RIP Trapper John

https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/post/136380427241/rip-wayne-rogers-mash-actor-dies-at-82

Wayne Rogers was one of the brilliant cast of MASH which, for me, was one of the very best things to come out of American TV. It was drama and comedy of the highest quality from start to finish and was a brilliant adaptation from the original film.

My favourite character - the patrician Major Charles Winchester, but they were all good.

 

A great series, it had to be handled carefully being such a serious subject, and it was. One thing that made it for me that the UK version was shown without canned laughter...I recently watched a couple of episodes from a cd boxset that had it in and it was unwatchable...the laughter was in all the wrong places, which probably illustrates the gulf between quality writers and actors, and big company production staff who can't recognise the difference between the humour in a tragic situation and adding laughs to make a p**s poor sitcom seem funny.

 

Agree about the canned laughter. I have never thought that it added anything to comedies. Usually spoils them and, as you say, the laughing can often be in the wrong places.

MASH was not really a comedy though. It was drama sprinkled with brilliant witty lines delivered by top class actors. Not many have done that since. Frasier comes close though

 

That's exactly what I mean, the big company people just don't get the fact that there can be humour...without it being a sitcom.