While the beloved series M*A*S*H is known for its realistic depiction of a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, some aspects of serving in the Korean War had to be toned down. For instance, one of the show’s stars, writers, and directors, Alan Alda, revealed that certain language wasn’t allowed on M*A*S*H that would have been heard among military personnel.
In a 2000 interview for the Television Academy Foundation, Alda explained that the series was censored by the Office of Standards and Practices, especially during the earlier seasons of M*A*S*H before the show became a ratings hit.
“They had us censoring ourselves so that they wouldn’t have to censor us, which I think self-censorship is the worst kind. But the network not only would censor you, they would get the artists to collaborate, the writers and directors to collaborate in that self-censorship,” said Alda, who played M*A*S*H character Hawkeye Pierce throughout the show’s 11-season run until 1983. “Here’s the funny thing, we were censored much more stringently in the beginning when we weren’t successful than we were when we were successful. All of a sudden as soon as we were successful, we could pretty much do and say anything we wanted.”
Alda, now 90, then gave a “ludicrous” example from one of the early seasons. He said that the network wouldn’t allow the character Radar (Gary Burghoff) to say he was a virgin.
“Radar, at one point in one of the early shows, said that he was a virgin. This word was excised by the censor, can’t say the word virgin. Now I thought being a virgin was something that they would like,” quipped Alda.
Alda said that the creator of M*A*S*H, Larry Gelbart, retaliated in his own small way.
“Larry Gelbart was so pissed at this that he got even with them. By the next week, somebody said to the character, ‘Where are you from, soldier?’ He said, ‘The Virgin Islands, sir.’ They couldn’t take that out,” said Alda.
In addition, the actor said there was a limit to how many “damns” and “hells” each episode could have.
“They would cut in half the number of damns that we had in the script, so we’d put twice as many in if we felt we needed a damn. I mean, it gets so silly. It’s childish,” said the Four Seasons actor, now 90.
He also said that he once wrote an episode where Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan (Loretta Swit) takes issue with seeing Hawkeye’s jockstrap. According to Alda, the scene was heavily censored, despite the show repeatedly showing women’s undergarments.
“The network said, ‘You cannot say it. You cannot show it. You can’t even see a bit of white cloth.’ Now, this is really interesting, you can’t see a piece of underwear that a man wears but every week for several years we had never been censored seeing ladies’ brassieres, panties, silk stockings,” said Alda during the 2000 interview.
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