Hogan's Heroes (1 Viewer)

Hi all,

I tried doing a search for Hogan's Heroes as I sure there was a thread that discussed the show, but I did not have much luck as such I started a new thread.

I have all the seasons of Hogan's Heroes on dvd as such I watch it from time to time. Today during my lunch I decided to watch a couple of episodes as such I had a good laugh. Hogan's Heroes is one of those shows you can laugh over and over again with the plots, especially the interaction of the characters.

The sad thing about the show is there is only one actor left from the original cast.

younger1968 said:

Hi all,

I tried doing a search for Hogan's Heroes as I sure there was a thread that discussed the show, but I did not have much luck as such I started a new thread.

I have all the seasons of Hogan's Heroes on dvd as such I watch it from time to time. Today during my lunch I decided to watch a couple of episodes as such I had a good laugh. Hogan's Heroes is one of those shows you can laugh over and over again with the plots, especially the interaction of the characters.

The sad thing about the show is there is only one actor left from the original cast.

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HH was one of my favorite shows when it was originally on, and still is today. I bought all the seasons as they came out on DVD. I probably had fifty of them on 16mm film in my collecting days. A lot of the time they were brand new film prints with the "Place Commercial Here" banners still intact. The DVD transfers are excellent and I would gladly buy the whole series again if it came out in Blu-ray. Colonel Klink is one of my all-time favorite TV characters, although there are lots of great ones on the show. It was very well photographed also. The 1960s had a ton of great TV shows.

I loved this show as well. Don't like the Russian lady that pops up from time to time though.

LeoA said:

I loved this show as well. Don't like the Russian lady that pops up from time to time though.

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Russian gal comments "Hogan Darling" drove me nuts!! Burkhalter was always a hoot as he always called Klink an idiot!!

LeoA said:

I loved this show as well. Don't like the Russian lady that pops up from time to time though.

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Marya played by Nita Talbot. A great character is General Burkhalter's sister, Gertrude. Kathleen Freeman does a great job with her.

Carter as Hitler is classic:

I have memories of it being in syndication when I was a kid. It came on our local CBS affiliate at 5:00PM right before the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. I still have a couple of episodes on VHS. Our CBS affiliate re-ran it late night in the 90's and I recorded the b&w pilot episode and then when TV Land debuted on Nick at Nite, I re-recorded the extended pilot episode.

I liked the pilot episode a lot, but I'm glad that they toned down the scale of their underground operations for the regular series.

The show was never believable (Not that that's a black mark against it since it wasn't meant to be, they were out to create a comedy, not a WWII drama), but it was a bit too unbelievable for its own good in the pilot.

But other than that, the pilot has a very similar feel other than the Camp 13 name being used instead of Stalag 13 (And being in B&W, obviously). Not many pilots commissioned for a test to help sell a show blend in so well, but they pretty much got it right from day 1.

LeoA said:

I liked the pilot episode a lot, but I'm glad that they toned down the scale of their underground operations for the regular series.

The show was never believable (Not that that's a black mark against it since it wasn't meant to be, they were out to create a comedy, not a WWII drama), but it was a bit too unbelievable for its own good in the pilot.

But other than that, the pilot has a very similar feel other than the Camp 13 name being used instead of Stalag 13 (And being in B&W, obviously). Not many pilots commissioned for a test to help sell a show blend in so well, but they got it right from day 1.

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Hi Leo, I have fond memories with the show airing before the evening news. I got into the show for its laughs, especially the characters interaction. Klink/Schulz were great characters and the actor selection was right.

The whole show with its espionage was well done, especially with newkirk and kinch doing impersonations. Kinch was a great, especially with how he did Burkhalter and/or Hofstetter!!. I also love how hogan would change his name to hoganmieir as part of his disguises!

younger1968 said:

Hi Leo, I have fond memories with the show airing before the evening news. I got into the show for its laughs, especially the characters interaction. Klink/Schulz were great characters and the actor selection was right.

The whole show with its espionage was well done, especially with newkirk and kinch doing impersonations. Kinch was a great, especially with how he did Burkhalter and/or Hofstetter!!. I also love how hogan would change his name to hoganmieir as part of his disguises!

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Hey, you exactly mentioned my thoughts of the series! And I've seen it many times, the DVDs are actually good->excellent (esp. S4-6). Holds up better today than most 60s series do IMO, possibly because it doesn't take place then, like Star Trek (which also had the babe-of-the-week feature).

