I have never 'gotten' Hogan's Heroes

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Dan C, Jul 29, 2008.

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  1. audiofool

    audiofool Senior Member

    Location:
    The Castle Arrrggh
    Bill Cosby in I Spy beat out Ivan Dixon by 2 days on the debut episodes of each.
     
    Last edited: Apr 27, 2015
  2. Scott in DC

    Scott in DC Forum Resident

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    I used to watch Hogan's Heroes with my father who liked this show very much. It was a fun show to watch as I recall. It might not hold up so well today but in its time it was a well liked show.

    Scott
     
  3. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Every so often, there was a subtle acknowledgement that Ivan Dixon couldn't disguise himself as a Nazi and run around on missions with the others. Other than that, they were clearly all equal and all contributed to the fight. The gimmicks, trap doors, tunnels, and all that stuff were ridiculously nutty.

    "I know NOTHINGK!"
     
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  4. Peace N. Love

    Peace N. Love Forum Resident

    Among the things that I find funniest are Burkhalter's absolute disdain for Klink, and Klink's endless boasting about the camp's zero-escape record.
     
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  5. Galley

    Galley Forum Resident

    Why is always winter?
     
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  6. Cyberhog9

    Cyberhog9 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Quad Cities IA
    While I don't really much care for tv at all.I'm curious.Is it just the basic format of Hogan's or is there some other agenda you have?Remember this show came out in the 60's.The crybaby mores of today are far different.No offense to the Op.I just think that people nowdays just look for something to be offended by.

    BTW.I was tortured by my grandparents every Saturday night with Lawrence Welk.Scarred for life.
     
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  7. David R. Modny

    David R. Modny Гордий українець-американець

    Location:
    Streetsboro, Ohio
    It was something that was decided early on strictly for continuity's sake. One has to remember that, back-in-the-day, syndicated (i.e. re-run) episodes didn't automatically run in order for sitcoms, as they usually do now. Thus, with the exception of the two principal cast member changes, everything's pretty much setting-interchangeable in terms of running order. It also made it easier to "dress" the set, production-wise...e.g. the constant "snow/ice" on Klink's office window.

    (And, I suppose the feeling was, if they had to go one way or another, winter would seem more appropriate for the prison camp surroundings. But, that's just conjecture on my part)

    They also actually shot most "night" scenes in the day, using day-for-night camera/filter techniques.
     
    Last edited: Apr 27, 2015
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  8. Commander Lucius Emery

    Commander Lucius Emery Forum Resident


    Maynard G Krebs was clearly the smartest person in "Dobie Gillis", as seen by his love of Dizzy Gillepsie and attitude towards work.
     
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  9. Scooterpiety

    Scooterpiety Ars Gratia Artis

    Location:
    Oregon
    It was always winter, but the trees always had leaves on them! If you look closely, occasionally you can even get a glimpse of palm trees!
     
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  10. Commander Lucius Emery

    Commander Lucius Emery Forum Resident


    In one episode a Russian Pilot (Bob Hastings, slumming from McHale's Navy) thinks Hogan's men are Germans until Kinchloe says "Do I look German?". Actually there were a few Black Germans in Nazi Germany, mainly descendants from Germany's pre-WWI African colonies, others the children of post-WWI French Colonial troops and German women. They were discriminated against, encouraged to sterilize (sometimes forced to) but some did serve in the Wehrmacht and Free Arabian Legion.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_black_people_in_Nazi_Germany


    Obviously the tunnels, radios,etc were gimmicks but the real Allied prisoners of Stalag Luft III "The Great Escape" did extraordinary things in building tunnels in sandy ground, getting guards to get them railway tables, civilian clothes, forged documents, etc.
     
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  11. Commander Lucius Emery

    Commander Lucius Emery Forum Resident


    Robert Clary on the DVDs says he was one of these people who is always cold (results of being in a concentration camp?) and was always wearing a scarf, rubbing his hands as a result.
     
