The cast of M*A*S*H reunited to sell IBM computers in the '80s

November 15, 2016 8:18 AM

"Hey, everybody, the new computers are here!" It's almost not as bad as it could have been. But it's not exactly good either.
posted by veggieboy (80 comments total)

This IBM commercial from 1986 has more '80s per second than Stranger Things.
posted by kurumi at 8:29 AM on November 15, 2016 [17 favorites]

How you gonna do it, gonna PS/2 it!
posted by glhaynes at 8:32 AM on November 15, 2016 [3 favorites]

Can't beat 256 colors!
posted by drezdn at 8:35 AM on November 15, 2016 [3 favorites]

Trapper John and Col. Potter in the same ad should've opened a Hellmouth, or something ...
posted by allthinky at 8:36 AM on November 15, 2016 [14 favorites]

Shouldn't they all have aged thirty years?
posted by drezdn at 8:38 AM on November 15, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm old enough to remember seeing those on TV.
posted by COD at 8:38 AM on November 15, 2016 [6 favorites]

Me, too. I can remember kind of wishing they would go a little further with it and build up a premise to have the same cast in some office-setting sitcom -- they wouldn't be the MASH characters, just the same ensemble. Oh, well.
posted by briank at 8:43 AM on November 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oh, briank, you perhaps do not remember the horror that was "After MASH".
posted by allthinky at 8:49 AM on November 15, 2016 [8 favorites]

I liked AfterMASH. I also liked Hello, Larry.
posted by jonmc at 9:01 AM on November 15, 2016 [7 favorites]

One fun comedy moment they could have done in the commercial is if a woman was trying to keep her new IBM computer quiet while they were talking and so she smothers it to keep it quiet but then it's actually her baby that she smothers.
posted by chococat at 9:04 AM on November 15, 2016 [67 favorites]

You're mis-remembering that, I think. It was a chicken.
posted by Naberius at 9:09 AM on November 15, 2016 [10 favorites]

Radar has his teddy bear beside him in bed.
posted by orange swan at 9:15 AM on November 15, 2016 [4 favorites]

In a similar vein, the Doctor and Romana advertised Prime Computers.
posted by lharmon at 9:18 AM on November 15, 2016 [12 favorites]

I'm so damn old.
posted by DrAstroZoom at 9:21 AM on November 15, 2016 [4 favorites]

I didn't realize how burned into my brain that was. Like an old public CRT monitor.
posted by humboldt32 at 9:22 AM on November 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

And for our next act, Jim Butterfield presents a 2-hour informercial for the Commodore 64 while sporting a most glorious ensemble of old-timey chinless beard, lesiure suit and low-cut shirt.
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:26 AM on November 15, 2016 [4 favorites]

IT WAS A BABY!
posted by drezdn at 9:29 AM on November 15, 2016 [9 favorites]

There were actually a series of novels written by the same author (M*A*S*H was a novel before being a movie and TV series) covering the original characters after returning Stateside. Not that they lived in the same place but still had adventures together. Hot Lips became a nun, some of the books were pretty funny.
posted by billsaysthis at 9:45 AM on November 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

Oh, briank, you perhaps do not remember the horror that was "After MASH".

Oh, I do indeed remember AfterMASH. But AfterMASH did not have any of the big guns (Alda, Rogers, Swit, Farrell, etc.) and it was the same characters. A sitcom about the wacky hijinx of Klinger and Father Mulcahy in Missouri, or wherever the heck they were, wasn't going anywhere.
posted by briank at 9:46 AM on November 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

I was damn sick of Klinger. But they explored the space.
posted by thelonius at 9:58 AM on November 15, 2016 [4 favorites]

I miss Jim Butterfield - he was a great guy.
posted by parki at 10:05 AM on November 15, 2016

Radar: "Col. Potter, the microcode has a program trap!"
Potter: "Meadow muffins!"
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:11 AM on November 15, 2016 [8 favorites]

Even though I was a pretty media savvy kid (there was a reason why my grandpa said "It's you" about the Mike Teavee character in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and it wasn't because I loved cowboys), the disconnect between the M*A*S*H characters and their commercial counterparts messed me up as a child. Yet I loved when they would come on and I could overthink them. (This isn't a habit I grew out of, obviously.)

