Alan Alda and Mike Farrell team up to celebrate 50th anniversary of CBS series M*A*S*H on Twitter
Alan Alda and Mike Farrell teamed up to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the war dark comedy M*A*S*H that premiered on CBS on September 17, 1972.
The 86-year-old actor who portrayed Captain Benjamin ‘Hawkeye’ Pierce on the critically acclaimed show shared a photo on Twitter on Saturday showing him with Farrell, 83, who played Captain B.J. Hunnicutt.
‘Mike Farrell and I today toasting the 50th anniversary of the show that changed our lives – and our brilliant pals who made it what it was. MASH was a great gift to us,’ Alda wrote as a caption for his roughly 324,000 followers.
Fiftieth anniversary:Â Alan Alda and Mike Farrell teamed up on Saturday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the war dark comedy M*A*S*H that premiered on CBS on September 17, 1972
Alda and Farrell in the photo beamed while standing next to each other holding stemmed glasses filled with red wine.
The ensemble cast originally featured Alda and the late Wayne Rogers, who died in 2015 at age 82, as surgeons Hawkeye and ‘Trapper’ John McIntyre at the ‘4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital’ in Uijeongbu, South Korea, during the Korean War.
Rogers was written out of the after the third season along with the late McLean Stevenson, who died in 1996 at age 68, who portrayed Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake.
Farrell replaced Rogers with Hunnicutt becoming bunkmate and straight-man to Hawkeye’s antics.
TV stars:Â The 86-year-old actor who portrayed Captain Benjamin ‘Hawkeye’ Pierce on the critically acclaimed show shared a photo on Twitter on Saturday showing him with Farrell, 83, who played Captain B.J. Hunnicutt, shown in a still from 1975
Fan favorites: Farrell, shown in November 2019, and Alda, shown in January 2020, played bunkmates and surgeons in the Korean War on the CBS series
M*A*S*H was adapted from the 1970 feature film of the same name and aired 11 seasons on CBS from September 1972 until February 28, 1983.
The series is one of the highest-rated shows in US television history and its final episode was the most-watched television broadcast in American history from 1983 until 2010.
The finale titled ‘Goodbye, Farewell and Amen’ remains the most-watched finale of an TV series and the most-watched episode of a scripted series.
Original ensemble: Alda is shown with fellow original ensemble cast members Larry Linville as Major Frank Burns and Wayne Rogers as Captain ‘Trapper’ John McIntyre in a 1972 still
The show was honored in 1975 with a Peabody Award.
Alda in 2018 revealed that he has Parkinson’s disease.
In addition to portraying Hawkeye, Alda also played a senator who ran for president on The West Wing and he also hosted Scientific American Frontiers on PBS.
Highly popular: Show stars Alda, Rogers and Lorett Swit, 84, as Major Margaret ‘Hot Lips’ Houlihan are shown in a 1972 still
