Hill Street Blues, iirc, was the first to show (iin the U.S.) male nudity.
I think they were also the first show to get away with a character saying “Son of a bitch!”
I think Charlie’s Angels was the first to use the word “ass” in the sense of “derrière.”
IIRC - St. Elsewhere was the first show to have a regular character with AIDS
Who was first, them or MASH?
“Maude” said it some years earlier.
You’re right: Hawkeye called Sidney Freedman an SOB in the final episode of MASH ***, aired on 28 February 1983. John la Rue said “Son of a bitch!” when informed of Sgt Esterhaus’s death in “Grace under Pressure,” the episode of HSB aired on 2 February 1984, almost a year later.
How time flies… 
EDIT: Can you find the episode of Maude where they used it?
Walter’s Heart Attack September 23, 1974.
Didn’t NYPD Blue cause a stir for upping the nudity and violence anty, so to speak? IIRC something about it having more primetime nudity than had previously been on TV.
I’d also like to know which show first popularized that stupid shaky-cam thing. I first noticed it on this show.
Short lived Hot l Baltimore (1975) had a gay couple.
I don’t know if it was truly the first time, but a few years ago my, now deceased, Mom was watching TV and called out to me: I just saw something on TV that I’ve never seen before. Me: What’s that, Ma? Mom: Two boys kissing. Me: How’d that make you feel, Ma?
Of course it was an episode of Glee.
Actually, IIRC, Hawkeye called the South Korean Intelligence officer who was taking away the North Korean spy to be tortured and executed a son of a bitch well before the final episode.
I don’t think they ever said ‘hell’ in that episode. There was another episode where a criminal dies and goes to what he thinks is heaven because he can have absolutely anything he wants. After becoming totally bored with the utter futility of living there he tells his ‘angel’ (played by Sebastian Cabot) that he wants to go to, “the other place” to which Cabot menacingly replies, “This is the other place!” then he laughs maniacally.
A quiz game I just played credited MASH with being the first TV show to show a nude male butt.
In the episode I’m speaking of, hell occurs at least twice in the dialog. Once as a meaningless profanity, once as literal hell where you might end up in the afterlife. It’s right there in the wikipedia article I linked.
Oh, hell, here’s the episode. It’s just after the 22:00 mark.
Didn’t All My Children have a lesbian character?
Before the show even aired a classmate (college age) asked me to sign a petition to get it canned. I didn’t but I thought of him every year when it got renewed.
I know way too much about TV and I have never heard of that one.
Is this a first of some sort? We were discussing primetime shows in my point about Soap. Were they first to have a gay character at all?
What was the first show where a woman wore trousers? I’d like to exclude jeans or something like that when she’s cleaning or gardening or horseback riding.
The reason I ask, was that during the 60’s I was watching one of the astronaut launches and there was a woman in the control room wearing trousers. I was shocked! This was before pant suits. I can remember the furor from that.