What’s So Funny: A writing king is dead

In his memoir, “Never Have Your Dog Stuffed,” Alan Alda relates that in the early ’70s, on an outdoor shoot for the hit series “M*A*S*H,” he was called upon to say a scripted line that made no sense.

Writer-producer Larry Gelbart wasn’t on location to consult, but Alda and co-star Wayne Rogers figured that because Gelbart had written it, it had to be good. So Alda, as Hawkeye Pierce, said it as written.

Watching the rushes later, Gelbart was appalled.

“Why did you say that?” he demanded of Alda.

“Why did I say it? It’s what you wrote.”

“That was a typo!”

It’s an extraordinary writer whose work is so respected that his actors perform his typographical errors. Gelbart, who died two weeks ago, was a master to anyone who wrote, or spoke, dialogue.

Unlike Woody Allen and Mel Brooks, who also wrote for Sid Caesar in the ’50s, Gelbart never became a performer, so he never became familiar to the public.

But in the first four seasons of “M*A*S*H,” as writer-producer, he concocted an unbeatable combination of comedy and drama in the least amusing setting imaginable, a mobile army surgical unit during the Korean War.

Spun off from a hit black-comedy film that had been based on a novel, “M*A*S*H” figured to be a pale TV bowdlerization and should have been a disaster. Gelbart made the impossible look easy.

I was in my early 20s when the series came on, and it hit me dead center. I thought I was Hawkeye Pierce for a couple of years, although I was only an editor and the only surgery I did was on syndicated newspaper columns.

I loved Alda and the other actors. Above all, the writing delighted me. Nobody wrote funnier male banter than Gelbart.

My favorite episode is still “Deal Me Out” from the second season, co-written with Laurence Marks, which weaves three sub-plots around an all-night poker game.

His stuff was so lively and humane, it made writing seem like the best thing one could do — if one could only do it.

Thirty-five years after the premiere season of “M*A*S*H,” I got to write for Alan Alda on a movie. He was a joy and quite kind about the script — although I doubt he would have played the typos.

I never got to meet Gelbart, but his lines will rattle around in my head as long as anything does.

His colleagues knew how good he was. Now that he’s gone, a dozen guys out there are thinking, “Now I’M the funniest writer alive.”

SHERWOOD KIRALY is a Laguna Beach resident. He has written four novels, three of which were critically acclaimed. His novel, “Diminished Capacity,” is now available in bookstores, and the film version is available on DVD.