TOLEDO, Ohio — The popular CBS series "M*A*S*H" ran for 11 seasons from 1972 to 1983. It set the record for the most-watched television show of all time, which it still holds today.
More than 100 million people tuned in to watch its two-and-a-half-hour-long final episode titled "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" on February 28, 1983. It ran on more than three out of every four TV sets in use during its original broadcast and was seen in 60% of U.S. homes.
The wartime dramedy followed a group of doctors and nurses as they treated patients at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, the acronym from which the show draws its name. The series is set during the Korean War, which lasted three years, eight fewer than "M*A*S*H" itself.
Alan Alda starred as Hawkeye Pierce. Toledo's own Jamie Farr played the cross-dressing corporal turned sergeant Maxwell Q. Klinger, putting Toledo on the map with his pining for two Toledo treasures: the Mud Hens and Tony Packo's, the latter of which was mentioned in multiple episodes.
In one episode, the "M*A*S*H" hospital orders Packo's sausage casings to use in a blood-filtering scene. In another episode, Klinger falls asleep from exhaustion and dreams he is walking through the streets of Toledo, eventually ending up at the original Tony Packo's on Front Street.
Farr, who served two years in Korea and Japan while in the U.S. Army, also made an effort to gain a Section 8 discharge from the army.
"M*A*S*H" is still on the air in reruns.