not really good enough to do.
Father Mulcahy: Thanks, Hawkeye.

If I am to stick by this reference to maintaining one's decency amid indecency, it will strike many Americans as axiomatic in a fundamentalist sense: Think Moral Majority, though to me it was neither moral nor a majority.

As an atheist, I won't go there, except to say that beginning very soon, actions I personally regard as indecent will be escalating -- not all of them emanating from one or the other political party, but most coming from the Republican side of the aisle. Take your pick: Civil liberties, social security, the affordable care act, the environment, and a laundry list of other hot button issues.

It's gospel, and Father Mulcahy's fictional example is about to become relevant in real life, with lightning speed. How to remain decent while fighting indecency? How to do it when it's not even clear what "fighting" means in this new context? If I knew the answers, I'd share them.

Rather, I suspect we're all Father Mulcahy now, faced with the necessity of improvising during the coming baptism of fire.

Rest in peace, William Christopher.

Father Francis Mulcahy: [Trapper, drunk, is sitting at the piano at the O Club] Is something bothering you, Trapper?
Army Capt. "Trapper John" McIntyre: I'm not Catholic, Father.
Father Francis Mulcahy: Well, all in good time... Which is more that I can say about your piano playing.

Repost: "I'll even 'hari kari' if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun."

If I were to start carrying a gun (I'm guessing they're fairly easy to get, although I've never owned one), does it mean this idiotic one-way street in front of my house will start running two ways again?

See, it would be safer in my neighborhood that way, and right now, I don't feel safe at all with the street being one-way. Everyone keeps telling me that carrying a gun is about safety -- pack a piece, and you feel safer. So, does it really work?

Or is carrying a gun not enough, and I must go out and actually shoot the street in order to feel safer?

What's the best place to kill an unsafe one-way street -- near the center line, or near the useless bicycle lanes?

Should I aim for the Silver Creek beginning of the world's longest interstate entrance ramp, or closer to the Best Western down at the other end?

But wait: Ammo's not an absolute drop-dead requirement, is it?

I don't actually have to load my new gun, do I?

It's just the deterrent of being known to carry the gun, right?

It's all so confusing. Back in August, The Economist talked sensibly about it.

God, good guys and guns.

... This dilemma is an iteration of a broader question: whether keeping guns makes people safer. A growing majority of Americans think it does—another mistaken conviction. Daniel Webster of the Johns Hopkins Centre for Gun and Policy Research says that, other factors being equal, keeping a gun at home is associated with a double or triple risk of homicide. What holds for homes is also true of states and countries: more guns mean more gun-related murders, tragic accidents and suicides.

You tell 'em, Sherm.

This fine M*A*S*H moment from Season Eight came to me during a meeting yesterday, and I was delighted to find it on YouTube. This is the actor Harry Morgan's legendary Colonel Potter in a prime, high instructional leadership mode. The issue at hand is summarized, and the orders for resolution are given. Potter's subordinates grouse, but recognize they're all in it together, and react accordingly. They grasp the teaching moment, and realize the game if bigger than its component pieces.

Life should be more like this ... at least every now and then.

Am I right?

Pull down your pants and slide on the ice: RIP Allen Arbus.

The character of Sidney Freedman appeared only rarely on the television series M*A*S*H, but what an impression. The ranks? They're thinning.

Allen Arbus

"Till the day when I'll be going down/That long, long trail with you."