Basically these commercials were Alternate Universe M*A*S*H fan fiction years before we had words for that on livejournal.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:13 AM on November 15, 2016 [6 favorites]

The gang’s all here: Wayne Rogers, Harry Morgan, Jamie Farr, Loretta Swit, William Christopher, Gary Burghoff, and even Alan Alda himself.

Alan Alda is not in that top photograph. Larry Linville (Frank Burns) is standing behind Loretta Swit.

Hmmf.
posted by elsietheeel at 10:13 AM on November 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

Also, thank you MetaFilter for nearly always making a chicken/baby joke in any M*A*S*H thread because I'm always gonna appreciate it.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:16 AM on November 15, 2016 [16 favorites]

"A guy crying about a chicken and a baby? I thought this was a comedy show."
posted by bondcliff at 10:19 AM on November 15, 2016 [12 favorites]

Oh, briank, you perhaps do not remember the horror that was "After MASH".

It was like Breaking Bad compared to W*A*L*T*E*R
posted by entropicamericana at 10:21 AM on November 15, 2016 [8 favorites]

I had a PS/2 55sx for a few years in high school and at the beginning of university. It was a perfectly adequate computer.

If only the actual 80's had been as visually interesting as how they were portrayed on TV.
posted by GuyZero at 10:49 AM on November 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

It was like Breaking Bad compared to W*A*L*T*E*R

Viewers learn that O'Reilly returned to Iowa, where he failed at farming. He sold the farm and the livestock and sent his mother off to live with his aunt. His bride left him for another man after their honeymoon. O'Reilly decided to commit suicide, and went to a drug store to buy sleeping pills for an overdose (as well as aspirin, because sleeping pills give him headaches). The drugstore clerk, Victoria, cheered him up and they became good friends. His cousin Wendell helped him get a job on the police force. Walter solves a dispute between two strippers, and gets his wallet back from a young would-be thief whose father had died in Korea.

oh. my. god.
posted by mazola at 10:52 AM on November 15, 2016 [18 favorites]

I literally only realized last week that After MASH was a play on 'aftermath'
posted by Flashman at 10:53 AM on November 15, 2016 [12 favorites]

oh. my. god.

And did you see that the role of Victoria was played by Victoria Jackson? Amazing.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 11:00 AM on November 15, 2016 [7 favorites]

I've also learned there were two seasons of AfterMASH apparently.

What a day this has been.
posted by mazola at 11:03 AM on November 15, 2016 [6 favorites]

the horror... the horror
posted by entropicamericana at 11:05 AM on November 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

!!!
posted by mazola at 11:08 AM on November 15, 2016

This IBM commercial from 1986 has more '80s per second than Stranger Things.

Even that can't overpower the 80s glory of Windows Windows Windows 386.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:09 AM on November 15, 2016 [7 favorites]

Directed by Bill Bixby (!).
posted by mazola at 11:10 AM on November 15, 2016 [5 favorites]

And did you see that the role of Victoria was played by Victoria Jackson? Amazing.

Holy jeeze. I remember watching After MASH but I don't think I ever knew about Walter.

That led me down a wikihole and taught me that Gary Burghoff used to be in a band with Linda Carter. They really need to reunite.
posted by bondcliff at 11:23 AM on November 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

That reminds me so much of the difference between the MASH movie/book and the TV show.

The movie was transgressive, with great actors. The TV series was something your grandparents made a point of watching.
posted by ITravelMontana at 11:26 AM on November 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

After the (television) war, Gary Burghoff returned home and became a successful inventor. His inventions include a toilet seat lifting device, and an automatic chum dispenser for attracting fish.
posted by Naberius at 11:49 AM on November 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

After the (television) war, Gary Burghoff returned home and became a successful inventor. His inventions include a toilet seat lifting device, and an automatic chum dispenser for attracting fish.

Emphasis mine.

I love me some Burghoff but can't tell if serious or....
posted by RolandOfEld at 11:53 AM on November 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

The TV series was something your grandparents made a point of watching.

What?! Did you not see the episodes (spoilers maybe?) where Hawkeye goes insane from seeing, and disapproving of, the horrors of war? The show may not have broken enough barriers but it was a far cry from Leave it to Beaver.
posted by RolandOfEld at 11:54 AM on November 15, 2016 [12 favorites]

The TV series was something your grandparents made a point of watching.

There were three networks. Everybody watched the same things. Everybody watched M*A*S*H. Us kids would watch it with our parents.

The TV show was pretty groundbreaking for its time as well. They touched on some delicate subjects. It got a bit preachy and lame in later years but really there wasn't much else like it.

