M*A*S*H is a highly regarded series by its fans and in television history, but it was also a widely awarded series during its eleven year run. The series, its cast, and its production staff all won awards on many stages including at the Emmys, Golden Globes, Peoples’ Choice, and even the Peabody Awards. Following its tenth season, M*A*S*H picked up two additional Emmy wins at the 24th Annual Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Awards on Sunday, September 19, 1982. Alan Alda won Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and Loretta Swit won Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy series. Twentieth Century Fox Television celebrated the wins with an ad campaign and a memo to the press.
I first acquired the congratulatory advertisement from Twentieth Century Fox Television featuring a photo of Alan Alda and Loretta Swit with their Emmys a few months ago, and I realized that it related to a press release also in the collection. The ad was likely distributed in multiple magazines and newspapers, and the ad pictured above is from the September 24, 1982 edition of The Hollywood Reporter. Winning an Emmy is a big achievement for a television series, and for a series that had been on for ten years, it is an even bigger feat to continue receiving nominations and taking home statuettes. M*A*S*H achieved this in 1982 with ten nominations and winning two of the big awards of the evening. The other categories for which M*A*S*H was nominated included:
- Outstanding Comedy Series
- Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series (both Harry Morgan and David Ogden Stiers were nominated in this category)
- Outstanding Directing in a Comedy Series (Burt Metcalfe, Charles S. Dubin, Hy Averback, and Alda were all nominated in this category)
- Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series (Alda)
The next day, Fox send a memo to the press announcing Alda and Swit’s Emmy wins. In the release, they note that since the release of the Season 10 Press Kit, M*A*S*H had achieved two more wins. They went on to say that this was Alda’s fifth Emmy win, and he had a total of 21 nominations for M*A*S*H up to that point. The memo points out that Alda was the only person to win Emmys in each of the acting, writing, and directing categories. Swit had also received nine nominations and two wins for M*A*S*H over the show’s, then, ten year run. Of course, the series ran for another season, and would rack up more nominations at the 1983 Emmy awards, but that is for another post.
I really like the pairing of the advertisement from 20th Century Fox Television and the press memo. Both illustrate how important it was to the studio for M*A*S*H to achieve these wins. In 1982, there were only three major networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC), so the competition was fierce as to which network would take home the most statuettes at the end of the night. Interestingly, the distribution of the awards that year were pretty even with ABC taking home the most with eight. But NBC and CBS were tied with seven each. As fans, we know that M*A*S*H was a great series, and it is great that its peers recognized that as well.
The M*A*S*H Historian 