MASH Finale: Most Watched TV Episode in History
The final episode of M*A*S*H, titled 'Goodbye, Farewell and Amen,' aired on February 28, 1983, drawing between 106 and 125 million viewers depending on the measurement method. The two-and-a-half-hour special was the culmination of an eleven-season run that had transformed a comedy about the Korean War into television's most sustained meditation on the absurdity and trauma of armed conflict. Alan Alda, who played Hawkeye Pierce and directed the finale, wrote an ending that focused on the psychological cost of war rather than celebration. The episode's audience record has never been broken by a scripted television broadcast. In New York City, water usage spiked after the episode ended as millions of viewers simultaneously flushed their toilets during the first commercial break. The show, based on a 1970 Robert Altman film, ran three and a half times longer than the actual Korean War.
February 28, 1983
43 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on February 28
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