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CBS was worried that ''too much blood'' on M*A*S*H would frighten an audience off
"The network feared that any kind of gore would be an audience turnoff," wrote executive producer Larry Gelbart.
A fair share of horror movies have gotten a bad rep for “too much gore.” However, just a few decades ago, America’s most popular television series was facing the same admonishment.
A show like M*A*S*H wasn’t just well known for its comedic moments; its realistic and open conversations regarding the violence of war were a breath of fresh air for an audience so used to television sugarcoating similar issues.
However, executive producer Larry Gelbart explained that there was one party who was not thrilled about the show’s realism - the network.
In his memoir, Laughing Matters, Gelbart explained that the network frequently admonished the crew of the show for such graphic depictions of the operating room, where many of the show’s most poignant scenes took place.
“CBS was not too happy in the early years with the scenes we filmed in O.R. - the operating room,” wrote Gelbart. “Too much blood, they said. Any amount of blood would have been too much, of course. Whoever saw blood, never mind that it was the type that came from the makeup department, on a half-hour comedy series? The network feared that any kind of gore would be an audience turnoff.”
Though he had earned the network’s ire, Gelbart got the last laugh - and the audience’s favor.
“The last time I saw the series’s O.R. set, it was on display in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. - a few steps from the original flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to compose our national anthem - along with a number of other M*A*S*H artifacts, and it was drawing record crowds,” wrote Gelbart.
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