Students Faculty & Staff Parents Alumni

On why his show M*A*S*H dealt with heavy social-political issues but was still able to be funny:

Larry Gelbart

Larry Gelbart ponders why his show M*A*S*H dealt with heavy social-political issues but was still able to be funny. Interviewed March 10, 2005 in Los Angeles, CA.

Larry Gelbart (b. February 25, 1928 in Chicago, IL) is a comedy writer with over 60 years of credits. Gelbart began as a writer for Danny Thomas' radio show when he was just 16, and went on to write for Ed Gardner on Duffy’s Tavern and the Joan Davis Show. After serving in the Army where he wrote for the Armed Forces Radio Service, in 1953 he joined the writing staff of Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows. In the 1950s, he wrote for television and alongside other gifted comedy writers and performers such as Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Red Buttons, Carl Reiner, and Neil Simon and for comedy legends Jack Paar and Bob Hope.

Gelbart co-authored the long-running A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum with Burt Shevelove in 1962, and many UK series in the '60s. In 1972 he returned to the United States to produce and write the bulk of the episodes of the TV series M*A*S*H. He also wrote the screenplays Oh, God! and Movie Movie, and in 1982 co-wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay for Tootsie. Gelbart's other Broadway credits include City of Angels (musical) and the Iran-contra satire Mastergate. Gelbart wrote his memoirs, Laughing Matters, in 1997.

Find Emerson On...

© 2013 Emerson College
All Rights Reserved

120 Boylston Street
Boston, MA 02116-4624
617.824.8500