  12. Dan C

    Dan C Forum Fotographer Thread Starter

    Location:
    The West
    Where did I say that I was 'offended' by the show? I just have always found it incredibly stupid and could never understand its allure. @Jack White posted an insightful response waaaay back when I started this thing that explained a lot to me. I still hate the show, BTW, but it's interesting to see so many different opinions on it.

    dan c

     
  13. Dan C

    Dan C Forum Fotographer Thread Starter

    Location:
    The West
    Interesting. Yup, these were the transfers I was seeing on HDnet when I started this thread back in '08. We cut cable not too long after that I think and haven't looked back. I also haven't stumped on a 'Hogan's Heros' since and been forced to ponder the popularity of this horrid show. ;)

    The transfers do look exceptionally nice, which I mentioned way back when. The HD transfers also showed that the crew and production designers did a very fine job on the look of this cheap sitcom as well. The whole production design and photography holds up well for the most part, at least in comparison to other productions of the era. My gosh it's hard to imagine shows like 'Gilligan's Island' and 'The Brady Bunch' looking any cheaper than they did. They're so bad it's almost surreal, like an alternate universe taking place in someone's big basement.

    dan c
     
  14. David R. Modny

    David R. Modny Гордий українець-американець

    Location:
    Streetsboro, Ohio

    LOL! That is true. IIRC, it was also mentioned in the Royce, HH book that if one looks carefully in a few episodes, the LA/Desilu Water Tower is visible in a few shots!

    (exteriors were mostly shot on the 40 Acres lot in Culver City)
     
  15. ssmith3046

    ssmith3046 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Arizona desert
    The Great Escape was a huge hit so TV followed with a comedy about a POW camp. My did was a Army Air Corps pilot in WW II and his best friend was shot escaping from a camp so he didn't see much humor in the show.
     
  16. rburly

    rburly Sitting comfortably with Item 9

    Location:
    Orlando
    I first saw Hogan's Heroes with a family a few houses over for me. Their whole family watched it together every week. When I was growing up, every man I knew was in WWII. My dad didn't watch Hogan's Heroes that I can ever recall. He really enjoyed McHale's Navy. There were times I thought he was going to die he was laughing so hard. He thought Tim Conway was really funny.

    I don't think I enjoyed Hogan's Heroes as much as I later did. After a few episodes I "got it" and watched it when I remembered.
     
  17. erniebert

    erniebert Shoe-string audiophile

    Location:
    Toronto area
    This was my favourite part of the show. :) Watching it as a young boy, I always wanted to make tunnels and secret passageways in real life.
     
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  18. george nadara

    george nadara Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    My snip, a bit sloppy. In this episode Hogan and others "escape" to Paris. I absolutely love this mistake. Remember, the setting is during World War II. This episode was broadcast March 3, 1967. At this club, rocker Vince Taylor is advertised. For those who don't know, Vince Taylor inspired or influenced several prominent acts, David Bowie (the Ziggy character), Golden Earring ("Just Like Vince Taylor"), and The Clash (covered his "Brand New Cadillac").

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Taylor

    [​IMG]
     
  19. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Yep, I think I was really enamored of this as a kid, particularly the bunks that would seamlessly wheel out of the way to reveal vast underground facilities where they were printing up phony German marks, giant munitions depots, store rooms with costumes and uniforms... just totally ridiculous. That was the pilot; in later shows, they scaled this back a bit so as to not be so totally ridiculous.
     
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  20. Lgbpop

    Lgbpop New Member

    Hope you all don't mind a newbie reviving a thread dormant for eleven months...but I always love seeing Americans asking a Briton what the difference is between English and British. "British" is a term for people who live on the island of Britain, which includes English and Scottish individuals. "British" came into use in 1707 when the two countries were united under one crown. About the only thing the English and the Scots each have in common is their fondness for ridiculing the other. If an American were to substitute New York for Scotland, and Massachusetts for England, you'd get the idea. Both sides acknowledge the other's existence, if only to provide a basis for their respective sense of superiority.

    If you must bring up Wales, substitute Rhode Island. They are still there, but no one knows exactly why.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    My uncle Bob Peebles and great-uncle Duane Peebles both spent the last 20 months of the war in a Luftwaffe prison camp. They were on separate B-17 missions, shot down days apart over western Germany. They were lucky that happened, as they ended up outside of the Soviet sector after the war ended. They said little about their time in German hands, other than that the food was barely enough to live on but they were treated with civility. I guess there still was mutual respect among flyers on each side, as there had been during WWI. (I guess the Army and Marine Corps prisoners had it worse.) They both loved Hogan's Heroes.

