I understand that a lot of the original dialogue Lardner wrote never made it to the screen due to Robert Altman's directorial style. That may be why I never thought MASH was as witty as a lot of others. After a quick scan, I’m going to have to read the script(http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/8200/Mash.txt), because it appears the wit is much sharper and more pointed than what actually made the screen. I’m sure Lardner’s blacklisting gave him time to sharpen his pen before the possibility of scripting MASH was even on the horizon.

On the other hand, my former in-laws included two career Army surgeons (one Vietnam era and the other Gulf War I era) and it was their absolute, all-time favorite movie and they both swore it was the perfect satire of combat medical teams. Did art imitate life or vice versa?

Tom, the Wikipedia entry re the movie has this bit of business:

"The screenplay is extremely different from the original novel; in the DVD audio commentary, Altman refers to the novel as "pretty terrible" and possibly "racist" — the major black character in the movie has the nickname "Spearchucker". He claims that even Lardner's screenplay[clarify] was used only as a springboard. However the screenplay itself reveals that while there is some ad-libbing in the film, and although Altman moved major sequences around, most sequences are in the screenplay. The main deletion is a subplot of Ho-Jon's return to the 4077th - as a casualty. When Radar steals blood from Henry, it is for Ho-Jon's operation under Trapper & Hawkeye's scalpels. When the surgeons are playing poker after the football game, they are resolutely ignoring a dead body being driven away - Ho-Jon's body. The main deviation from the script is trimming much of the dialogue."

I also seem to remember that 20th Century Fox initially hated the movie. Altman had to beg them to let him screen it at a San Francisco film festival. Rave response. Only then did the studio agree to platform release the movie. The rest, as they say, is history.

DYK that screenwriter Larry Gelbart wrote the pilot episode of the TV series? Which means he received royalties for every episode thereafter.