What is it?
Herz, Peggy. TV’s Top Ten: Shows and Their Stars. New York: Scholastic Book Services, 1976.
Why should M*A*S*H fans care?
While this book is not solely about M*A*S*H, it does include a chapter on Larry Linville and his work with M*A*S*H.
As a M*A*S*H fan, what part(s) should I read?
The Linville section of the book is only seven pages, but it is short book. There are also articles about other popular shows at the time. It’s a fun snapshot in time!
TL;DR Review
Scholastic is well known for its children’s books and magazines, and in the 1970s, there were several books published by Scholastic that featured popular television shows including M*A*S*H. Peggy Herz’s book, TV’s Top Ten: Shows and Their Stars, includes a feature on Larry Linville, the man behind M*A*S*H antagonist Major Frank Burns.
Full Review
My first job was working for Scholastic, but I knew of the company before I started working for them in 2004. Most kids and parents are familiar with the Scholastic Book Fairs and Book Clubs, and those divisions go back over half a century. What Scholastic was initially known for, besides publishing children’s books, was printing magazines that were distributed in schools. Scholastic’s magazines and books are made for children, and this was the when TV’s Top Ten: Shows and Their Stars was written by Peggy Herz. In 1976, this book was offered through a classroom Book Club for kids to purchase and learn more about the actors behind their favorite shows.
In 1976, television was in its golden age. Shows such as Good Times, Six Million Dollar Man, The Bob Newhart Show, Emergency!, Little House on the Prairie, and M*A*S*H ruled the airwaves. Naturally, the shows that were popular with adults also piqued the interests of children. Scholastic published a series of books in the 1970s featuring their favorite shows and the actors. TV’s Top Ten: Shows and Their Stars featured ten shows and actors from those shows, including Larry Linville from M*A*S*H. Divided into chapters, each chapter reads like a magazine article with information, quotes, and a photo. The chapter on Linville is only seven pages long, but it briefly discusses M*A*S*H as a whole, then focuses on Linville’s education and career before starring in M*A*S*H as Major Frank Burns. The chapter discusses his love of flying, his education at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, and how he felt about playing Burns. Interestingly, the chapter also discusses the research that went in to creating M*A*S*H storylines, and the interviews with MASH doctors and nurses that were conducted by Gene Reynolds and Larry Gelbart. The seven pages (six if you don’t count the full page photo) provides a great overview of M*A*S*H, Linville, and how M*A*S*H worked. It is the perfect description for a kid who enjoyed watching the show when it aired each week.
I have always been advocate for encouraging children to read, and that has long been the mission of Scholastic. So whether a child is interested in fiction, non-fiction, literature, or reading about their favorite television shows, the more they read, the better they get at it. Offering books about popular culture was a great way to connect fans with popular shows and encourage children to read (while making a profit for the company). In TV’s Top Ten: Shows and Their Stars, Herz offers well written and well researched information about the top TV shows of 1976. This is not the only book like this that Scholastic published. I will feature more of Scholastic’s books that feature M*A*S*H in the coming months, and I have previously discussed Herz’s M*A*S*H focused book, All About M*A*S*H, from 1975. Scholastic and Herz developed a formula for books focused on television, and it worked well. I have seen pre-owned copies of this book sell on used book sites in the past, and it is a fun book to add to a M*A*S*H or television history collection.
The M*A*S*H Historian 