It's totally dated now though and I don't think I could watch it today.
posted by bondcliff at 11:57 AM on November 15, 2016 [9 favorites]

> successful inventor.
>Emphasis mine.
>I love me some Burghoff but can't tell if serious or....

Well... he did...um, successfully invent things! yeah! nailed it!
posted by Naberius at 11:59 AM on November 15, 2016

technically correct, the best etc etc
posted by entropicamericana at 12:06 PM on November 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

It's totally dated now though and I don't think I could watch it today.

I did a complete rewatch not too long ago. There are definite peaks and valleys, and it is dated, but it's still totally watchable. For quite a long stretch, the writing was superb, although they simply ran out of gas at the end. The list of shows then or now that would make a casual Krafft-Ebing joke is pretty short.
posted by Capt. Renault at 12:16 PM on November 15, 2016 [6 favorites]

jonmc: I also liked Hello, Larry.

Oh, so YOU'RE the one!
posted by davidmsc at 12:27 PM on November 15, 2016 [5 favorites]

I've watched MASH reruns quite recently and it still holds up. The first season grates with the universal and casual sexism, and the later seasons dip too often into bathos, but there's still a ton of solid work throughout and often genius.
posted by tavella at 12:38 PM on November 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

"People want computers, but they don't like IBM's historical connection to the military industrial complex. How do we free our brand from those associations?"
"Uh..."
"Hmmm..."
"Good question."
"Anything?"
"Well... What if we just subtly associate ourselves with the American military in a fun pop culture way, so people will at least forget about that time we gave Hitler a hand with the Holocaust?"
"Brilliant!"
posted by Sys Rq at 12:43 PM on November 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

If you thought those commercials were embarrassing, you should have seen the ones Amos n' Andy did for ENIAC.
posted by PlusDistance at 12:44 PM on November 15, 2016 [10 favorites]

What is it about American commercials involving celebrities that usually makes them so bad? Is it just that we're so used to seeing the celebrities in better written and shot stuff so it looks shoddy? Do they get lazy and assume that since they've got the celebrity they don't need a better script or set or whatever?

The Alan Alda solo commercial wasn't bad, it was visually interesting, brought home the point nicely, and he did it well. The ensemble ones though, wow they were just awful.

I don't see similarly shoddy work in foreign ads with American celebs, the Japanese Tommy Lee Jones BOSS ads were often amusing and good (well, better) for example.
posted by sotonohito at 1:00 PM on November 15, 2016

Oh wow, I've been looking for these for years.
MC Chris sampled this one in the beginning of MC Chris Owns and I've been trying to find the context since the first time I heard it. Thanks!
posted by stobor at 1:03 PM on November 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

Greatest hit from third grade:

IBM
So do I but I don't go around braggin' about it
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 1:10 PM on November 15, 2016 [9 favorites]

Can we talk about the IBM PS/2 for a second?

I was a PC tech back around 1990 or so. The PS/2 represented a large chunk of the "IBM compatible" machines I worked on. This is all pre-Windows, MS-DOS 2.whatever days.

I hated the PC/2 more than just about anything else I worked on*. All of them. Model 30, Model 80, whatever. They were all terrible. The model 55 was kind of neat because it was the first snap-together computer I ever worked on, even including a little pry tool for taking it apart. It was still terrible though.

In order to set them up you need what was called a Reference Disk. This was a 3 1/4" floppy with some configuration software on it so you could do things like set the clock, configure the IRQs of the serial ports, and other stuff like that. A single Reference Disk came with every PS/2. If you bought an add-on card like a modem it also came with a disk that you then could use to configure that card. In order to properly configure a PS/2 with several expansion cards you needed the main disk and every other disk that came with all your cards.

And not one customer who owned a PS/2 knew where the hell their reference disks were.

So if I had to do something like replace a hard drive or a mother board, It was practically impossible to then configure the machine properly. Then I'd have to explain to a customer who is paying my company $150 just for me to show up that, well, technically I did fix their computer but I can't set up their modem because I don't have the reference disk, and then trying to explain what a reference disk was, and the concept of a BIOS (or CMOS? I forget) and pretty much the entire history of computers was... well... it wasn't easy. Remember this was in 1990, many offices were getting their first computers and some offices had a single computer for the entire building.

