M*A*S*H became the most watched television program in history, as the final original episode of the fictitious, but uncommonly real, 4077th M*A*S*H (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) unit of the Korean conflict aired this night in 1983. An estimated 125-million people in the U.S. tuned in to see the broadcast on CBS. The program earned a 60.3 rating and a 77 percent share. According to Nielsen Media Research, the 60.3 rating was the average audience rating or the percent tuned to M*A*S*H during the average minute, while the share measured the percentage of TV households whose sets were turned on that night and were tuned to the 2 1/2 hour special of M*A*S*H.

Goodbye, Farewell and Amen (the title of this last original episode) was a fitting farewell to Capt. Benjamin Franklin Pierce (Hawkeye, played by Alan Alda), Maj. Margaret Houlihan (Hot Lips: Loretta Swit), Cpl. Maxwell Klinger (Jamie Farr), Capt. B.J. Hunnicut (Mike Farrell), Col. Sherman Potter (Harry Morgan) and the rest of one of television’s most endearing ensembles. Audience's other favorite regular M*A*S*H players, Capt. John McIntyre (Trapper John: by Wayne Rogers), Major Frank Burns (Larry Linville), Cpl. Walter O’Reilly (Radar: Gary Burghoff), and Lt. Col. Henry Blake (McLean Stevenson) bid adieu between 1975-1977. Radar, Blake and Trapper were discharged, Major Burns was transferred after being AWOL.

The TV version of M*A*S*H first aired on September 17, 1972 and followed the popular movie of the same title. Gary Burghoff was the only actor to take his movie role to TV. The movie had followed the novel, also of the same name, by author Richard Hooker, a doctor who had actually served in a M.A.S.H. unit in Korea. The 251 episodes of M*A*S*H will always be regarded as eleven years of television’s finest moments.