The votes are finally in! We have our first entrant into the shiny new Ripping Good Yarns TV Hall of Fame.
Receiving 0% of the votes were the following -
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
Cagney & Lacy
Medium
Receiving 5% each of the vote were the following -
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Star Trek
Seinfeld
Receiving 17% each of the vote were the following -
Lost
All In The Family
The Twilight Zone
And the winner, our first Hall of Famer, with 34% of the vote is -
M*A*S*H
A great program of the late seventies and early eighties, it depicted war and it's horrible effcts in a manner both darkly humourous and emotionally impactful. The characters were funny, sarcastic and prankish, but they were also very human, and the whole watching public cared about them. Even they more cartoonish characters like Hot Lips Hoolihan and Frank developed an emotional complexity that you rarely saw on television.
It was really the first program to be identified as a dramedy, a combination of drama and comedy that could have you rolling on the floor laughing one minute, and teary-eyed the next. It was the one show while I was in college that students topped their schedule, went into the dorm commons room and watched together.
It's ending has been criticized as being over bloated (it was two and half hours long, an unprecedented send off for what had been a half hour comedy). I actually missed the ending because I had a class that night, but caught it much later. I remember everyone who attended that class was deeply resentful that the Professor had not cancelled the class.
So congratulations, M*A*S*H! You now occupy the premier spot on our imaginary Hall of Fame mantle piece. Huzzah!
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