M*A*S*H vs. Scrubs - which is the better show?

Cafe Society
1

My wife and I are re-watching Mash on Hulu. By the way, it looks absolutely amazing in HD. They did a great job maintaining the quality of the film they used or they refurbished the whole thing. It looks like it aired yesterday. Well lit, sharp image.

Anyway, we also have recently seen Scrubs, the other long running medical sitcom that we love. I thought I would compare the two shows and see what everyone here thinks as well. Note: I’m only using Scrubs seasons 1-8. Season 9 was a spinoff that the network forced them to keep the name on.

Main Character – Hawkeye Vs. JD

Both of these characters can be annoying at times and over the long runs of the shows, both kind of became cliched versions of themselves. JD with his appletinis, guy-love with Turk, and his obsession with pleasing Dr. Cox. Hawkeye with his “war is bad! Generals are terrible!” spiel that is restated so much, it becomes less powerfu.

However, I love both characters and really think Alan Alda and Zach Braff did a great job leading their cast. They also both did a great job portraying people that could very well be annoying, but that I still like enough by the end of the show.

Winner: Hawkeye Pierce – JD is just too self-obsessed sometimes to win. Hawkeye may grow somewhat tiring over the run, but I still like Season 11 Hawkeye and prefer him overall.

Sidekick – Turk vs. BJ

Oh, feel free to use Trapper if you like, but BJ was there for 8 seasons instead of 3. Again, I really like both of these characters a lot and think they did a great job in a difficult supporting role. Both are probably more likeable than the lead character in the show, to be honest. However, there is just no way to beat BJ for me. They did such a great job with his character and I think no one but Mike Farrell could have played it. He serves as a sidekick to Hawkeye, but really doesn’t feel like a less important character. Turk is much funnier, but I liked BJ more.

Winer: BJ – Love Turk, think Turk is hilarious at times. But BJ is just such a nice guy.

Supporting Cast – Rest of MASH vs Rest of Sacred Heart

Close one, but Scrubs my have the win on this one. Dr. Cox is such a great character and Scrubs ended up with a very large supporting cast that popped in here or there all the time and they were all terrific. Todd, Doug, obviously Bob Kelso. I like Elliot a lot too, though I think they really messed up by having her end up with JD at the end. Her branching off and becoming more independent was probably the right decision, but they could not resist throwing her back together with JD.

Sherman Potter is the best supporting character on MASH. He’s one of my favorite characters on TV and I know Harry Morgan said he could have played him forever. However, I really don’t find Maragaret, Charles, Burns, Klinger, Radar to be as good as characters on scubs.

Winner: Scrubs – I asked Robert Maschio once if it was hard coming in with no notice to play The Todd all the time. He said it was and really limited his availability for other projects. Nice guy.

Overall:

MAS*H is the superior show for me and a lot of it is that it covered a war hospital instead of a normal hospital. I think placing in a way(Korea, but I often consider their war fictional since it clearly took many years of their lives) provided a lot more opportunities for drama than Scrubs did. I also just think that while Mash makes me laugh less, it makes me smile and feel more comfort than Scrubs does. Mash holds up 50(almost) years later and I think Scrubs might achieve that, but it is hard to tell.

Which show do you think is better? Any categories we should include?

2

M*A*S*H became too preachy and took itself too seriously in its later years. I’ll say Scrubs was the better show. I’ve heard it said that as silly and surreal as the comedy could become on Scrubs, it actually depicted the real day-to-day lives of doctors and nurses more accurately than many dramatic series about hospitals did.

3

These shows are so very different. I’ll go with Scrubs by a slim margin because it stuck to it’s core purpose, it was a sitcom. MASH spent too much time on social commentary that was really about Nam, not Korea. MASH just wasn’t funny too much of the time, a lot of the drama was forced, and just too preachy in the end. Scrubs was funny, and took a heavily sarcastic and whimsical perspective on the real life of medical professionals. It wasn’t great overall IMHO, but better than the Alan Alda Sanctimony Revival Show.

4

Yes. MAS*H evolved from a black comedy to a preachy, self-righteous annoying half-hour sermon, led by that perfect (perfect even in his imperfections) evolved being, Hawkeye Pierce.

