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"The dark comedy "M*A*S*H" was set during the Korean conflict but aired while America was grappling with the war in Vietnam. "Funny was easy," Larry Gelbert, the show's first writer, recalled. "How not to trivialize human suffering by trying to be comic about it, that was the challenge." This signpost marking the characters' hometowns appeared on the show's California set for its 11-year run, which ended with a 1983 finale seen by an unprecedented 125 million people." -Smithsonian Magazine