Everyone loves a good old-fashioned happy ending. However, not every experience in life is tied up neatly with a bow. Real life is awkward and messy, thick with human emotion and strife. That was the sort of nature that Larry Gelbart attempted to harness when he began developing M*A*S*H as a television series.

In his memoir, Laughing Matters, the executive producer explained that much of his work on the series was driven by a desire to portray war as it actually was. By the time the first season was in full swing, the series was commended for its ability to balance humor and tragedy, sometimes even in the same scene.

Because of this appreciation, Gelbart explained that he was able to take his plots one step further.

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“Drunk with success, driven by momentum, we very quickly rid ourselves of the obligation to resolve every dilemma in which we placed our characters. A good many times we chose not to solve the problems they faced, letting some of them go unresolved, even allowing an occasional episode to come to that rarest of conclusions in commercial, half-hour TV - an unhappy ending.”

A master creator, Gelbart’s gut instincts proved fruitful; these unresolved plots and stories were well appreciated by the audience, however, less so by CBS.

“This was another area of contention with the network,” wrote Gelbart. “Networks are never comfortable parting with established, comfortable ways, nor are they advocates of leaving an audience sad - too sad to rush right out and buy a year’s supply of deodorant.”