The war comedy-drama series “M*A*S*H” ran for 11 seasons, but its co-creator only stuck around for the first four. Speaking to the Atlanta Constitution in March 1976, Larry Gelbart explained that he’d been suffering from “battle fatigue,” adding, “I feel I’ve done as well as I can with the show. I just don’t know how to say what we say in any more different or unusual way than what we did in our last show of the season.”
Gelbart was referring to the Season 4 finale, “The Interview,” an unusual episode set in black-and-white and formatted around a series of interviews with the show’s main characters. It was praised by critics for its character work and its willingness to switch up the show’s format. Season 4 overall is often considered one of the show’s greatest seasons, helping to establish “M*A*S*H” as one of the best-ever TV shows to be based off of a movie.
“It was really a lovely way to step away,” Gelbart said about “The Interview.” He complimented CBS for giving him the creative freedom he wanted throughout his time on the show, but maintained that he had “severe brain fatigue” and that he wanted to move away from TV. His next two projects were a movie called “Movie Movie” and a Broadway play called “Sly Fox.” He explained, “‘M*A*S*H’ is the only series I’ve ever done. And I have a feeling it’s the only one I’ll ever do.”
Luckily, M*A*S*H still thrived after Larry Gelbart left
When Larry Gelbart announced his departure from “M*A*S*H,” critic Bob Goodman of The Atlanta Constitution recalled a statement from McLean Stevenson, who had left the show the year before in one of the most shocking exits for a TV star. “The show is bigger than any one performer,” Stevenson said, but added, “As long as Larry Gelbart is still there, ‘M*A*S*H’ will still be a winner.”
Wayne Rogers, an actor who’d also left the show in Season 3 and would soon go on to lead a successful “M*A*S*H” spin-off series, had echoed the sentiment: “If Larry Gelbart departs, then [the show’s] in trouble.” The show did not fall apart after Season 4, however. Co-creator Gene Reynolds stepped up as the sole executive producer for Season 5, and writer Burt Metcalfe took over for the rest of the series. The show stayed strong in the ratings and popular with critics, and kept running until its ratings-shattering series finale in 1983.
In a 1981 interview with The Commercial Appeal, Reynolds credited the show’s longevity with the “ultimate absurdity” of its premise. “These doctors are in the midst of a war designed to destroy, to tear bodies up, to maim, to kill,” he said. “Yet they’re in the business of putting bodies back together again, of curing them so they can go back out and be destroyed again… It’s like eternally pushing a rock up a hill only to have it roll back down.”