    Funny thing, my dad was drafted late in the war and ended up in the American Theater, flying cargo runs between CZ and Lima in C-47s; closest he came to combat was seeing the occasional German ships or submarines on the ocean below. He didn't care for HH at all, nor for McHale's Navy - but he loved Sergeant Bilko. Go figure.
     
  21. alchemy

    alchemy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sterling, VA
    For me in the 1960's school Jr, High, was like a prisoner of war camp. We students were POWs who could't wait to be released. You can work out the rest.
     
  22. JozefK

    JozefK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dixie
    I really don't see HH as a sitcom. I see it as an adventure show with laughs.

    Although Stalag 17 is the most obvious influence, the show was also deeply indebted to The Great Escape, with its ripping yarn heroes giving it the old school try (as opposed to the rather lethargic characters of Stalag 17). Very organized, with a definite goal and elaborate machinery in place to achieve that goal. Even so, the show still did not sell until the brainstorm -- a tunnel allowing the prisoners to come and go as they wished. This was what overcame network objections that the premise was too confined.

    Many objections to HH are misinformed. It is not set in a concentration camp. And it does not make Nazis into "buffoons". The show differentiates between bureaucrats like Klink and small fry like Schultz, and Nazis like Major Buchalter. Buchalter is no fool -- it takes every bit of Bilko's, er, I mean Hogan's wiles to pull a fast one on him. And a handful of times Hogan goes up against SS officers, who are portrayed as shrewd, deadly opponents.

    Some HH episodes like "Klink vs, the Gonkulator" and "Klink for the Defense", with its Kafkaesque trial scene, are even a little bit satirical.

    One interesting aspect of HH is how it influenced MASH, most notably in the scenes of barging into the Col's office in order to con the commanding officer (which can be traced back to Bilko). The shows shared at least two writers: Lawrence Marks wrote many scripts for both, while Arthur Julien wrote several HH's and one great MASH, "The Sniper".

    I was a big fan of HH reruns as a kid, and rewatching the how in the last few years it has held up for me. I think there are two reasons for this. As I stated, it can be enjoyed as an adventure with laughs. And it has a marvelous comic performance by Werner Klemperer as Col Klink.
     
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  23. Jay_Z

    Jay_Z Forum Resident

    I agree with this. All of the WWII prison movies, at least the ones set in Europe, had strong elements of humor. The show also constantly explained that Klink and Schultz were exceptions, hence a number of episodes where one of them was in threat of transfer and Hogan and company maneuvered to keep the status quo, because more competent replacements would have their operation shut down.

    Also, it being a war, Hogan and company were willing to have the enemy killed if necessary. Kind of odd for a 1960s sitcom, where any talk of death was avoided like the plague. I remember an episode where a Nazi had Hogan and someone they were trying to get out of Germany cornered in a barn and Klink's men somehow wound up shooting the Nazi instead. So I guess even Klink was willing to kill, or order his men to kill.

    Most shows back then had no final episodes. Fans have speculated on what would have happened on HH. Obviously the camp would have been reached by the Allies (presumably not the Russians.) No one would have cared about Schultz, he would have been processed and returned to civilian life when the war was done. But what of Klink?

    It would have been funny if Klink somehow figures out what's going on as the Allies are closing in, and demands that Hogan help him escape! So Klink helps them somehow, maybe they've lost some of their contacts in the closing chaos and Klink can tell them where to go. And Hogan and company help Klink get to Argentina or wherever he wants. Klink was certainly cowardly and craven enough to want to get out at the end.
     
  24. JozefK

    JozefK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dixie
    It's not so much that they are exceptions, it's more that they are differentiated from the Gestapo and SS officers. Even hardass Gen Burkhalter is shown as a committed soldier rather than a Nazi.

    Paul Lambert played the officer who blackmailed Hogan. Hogan was able to rig it so he was killed by the Germans (though significantly, just before that he offers Lambert a way out, which Lambert refuses).

    There is another episode where Michal Constantine is a German officer who masquerades as a resistance fighter. Once again, Hogan is able to arrange for the Stalag 13 troops to kill him -- though this time IIRC he doesn't offer him a deal first.