There was no internet where I could download the disk images. I kept a few in my tool kit but these would often get damaged or lost, and later my non write-protected disks would pick up these new things called "viruses" and spread them to the computers of other customers.

If you knew you were going out to work on a specific PS/2 model you'd have to ask around the shop if anyone had a reference disk for that model and nobody ever wanted to give up a coveted Disk.

Thank you, IBM, but I'll take jumpers and DIP switches any day over Reference Disks.

No wonder Frank Burns liked these things.

Sorry. Rant over. Back to talking about M*A*S*H.

*except for the HP Laser Jet 1. Oh boy.
posted by bondcliff at 1:21 PM on November 15, 2016 [9 favorites]

I hated the PC/2 more than just about anything else I worked on

MicroChannel expansion cards! ESDI drives! The eponymous PS/2 connector!

PS/2 machines were like the Burgess Shale of personal computing - so many fascinating evolutionary dead ends.
posted by GuyZero at 1:38 PM on November 15, 2016 [6 favorites]

"Well... What if we just subtly associate ourselves with the American military in a fun pop culture way, so people will at least forget about that time we gave Hitler a hand with the Holocaust?"
"Brilliant!"

That really wasn't very well-known until a lot later.
posted by GuyZero at 1:39 PM on November 15, 2016

Microchannel! That was the term I couldn't think of. Thank you!
posted by bondcliff at 1:39 PM on November 15, 2016

I remember those commercials and thought they were surreal. Like other MeFites of a certain age I grew up watching M*A*S*H with my parents and siblings; as others have mentioned there wasn't that much to choose from and there were no VCRs (at least during the first part of the seventies) so if you missed an episode you might not get to see it again until summer rerun season if at all. Of course back then each episode was pretty much self-contained, so you didn't need to worry about keeping up with a long story arc as in so many of today's shows. I hadn't seen M*A*S*H in years, but have been watching it recently on one of the cable channels that has been showing blocks of the earlier episodes. In some ways it has aged well, and in others, not so much. It had enough of a liberal bent that the original book's author was said to have disliked it. Even so Hawkeye's behaviour towards women was downright Trumpian, and for the first season of the TV show there was an African-American character called Spearchucker (although to be fair he was also a character in the book and movie). It would definitely be different if produced in this day and age. Also, they didn't have enough anesthesiologists, but that's just my personal bias.
posted by TedW at 2:01 PM on November 15, 2016

Plus it suffered from Happy Days Hair Syndrome. It's about the Army in the fifties, but instead of standard-issue flattops and whatnot, they've all got that shaggy blow-dried shit going. Ridiculous.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:23 PM on November 15, 2016 [5 favorites]

"A guy crying about a chicken and a baby? I thought this was a comedy show."

There was more than that! Why does nobody ever remember the Chinese musicians who died? Huh? It tore Winchester apart!
posted by nubs at 2:24 PM on November 15, 2016 [7 favorites]

Remember the time Loudon Wainwright III joined the unit? Many years later, his son would go to college with the guy from Sons of Anarchy.
posted by drezdn at 2:28 PM on November 15, 2016 [3 favorites]

Plus it suffered from Happy Days Hair Syndrome. It's about the Army in the fifties,

If you really think M*A*S*H is about the Army in the fifties, you haven't really been paying much attention.
posted by blucevalo at 2:49 PM on November 15, 2016 [9 favorites]

These ads are so white and male that I'm surprised that any of us who were not white and male grew up to think we could join in leading society. When I realize what crud I was seeing even in ads, I am more appreciative of the steps my parents took to get me in front of computers and in leadership roles as a child and teen.
posted by Chaussette and the Pussy Cats at 4:26 PM on November 15, 2016 [3 favorites]

If you really think M*A*S*H is about the Army in the fifties, you haven't really been paying much attention.

You know what I mean. It was set in the fifties. And it's not as if the perms and sideburns are any more accurate for Vietnam than Korea. The Army has always had strict regulations on haircuts, and researching and replicating them would have taken minimal effort.
posted by Sys Rq at 4:51 PM on November 15, 2016

researching and replicating them would have taken minimal effort.

I don't think the reason the actors and actresses on a TV Sitcom didn't have regulation compliant hair styles was that the writers, producers, and directors all thought the army let soldiers in Korea wear their hair the way they wanted.
posted by RolandOfEld at 5:13 PM on November 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

Even so Hawkeye's behaviour towards women was downright Trumpian

also endless hilarity from raging alcoholism
posted by thelonius at 5:34 PM on November 15, 2016 [3 favorites]

I met McLean Stevenson once during my mercifully brief career as a secretary at the Bloomington Country Club. This was after his upcoming departure from MASH had been announced, but before the episode aired.

