When MASH* killed off Lt. Col. Henry Blake in 1975, it shocked America. For a generation used to tidy sitcom endings, the episode “Abyssinia, Henry” dropped a bomb no one saw coming: just as Blake boards a plane home, Radar enters the O.R. and quietly delivers the line that would go down in TV history —
“Lt. Col. Henry Blake’s plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan. It spun in. There were no survivors.”
Viewers were devastated. Letters poured into CBS by the thousands. Overnight, MASH* went from a beloved comedy to a show that dared to show the cost of war.
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