    But in the last season, there is an episode where the crew plants an explosive in a guard's vehicle, and it explodes offscreen. IIRC this was the only time we ever saw the Heroes directly kill someone we'd seen (of course they blew up all sorts of trains and bridges).

    There is also an episode where Hogan plots to detonate a bomb at a dinner party for high ranking German officers -- a party at which Klink and Schultz will be present. This has been used as an example of Hogan's willingness to kill Klink and even Schultz to accomplish his mission. Or maybe the writers just didn't think it out.

    There was no need for Klink to escape. He was not a Nazi.

    Some HH fans have come up with their own endings., such as Hogan helping Klink get through Allied red tape and back into civilian life, or Klink trying to get a job with Schultz's toy company.

    I think my favorite, rivaling in absurdity the great '60s schoolyard rumor about The Fugitive (that Lt. Girard would turn out to be the murderer of Richard Kimble's wife), is the idea that Klink was in fact an Allied agent and knew about Hogan's crew all the time! He just kept quiet about it so as not to blow his cover.

    It does make a kind of sense... How else to explain Klink being so much help to the Allied cause?
     
  25. Hot Ptah

    Hot Ptah Forum Resident In Memoriam

    Location:
    Kansas City, MO
    Watching "Hogan's Heroes" as a child, I liked it because it showed Hogan and the other Allied POWs often helping the Allied war effort by blowing up bridges, munitions storage facilities etc. on German soil outside of the camp. There were a lot of TV shows and films at the time about World War II and our military's heroic efforts during the war, and many films about the heroic French resistance fighters during World War II. These were subjects I was very familiar with even as a child in the 1960s. "The Sound of Music" had been the huge film of my childhood, just a few years earlier, and it was based on a group of good people combining with a convent full of nuns to fool the Nazis. This subject matter was everywhere at the time, often without the horrific realities of World War II shown. It was often implied in films and TV shows of that time, that the Nazis were scary and evil, without details and without showing any atrocities onscreen. TV and films were censored in those days, and much less could be shown (or even mentioned) back then.

    As a child I was on the edge of my seat during "Hogan's Heroes"---would they overcome obstacles and succeed in their plan to blow up the German bridge in time? Then when a big explosion was shown near the end of the episode, I would get happy and excited.

    'The Great Escape" was a very popular film and I remember watching it on TV. "Hogan's Heroes" combined the tunneling, and Allied soldiers of different backgrounds working together against the Germans of "The Great Escape", with wartime heroics.

    The fact that the Allied soldiers on "Hogan's Heroes" were from different nations and backgrounds was something I liked as a child. I liked to see the British guy, the French guy, the different Americans, all pulling together. Whether it was intentional or not, "Star Trek: The Next Generation" copied this from "Hogan's Heroes". The Enterprise bridge crew were of different species, and the natives of Earth were from different parts of Earth, but they all worked together as a team. (Jean-Luc Picard makes a huge point of being from France in an early episode of "Next Generation", and in a later season is shown going back to the family vineyard in France).

    I would very often hear on the playground of my elementary school in the late 1960s, some kid saying "I know NOTHINGK!" --the usual line of Sergeant Schultz. It was very funny to many kids. Also, Klink and Schultz were always terribly afraid of being sent "to the Russian Front". We found that very funny. I had only a vague idea of the history of the Nazi invasion of Russia. The threat of being sent "to the Russian Front" was often used to show why Klink or Schultz would act the way that they did in a particular situation. But the over-the-top, cartoonish fear that Klink and Schultz would exhibit, seemed very funny to us. Also, the way that Klink would yell, "SCHUL-L-L-L-TZ!" when something went wrong. I am chuckling now just thinking of the way that Klink would look so exasperated at those moments. Klemperer's acting really "made" the show.

    It was clear to the viewer that the camp in "Hogan's Heroes" was rather small and did not contain large groups of Jews, including women and children. It was clear that everyone in the camp was an Allied soldier. We didn't know the difference in the different camps, and in fact I never really thought about it until reading this entire thread today. If the camp in "Hogan's Heroes" had shown Jewish women and children living among Hogan and his men, it would have been a totally different story. I don't think anyone would have liked it much.
     
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