Los héroes de Hogan

My grandfather was a survivor of Auschwitz and several other concentration camps. Hogan's Heroes was one of his favorite shows, because it made the Nazis look like buffoons. So to those who complain that Hogan's Heroes is insensitive, I say that there is always room for a little humor.

This remains one of my favorite shows. The acting is great, and it's clear that the actors are having fun with what are admittedly silly story lines.

This is a classic show. I wish we saw more of HH on reruns, but I will be going out to get the DVDs.

Hogan's Heroes is probably the wildest most far-fetched series next to Gilligan's Island to become successful where so many even more far-fetched shows barely make it their first year. The show had a fine cast, great writing and even edge of the seat adventures as you wondered how Hogan and his men, Americans Andrew Carter, Sgt. James Kinchloe, Sgt. Richard Baker, British Peter Newkirk, French Louis LeBeau and Russian Leonid Kinsky in the pilot, pulled the wool over and outfoxed the Nazis. Werner Klemperer did a wonderful characterization as the pompous Commodant Wilhelm Klink and John Banner became a hysterical Sgt. Hans Schultz with his mugging and facial expressions. The only other roles of recurring Nazis belong to short-tempered General Ivan Burkhalter and the madman Major Wolfgang Hochstetter as played by Leon Askin and Howard Caine, two wonderful character actors. The critics of this show need to go back to school and learn the differences between P.O.W. Camps and Concentration Camps; even people in Germany watching this show today can see the humor and lack of logic in the Nazi's claims of being the superior master race and it is that same arrogance that works so well against them as Hogan uses their own delusions to his advantages. The show is also worthy to watch to see the early roles of William Christopher from M*A*S*H* and repeating returns of director Norm Pitlik as an actor. During the run of the series, the man must have had thirty different roles. Larry Hovis also made repeated impersonations as Hitler, and Bob Crane even got the chance to shine in one episode with his skills as a drummer. Sadly, the exterior sets of the series no longer exist, vanished along with the fictional towns of Hammelsburg and Mayberry, North Carolina.

This TV show is set in World War II, and that in itself was a very bold move to base a sitcom in a such a dark period of human history. This show excels for having, for the most part a good and generally non-realised talented cast. The stories are entertaining and have a decent amount of tension yet it most definitely doesn't take itself too seriously.

As a previous comment pointed out this show was one of the first to portray an African-American as an equal to white people which was very bold and positive move for a 1960's show. Star Trek had at the same time given black people and women a status of equality to men when they cast Nichelle Nichols as an African American woman as a main character. So I am very pleased at the fact that the producers took a chance and made this character righfully as an equal.

The theme music is catchy, ok may be slightly annoying but Jerry Fielding did a competent job. I a m not sure who scores the rest of the episodes, it seems they reuse and make music for certain episodes and recycle whenever they can probably due to budget but its edited nicely. You may be able to know that film editor Michael Kahn started his editing career on this show and has edited many of Steven Spielbergs films to the present. This brings up the issue of production quality. Not bad for 1960's standards for a less than 30 minute job, editing is pretty good, music, cinematography is alright. Not fantastic but this the 1960s.

The aforementioned cast are filled with talent. Most notably is the principle cast, Schultz (John Banner), Klink (Werner Klemperer) and Hogan (Bob Crane). This show has had nothing but top notch actors and guest actors. Bob Crane may have dabbled in some undesirable off-camera infamous affairs but he is nevertheless a great actor.

Watch this show if you haven't, some episodes are forgettable, some are great, some are just fantastic.

One of the all time best comedies? I would say most probably so :).

Most people don't realize that many of the actors who appeared on HH were persecuted by the Nazis in real life. I think that should help to counter the argument that the show trivialized the sufferings of many under the Nazis. Otherwise, why would John Banner, Werner Von Klemperer, Robert Clary, and Leon Askin (General Burkhalter) consent to do the show? I think they took the parts as a sort of revenge against the Nazis who oppressed them. John Banner and Robert Clary were actually inmates in concentration camps. Werner Von Klemperer had to flee Nazi persecution (because his father, the famous conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, Otto, was Jewish). Leon Askin's family were murdered in the Treblinka Death Camp.

I've just heard the British comedian Joe Pasquale being asked to define good comedy and his answer was, tragedy plus time. Hogan's heroes (he said) was one of his inspirations and it reminded me how much I loved this show myself, all those years ago. Who would've thought a Nazi prison camp could be the setting for a comedy series, but it was, and the results were often hilarious. The basic formula is the adversarial daily life between American POWs and their German guards, constantly trying to put one over on each other. The main character was the senior American officer (Colonel Hogan) played by the charismatic Bob Crane who strangely never found fame in any other role and was tragically murdered in Arizona. What gives this show such strength is that the 2 lead Nazis (the overweight Sergeant Schultz & his pompous CO, Colonel Klink) were both played by Jewish actors. John Banner (Schultz) was Austrian and Werner Klemperer (Klink) was German and they both came to America as refugees from the wicked regime in their home countries. How's that for putting a finger up at Hitler! I hope fans of the show will like my own personal "contribution". Hogan's Heroes was a massive success in Britain in 1973/74 and close to where I grew up was a Ministry of Agriculture office. One of the guys who worked there was - literally - the spitting image of John Banner. They could have been twins. This man used to walk to work each day as me and my friends walked to school. As you may know, Schultz' catch-phrase was "I know NOTHING", spoken in a strong German accent and every day this poor guy had to put up with obnoxious kids passing him and muttering " I know NUSSINK." You could tell he knew damn well what was going on, but he would never degrade himself by admitting it :) Sadly I don't think today's "politically correct" climate would smile on a show such as Hogan's heroes, but it IS funny and worth seeing if it's ever shown again.