Goodbye Radar and June

On Monday and Tuesday I will be co-hosting the STEPHANIE MILLER syndicated radio show with the much-funnier-than-me Elayne Boosler. 6-9 AM on the West Coast and 9-Noon in the East. Needless to say, big audiences are expected for morning drive time radio on the 3rd and 4th of July.

I’m amazed by the huge reaction to MASH posts. You all realize that until they moved the show to Mondays it was getting its ass kicked by THREE’S COMPANY?

GOODBYE RADAR was supposed to be the finale of season seven. When the network talked Gary Burghoff into postponing his exit until November sweeps (it was a very short conversation, they just wrote a dollar figure on a piece of paper and handed it to him.) we decided to make it more of an event, thus the two parter. (CBS was lobbying for a twelve parter.)

Our goal was to make his actual departure as emotional as possible while still avoiding a long maudlin scene. Hence the casualties. Each character said goodbye in one sentence. I’m a big fan of tiny moments. Radar leaving his teddy bear to Hawkeye said more than any speech we could have ever written. (And you know how long it takes us to write those damn big speeches.)

The name we gave his girlfriend was Patty Haven, a former girlfriend of mine who left me to run a kennel in Fresno.

90% of the time two parters should really be part-and-a-halfs.

I think the rapid fire pace of the dialogue and story telling on MASH was much better suited for a half hour than an hour.

Saw myself on MY FIRST TIME on TVLand. What was I thinking wearing that purple shirt? I looked like a telletubby.

For the MARY show we hired newcomer Katey Segal over Kathy Bates.

Most of the real dish on Mary Tyler Moore I have I will save for my book. I will then have to spend the next few years hiding like Salmon Rushdie while Mary tries to hunt me down.

Suffice it to say I can’t watch ORDINARY PEOPLE without having Viet Nam flashbacks.

We did make reference to her in a SIMPSONS we wrote. Patty or Selma decided to wear Mary’s classic hairstyle. The town drunk approaches and asks, “Are you Mary Tyler Moore?” She sprays him with mace and he says, “You ARE. You are Mary Tyler Moore!”

Some guys live right. Minnesota Twins’ catcher Joe Mauer is batting an incredible .456 in June and goes home to former Miss USA, Chelea Cooley. Why opposing pitchers aren’t throwing at his head every at bat is beyond me.

The Twins are one of the most exciting teams in baseball. Too bad they play in that giant jello mold.

Caught the Ringo Starr All-Star band concert last weekend. Ringo was charming and it was “far out” hearing those Beatles songs sung by “the actual guy” but he wasn’t the best musician on stage. In fact, he wasn’t even the best drummer on stage. Sheila E. was absolutely phenomenal!! Meanwhile, Edgar Winters looks the same as he did 25 years ago – middle aged and paunchy. The only instrument he didn’t play was the zither.

The only National League team that can beat the American League is the Colorado Rockies. What this means is that the National League should just trade places with the Pacific Coast League.

I was not involved with the final MASH episode. The story was broken into half hour increments and divided up between the writers, who would then each write their segment with Alan Alda.

Booting Star Jones Reynolds off THE VIEW was a good start. Now get rid of the rest of those hens.

It’s hard to not get swept up in World Cup fever when there are all those heart pounding, spine tingling 0-0 games.

When Germany plays Iran, who do you root for?

Check back tomorrow for one of my favorite MASH anecdotes.