Just read that Larry Gelbart died today…
MASH is one of the best shows in the history of television, and Larry Gelbart was responsible for some of its finest moments.
I believe he was the basis for Alan Alda’s character in Crimes and Misdemeanors.
“If it bends, that’s funny; if it breaks, that’s not funny.”
Wow, what a loss. RIP.
When My Favorite Year, loosely based on Sid Ceasar’s “Your Show of Shows,” came out it was said that the writer who was too shy to speak out loud so he whispered his ideas to the guy sitting next to him was based on Larry Gelbart when he was writing for the show. By the time he made “MAS*H” he had gotten over his shyness and I don’t think he shut up from 1972 until today. See ya, Larry! You were one of the greats.
A big loss that makes me very sad. He’s one of those people you think will never leave us; a fixture of television and film history. If he’d only done MAS*H that would suffice (dayenu!) but he also gave us Tootsie, fer pete’s sakes. I also have fond memories of his participating in the rec.arts.tv.mash newsgroup for many years. Always an open, friendly and funny gentlemen.
(What’s freaking me out a little is the coincidence that I spend much of Thursday watching watching this eight-part / four hour interview with Gelbart from the TV oral history project, which I highly recommend. It’s from the late 1990s and he seemed so vibrant and healthy. To find out a day later that he died is really disturbing.)
Anyway… if I may use a familiar phrase to MAS*H fans (and Latin speakers): Ave atque vale, Larry.
Some words from Larry:
Today’s audience knows more about what’s on television than what’s in life.
Most jokes state a bitter truth.
One doesn’t have a sense of humor. It has you.
Television is a weapon of mass distraction.
If vaudeville had died, television was the box they put it in.
There’ll be laughter in Heaven tonight.
One of that glittering constellation of writers that toiled in the Sid Caesar joke mines he truly was one of the greats.
We’ll miss you, Larry.
Really sad to hear it.
My wife and I love MASH. I actually find the show better than the movie(have not read the book).
I have a much higher appreciation of it having turned off the laugh tracks on the DVD, as it aired in Europe. It was a really cool show.
Dona Nobis Pacem
He’s DEA*D.
I always loved seeing him on the shows recounting life in the writer’s room on your Show of Shows. There were so many icons of comedy in that room and they all deeply respected him.
When I read his obit, I was amazed to learn that he had only one Emmy. You’d think he had a whole shelf full.