The DVDs are just good enough you can see this was a low-budget affair, something that wasn't so visually obvious (to me) back in the day on TV. Love the old gadgets/electronics/etc., which I guess ~20 years after WW2 were easier to get for little/nothing than would be now.

My only small change would be to say Klink/Schultz/Burkhalter were great and the actors did it brilliantly. Hofstetter was OK in smaller doses, sometimes excellent but also a bit too one-note most of the time ("Who is this man?"). I always thought that only the actors playing Germans were funny, the Allied ones were kind of boring and most of their supposedly-humorous lines were flat, except for when Newkirk dressed up or Kinchloe did the German accents (imagine Kinch passing as an SS officer or such when they dressed up?). Edit: forgot Carter, he was also great impersonating a (typically) high-level officer.

I also dislike the "Russian lady". Edit: and Crittendon!

Howard Caine, who played Major Hochstetter, played another character, Major Feldkamp, earlier in the series. As I recall, Feldkamp was dressed more as a civilian Gestapo agent, whereas Hochstetter was decked out in a full SS uniform. Colonel Crittendon is one of the few characters who doesn't appeal to me, but I do like Marya.

I liked Crittendon and how he was always screwing things up and popping up at the least opportune times, all the while thinking that he's a Godsend to the Allies while oblivious to the problems he's actually causing.

My mother was quietly in love with Colonel Klink -- I could never figure it out but she was always impressed by him and secretly fearing how he'd always get it at the end of each episode, one way or another. She never knew that Werner Klemperer's agreement with the producers and the writers of the show was that Klink was to never win -- he did come close a few times, only in the last few seconds of the show to have lost again.

Also -- Werner Klemperer sang his role -- "Hogannnn", "Gen-eral Burkhalter, how-very-nice-it-is-to see-youuuu" and so on, no doubt influenced by his father, the legendary conductor Otto Klemperer.

Also all the Nazi officers were played by those with a Jewish background, and many sad stories about all of their wartime experiences, notably John Banner, that I'll leave to others to elaborate on.

A couple of years after the show went off the air, the entire Stalag 13 set was used for one of those SS porn movies (forgotten the title)-- I've only ever seen the trailer (and that was enough) where the climax of the movie had the entire set being blown up -- very sad that it was destroyed for this lousy movie, probably by the mid 70s WWii movies were out of style.

After writing the post above, naturally I had to watch some HH, and chose some S6 since it's my least-watched season (no particular reason, probably just because I bought it last). Anyway, I watched the 2-part Lady Chitterly's Lover and Crittendon didn't annoy me the least, and he had two roles in that one. Also watched Eight o'clock and All is Well which has a lot of Hochstetter and he gets to stretch a bit for his character. Redemption for both of them!

I've stated before that Hogan's Heroes is one of my least favorite shows. I've watched a few episodes on Me-TV recently, and it isn't as bad as I remember. Actually, it is pretty good.

This is probably by far the funniest scenes in the whole series.

Brian McP said:

Also all the Nazi officers were played by those with a Jewish background, and many sad stories about all of their wartime experiences, notably John Banner, that I'll leave to others to elaborate on.

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Robert Clary, POW LeBeau, had the worst wartime experience. He lost most of his family at Auschwitz, and himself was imprisoned at the Buchenwald camp and survived over two years there. When the Allies advanced in early Spring 1945, he and others were led on a death march to be executed, and saved by American troops before killed.

Related, sad note...

HH recurring player Arlene Martel ('Tiger' the Underground agent) died last night. Probably best known as 'T'Pring' from STAR TREK "Amok Time."

Weird synchronicity. The second last ep I watched yesterday while making my way through S6 was Operation Tiger (S6D2), when she was on the train to be taken to Berlin to be executed. I think she also appeared in another episode on S6D1. But that was yesterday or the day before, and my short-term memory is barely hours lol...never was good, can't blame old age.

It's too bad there aren't more extras on these DVDs. I guess it was even mostly too late when they first came out, but it would have been nice to attempt to capture some of the tons of actors who appeared. Or maybe they would rather have not said anything...

Looks like Germany is getting a complete series Blu-Ray release.

https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07B4Q557Q?tag=bluraycom04-21