He looked me right in the eye and said that Henry Blake was returning to Bloomington IL to practice medicine.

You just can't trust those Hollywood-types.
posted by she's not there at 6:51 PM on November 15, 2016 [6 favorites]

Plus it suffered from Happy Days Hair Syndrome... instead of standard-issue flattops and whatnot, they've all got that shaggy blow-dried shit going.

Isn't it part of the premise that they are able to get away with bending Army regulations because their medical skills are so highly prized? For the surgeons, anyway. There are like 300 episodes in the series where some general visits the 4077th and chews everyone out for not being "regulation", and Blake/Potter has to stick up for them.

Of course that doesn't really explain 70s hair in the 50s, but anyway.
posted by good in a vacuum at 7:00 PM on November 15, 2016 [3 favorites]

Well, I mean, I saw an episode today where one of the injured soldiers choppered in had just about a full-on Willy Aames perm. So it's not just the loosy-goosy pink bathrobe shtick among the doctors.

I can see the main cast maybe balking at regulation haircuts for years at a time (though you'd think the salaries would give them enough incentive to commit...and it's not as if they couldn't wear wigs if they got other parts elsewhere), but a bit player? It's your big break, kid!

I don't mean to harp on about this like I really super care about it or anything, but, like, come on!
posted by Sys Rq at 7:24 PM on November 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

jonmc: I also liked Hello, Larry.

That's the one where he kept breaking the Fourth Wall? I liked it too.
posted by mikelieman at 9:33 PM on November 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

Well, I mean, I saw an episode today where one of the injured soldiers choppered in had just about a full-on Willy Aames perm. So it's not just the loosy-goosy pink bathrobe shtick among the doctors.

There was a time, before the Internet, when nobody gave a shit about such things. There was no "goofs" section at a place called IMDB, there were no thinkpieces about Hawkeye's changing color scheme throughout the season, there was no list of top ten Potterisms. Nobody complained about spoilers because you either watched it when it was on or you didn't see it at all. People just watched and discussed the story and the jokes the next day.

It was a wonderful time.
posted by bondcliff at 6:36 AM on November 16, 2016 [8 favorites]

To be fair, the full-on Willy Aames perm is what made the Sammy Hagar scruff possible. A lot of people never got that about MASH.
posted by Flippervault at 6:40 AM on November 16, 2016

To be fair, the full-on Willy Aames perm is what made the Sammy Hagar scruff possible. A lot of people never got that about MASH.

Hmm.... Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
posted by entropicamericana at 7:52 AM on November 16, 2016

Wait... Why can Father Mulcahey hear everyone talking? Did he find a cure for tinnitus?
posted by Snowflake at 8:27 AM on November 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

He did, but it involves the deaths of a chicken(not a chicken) and Chinese musicians.
posted by nubs at 9:23 AM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

It was a wonderful time.

You're forgetting all the pilled-up wool-upholstered couches in broad earthtone plaid.

The horror...
posted by Sys Rq at 9:58 AM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

I wouldn't know, my mom put covers on all our furniture and plastic on the carpets.
posted by bondcliff at 9:59 AM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

In 1977 my arch-enemy, Zoom Baldwin, and I decided we were a lot like Hawkeye and Hotlips and that the urge to pull swings out from under the other was actually just sublimated desire. We were in the first grade and had each just seen the episode where Alda and Switt are pinned down in some hut by enemy fire and it seems certain they are not going to make it, and they end up smooching because why not? We discussed the parallels between the two characters and us very thoroughly, I remember. He was my first boyfriend.
posted by staggering termagant at 12:48 PM on November 16, 2016 [8 favorites]

If your first boyfriend's name was Zoom Baldwin, you're doing OK in life.
posted by Capt. Renault at 1:20 PM on November 16, 2016 [9 favorites]

If only the actual 80's had been as visually interesting as how they were portrayed on TV.

They did if you had an Amiga.

And we're off...
posted by meehawl at 9:32 PM on November 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

So, what become of Zoom Baldwin?

(I'm going to be inexplicable sad if he's in marketing or middle-management at some huge corporation.)
posted by she's not there at 12:45 AM on November 20, 2016 [1 favorite]