On September 17, 1972, M*A*S*H aired for the first time.

[markie]

1. this in my email yesterday

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2022/09/making-mash/

"Thoughtful and meticulous, Reynolds made two critical decisions that allowed M*A*S*H to blend comedy and drama to greater effect than any television show before it (or, for that matter, almost any since). The first was in selecting a writer. Reynolds’s first choice was Ring Lardner Jr., a member of the formerly blacklisted Hollywood Ten, who wrote the movie’s screenplay. When Lardner passed on the project, Reynolds remembered an old friend, Larry Gelbart. At that point, Gelbart was not an obvious choice: He had not worked in American television or even lived in the U.S. for nearly a decade, but in the fraternity of television comedy writers, he was revered; Norman Lear, for one, considered him the wittiest of all..."