Hogan's Heroes

Alright, welcome!

In honor of Hogan's Heroes being taken off by Me-TV until the fall in favor of some silly cop show C Hi Ps, This is where this thread comes in!

Personally, I think Corporal Newkirk's handsome.

First post completed. Happy?

I was always partial to the first secretary they had on the show. I forget which of the two was Bob Crane's wife.

I own the first two seasons of this on DVD, and I love every minute of it.

The woman who played the second secretary Hilda was Mr. Crane's wife. They even got married on the show's set.

This show was as intimate to my childhood as Star Trek: The Next Generation, because we had extensive recorded off-air tapes of both, and there was little else my parents would watch. My mother and I still occasionally discuss what a movie adaptation of the show would be like. (Not to be confused with Auto Focus, the biopic about Crane's porn addiction that incidentally recreated a lot of the show)

Though at this point my favorite thing about the show is something I've never experienced. The German dub adds an unseen character who works as Klink's maid, whom the characters frequently talk lasciviously about. I haven't seen any information about how they fit her in, but I suspect it's to fill time when the original shows characters praising the Fuhrer or the Nazi Party, since those topics are very strictly regulated in German media.

Most likely.

I wonder what Crane thought of Elsa the She-wolf of the SS. Which would be the particular porn that used the set from the show.

I've loved Hogan's Heroes since the first time I watched it on TV Land. I have the first two seasons on DVD. I just need to finish watching them, then snag the other four.

Much as people like to lambast the show today for being offensive, it's a fact that most of the Nazis were played by Jews, some of whom had escaped Hitler's Germany, who easily could have not signed up for the roles if they found the material offensive.

(And in personal experience... I have family members who suffered under the Nazis, some of whom were even in concentration camps, who thought the show was hilarious.)

I caught a few episodes when my father was recording his favorite childhood shows in a Larry Storch-induced nostalgia frenzy, and I think I ought to watch it again sometime...

It's always worth a watch. It lasted six seasons, so it couldn't have been too offensive. Hell, the one who played the Commandant was a Jew who only agreed to the role if the Nazis were never successful in any of their plots.

The actors considered it their personal revenge on the Nazis.

As they said on set, "Werner (Klemperer, Col. Klink) was a Jew, Leon (Askin, Gen. Burkhalter) was a Jew, Robert (Clary, Le Beau) was a Jew, John (Banner, Schultz) was a Jew, Howard (Caine, Hochstetter) was a Jew, and Ivan (Dixon, Kinch)... well, we're not sure about Ivan."

Not all of them were in the Holocaust, but most had brushes. Found a page on everybody's experiences.

I didn't know about Burkhalter and Hochsteder's actors but I always felt that if Klemperer, Clary and Banner were willing to do it than it wasn't my place to object.

It really isn't offensive. You might get a few nasty pieces of work who are doing more than Klenk's lipservice to Hitler, but Hogan and co always get the drop on them. The rest are in it for the rank or the paycheck and some make it clear that if Germany loses the war they'll have no problem switching sides if given the chance.

For what it's worth, according to The Other Wiki, Schultz mentions supporting a political party that was banned by the Nazis, and Klink's background as a Junker First World War veteran is basically that of the kind of person who was involved in the July 20 plot.

I'm uneasy with the premise because I can't shake the association between POW camps and concentration camps (although the conditions were obviously very different), but probably deliberately, the two main Germans on the show are given realistic backgrounds that would make them the opposite of die-hard Nazis.

Oh dear.... I read the link that was sent. Poor old Robert Clary.

And don't even get me started on how he's the only remaining original main cast member left! (Kenneth Washington is also a surviving main cast member too; he played Sgt. Baker in season 6.)

Not to mention that it was implied that the Nazis confiscated Schultz' toy factory and converted it to weapons manufacture. Always felt he was a case of Obfuscating Stupidity and was actually helping them as much as he could.

I think Baker was around in earlier seasons when Ivan Dixon wasn't available to play Kinch that week, but he only got star billing when Dixon left permanently.

They also had fill-ins for Newkirk and Carter, but they never ascended to star cast.

By the way, the fandom has assembled a chronology for the show that has no relation to broadcast order.

I believe someone has to guess the ages of the characters now, Right?

Interesting that Klink and Schultz both had rather heroic histories in WWI.

". . . Always felt he was a case of Obfuscating Stupidity and was actually helping them as much as he could."

That's the implication, though I haven't read any Word of God on the matter. There's once he says something like "I have to fight on our side sometimes too, you know" and the one episode where Klenk goes away and leaves Schultz in charge, he becomes scarily effective and runs the camp way better than Klenk. They end up having to do some spycraft to get Klenk back before Schultz wipes out all their hard work.

He's never that good as just a sergeant.

Schultz's collusion is variously shown as him being too big a softy to be hard on them, too spineless to report the unbelievable things he's seen, reluctantly giving information in exchange for settling gambling debts, in too deep to report the mischief he had a hand in, politically neutral, more interested in food than following orders, and almost openly believing in the Allied cause.

With it being a comedy, that makes sense. It runs more on Rule of Funny than a drama would. A dramatic version would have probably made it clear Schultz is a double agent.

Wasn't there an episode that implied that Klink was a collaborator? It involved their working with some super spy called The Fox who neither we nor they ever actually meet or see and the ending of the episode implies that Klink is The Fox. Never saw the episode myself just going by hearsay.

edited 15th Sep '15 9:48:53 AM by tricksterson

There were a few times Klink was suspected of espionage, but the one I'm put in mind of is when Klink was going to be summarily executed or something and the gang decided the way to save him was to make him out to be the most wanted spy in Germany, Nimrod (who I think was a real historical spy). Then at the end of the episode, the plans for model airplanes that were mistaken for top-secret dirigible plans by Germans looking for proof of Klink's guilt turned out to really have those dirigible plans slipped into them, with a note from the real Nimrod, who somehow managed to get in and out of Klink's office to plant them undetected, and may well actually be Klink.

It would definitely help explain why Hogan and Co are able to pull off so much crap under Klink's nose. Even he can't really be that blind. I mean . . . why would American prisoners NOT be trying to escape very often? It's their job for crying out loud.