Whereas Scrubs was a fairly unpretentious sitcom with some funny lines.

5

MASH had higher peaks, both its comedy and drama, but I agree that Scrubs was much more consistent.

6

C’mon, MAS*H was a bona fide cultural phenomenon. The final episode was the most watched non-Super Bowl television program in history.

Yes, it was a social commentary on Viet Nam, that was the intent. It did morph into more of a dramedy over time, which is a reflection of TV writing trends. I will give you that from its beginning to its end, America had moved on from strong anti-establishment views to the party-on disco era, so the social commentary was not as piquant. But comparing it to Scrubs is kinda irrelevant, yah?

7

C’mon… MAS*H was the far better show.

Was there ever a moment in Scrubs that even came close to Radar’s: “…There weren’t no survivors…”

Everybody knows the scene. QED.

8

No, as you can see, many people are indicating they thought Scrubs was better. I do think Mash was better, but not everyone does.

9

Scrubs. Not by much, but the “Alan Alda Show” killed whatever plusses MASH had, and there were plenty. At its core, MASH was a series about an asshole doctor who makes life miserable for everybody around him, including himself.

10

Everyone remembers that because when MASH was on I think we only had the 3 networks, PBS, and maybe 3 UHF channels. We remember it because it was the only thing to watch. And IIRC that was the first time a sitcom had killed off a major character like that.

As for Radar’s line and delivery, I’ll throw it up against JD’s - “Where do you think we are?”

Overall, I have to go with Scrubs. MASH had some excellent stories, writing, and acting, but it became way too much the Hawkeye Pierce show as it went on and Hawkeye went from an interesting character to mister perfect. While Scrubs had a similar issue in later episodes with the JD and Turk relationship, it was kept grounded by McGinley’s consistently awesome characterization of Dr Cox.

As for the death of Henry Blake, it is wrenching but over time the shock has worn off and it doesn’t have near the consistently emotional impact as this scene. (Watching Carla is as hard as watching Dr Cox lose it.)

11

That is exactly the line I came here to mention. I mean, damn.

12

Next up: NYPD Blue vs Brooklyn Nine-Nine - which is the better show about police in New York?

Scrubs and MASH were very different shows - yes, they were both comedies about doctors with some deeply moving moments, but there are more significant differences than similarities, and I’m not sure it’s useful to try to pit them against each other.

13

Any episode of Barney Miller is better than either of em.

14

I’d even argue that this overstates. They each had medical settings of sorts but neither show was about the doctoring, say like the first season of St Elsewhere was. MASH was about commentary over Viet Nam and military bureaucracy and then dramedy of characters. Scrubs was about a sitcom mostly with young single adults. They each happened to be put in medical settings.

I guess one could throw House and a few others to contrast how doctors and doctoring are imagined in popular media?

15

[/quote]

Yes. MAS*H evolved from a black comedy to a preachy, self-righteous annoying half-hour sermon, led by that perfect (perfect even in his imperfections) evolved being, Hawkeye Pierce.

Whereas Scrubs was a fairly unpretentious sitcom with some funny lines.
[/quote]

I agree!

16

The only thing JD and Hawkeye have in common is the actors’ top billings. Dr. Cox is Hawkeye’s counterpart in Scrubs.

17

Scrubs had the more relevant theme song.

18

I’ll just say that while it’s hard to rate Scrubs over MASH, but when MASH was bad it was totally unwatchable. And this is generally due to Alan Alda condescendingly preaching to us for 30 minutes. And unfortunately, in the later years, there were many more bad than good.

19

I’ve never found preachiness to be a problem unless I disagree with what is being preached. That said, I never really enjoyed M*A*S*H all that much. It was too maudlin for my tastes most of the time. There were some good episodes I liked, but it never hit me as enjoyable to watch–even in the earlier “non-preachy” seasons.

So I would say I enjoyed Scrubs more. However, given how big M*A*S*H was, I would not argue Scrubs was a better show. The two are too different for direct comparisons in that way, to me.

20

But I bet it didn’t make as much money.

(I’ve never seen Scurbs but both or all of the actors involved are repugnant to me)