How did Hogan's Heroes get on the air?

This sitcom about a Nazi prisoner of war camp went on the air less than 20 years after the Nazi concentration camps were opened. Granted, the show deals with a prisoner of war camp and not a death camp, but it still seeks guffaws from "Heil Hitler!" gags and has recurring Nazi characters who, although ridiculed for the most part, are in some ways pitiable and at moments even sympathetic (e.g., the hapless and bumbling Sgt. Schultz).

Does anyone remember when the show went on the air, what the media and public response was? Was there controversy that you remember?

How do you feel about the show, watching it now? Do you consider it political commentary (good or bad?), harmless laughs, cheap humor, propaganda, or something even more egregious? What is your response to the show looking at it from 2005, and what do you think the intent of its creators and the responses of the public were at the time? It is a very different show than even M*A*S*H, which came a decade later. What reactions does this show elicit from you?

Also, would we see something like this today? If no, why, and if yes, what form would it take? What do you think of when you see these reruns? Pick and choose any question. Or make up your own.

Though, alas, I don't remember it from anything other than reruns, watched with my grandparents on monthly visits in the 70s/80s. Channel 11 in Fort Worth, Texas. Granddad, btw, was a decorated WWII officer who helped liberate some of those camps. While any discussion of The War or Nazis really "freaked him out," he thought "Hogan's Heroes" was prety funny.

I suspect that amongst previous generations, there was less of a group-consciousness about political correctness and a greater willingness to suspend all disbelief, focusing on what something was, rather than possible real world allusions or allegories.

Then again, I was ten years old, so what the hell do I know?

Which was true actually, they were big losers.

Not sure how it got on the air though.

circumstances beyond it's control. Also known as "black humor".

I find it far more palatable to laugh than cry!

needs to develop black humor to survive. Of course, it is not exclusive, anyone can use it at times.

I mean, the POWs were conducting a sabotage operation and could do things with impunity. What I am amazed at though is that after all these years I never expected F Troop to become reality.

If anything resembles that show, the Bush administration does.

Did you know that the producers, and half of the actors, were Jewish?
Did you know that Werner Klemperer agreed to do the role of Col. Klink, only when assured that the Nazis would always be the bumbling fools? They knew what they were doing, and were very sensitive to what messages they were conveying. (I don't think you can say that about many shows today)

Many WWII vets, like my Dad, loved the show. They knew the horrors of the war - and they never got so uptight as to see the show as anything close to reality. Dad used to say "I love it, because it's so impossible.... you aren't supposed to take it seriously."

I'll take Hogan over any shit on TV today. (I already have seasons 1 & 2 on DVD)

That's exactly the kind of thing I was wondering about. Were these things discussed when it went on the air, or did it air without those kinds of public conversations? Was the response mixed or generally accepting?

I wish I had known this when the show was still on. (Yeah, I'm that old)

It was funny. It was well done.

Supposedly, it was "inspired" by "Stalag 17", but that was a far darker type of comedy.

What I find even more incredible was the 70s genre of Nazi chic softcore porn..."IIlsa, She Wolf of the SS", "Love Camp 7", "Stalag 69"...

I once read a review of that on SomethingAwful.com. After finishing, for the first time ever, I felt so dirty I actually took a shower.

read it on SA, and was just... ick

it was pretty goofy, but also pretty smart. I remember thinking as a kid that there was another meaning underneath all the goofiness. Maybe I imagined that. Plus it was quite diverse racially for the time.

I loved how they endlessly were building a tunnel, and how clueless the Nazis were.

It's a biopic movie about Bob Crane, otherwise known as "Hogan".

Hollywood never thought it would fly, and they resented it immensely. There was an initial revulsion, but because everyone was such a caricature it was eventually accepted. Before then, no one had tried to have a show with a sense of humor about WWII. I think it was needed at the time, although now we view it as insensitive.

However, without the success of Hogan's Heroes, M*A*S*H never could have made it on the air.

I've seen every episode of HH ('twas my grandfather's favorite show - Normandy vet), and I think its a simplistic view of the war and what people went through. At the time, I think that's what people needed to get past the atrocities. We were already doing business with the Germans and the USSR had supplanted the Nazis as the biggest threat to humanity from our perspective.

Nothing like that could get on the air today, but a show based on general stereotypes like HH probably came closest (albeit tongue-in-cheek) with Whoopi Goldberg's sitcom from a few years ago, which at the very least had an Iranian character who everyone assumed was an Arabic, Muslim terrorist. The best episodes from that show played on that character's stereotypes about Americans and black women, and vice-versa with American's stereotypes about arabs/Muslims/black women.

Since it didn't stay on the air that long, I'd say we're past that kind of humor as a country.

Great movie.

Except it had modern stripper shoes... everything else was bang-on for period accuracy, except the shoes.

You call them "recurring Nazi characters" which Schultz was not. Klink and Schultz's only interests were in surviving the war. Schultz was openly agnostic on who was going to win or should win, I believe.

They show allowed the humor by diassociating everyone from any of the ugliness of the war. Hogan and his people don't spend much time killing anyone. It's not funny. You just hear the bombs going off a long ways away. Nobody discusses concentration camps. It's not funny.

... above ground nuclear testing, etc. How's that for a hypothesis?

At the same time people were putting aluminum siding on beautiful old houses to make them look "modern," building bigger and better nuclear weapons, and so on. The only mass psychosis that was even remotely interesting and constructive was the "space race."

After the Great Depression and the Second World War the white ruling classes of the United States went stark raving howling at the moon insane. It took the civil rights movement to slap some sense back into them.

Just take a look at George W. Bush and his siblings. I'll bet they still think Hogan's Heros is hilarious.

Just think if WW II ended in 1985 and we already had a version of Hogan's Heroes today. Somehow I doubt that would be accepted in this climate.

I wasn't old enough to remember the societal or media response when the show debuted. The program is hysterical and one of my favorites. Hell, all the oddball '60s comedies are among my favorites. Other than The Simpsons and King of the Hill I don't find anything in ths era remotely funny.

The irony....even though I was a kid, I recognized it for what it was.....the Nazis all looked like idiots.

I'd LOVE to see a program with Iraqis imprisoned by the Americans mocking their captors and plotting escape routes and generally outsmarting their keepers. It might actually make me watch the boob tube again, other than local news and PBS. Most television sucks.

The entire audience was doubled over with laughted when they screened the pilot and it was immediately green lighted.

The show was Top 10.......:rofl: :rofl: :spray:

:)

i thought it was funny then i realized that it really wasn`t. i`m not sure if a program like that would fly today..

and damn funny to boot.

That was the point, and not a bad one. :)

a fox sometimes, saying,"I know nothing--nothing!"

I don't think we'd see anything like this anymore though; people are afraid of being tasteless.

Tucker

Sorry to laugh - I just can't believe you posted the thought "people are afraid of being tasteless" in the Lounge! :rofl:

I believe the film paved the way for the TV show.

and I love both the movie and Hogan's Heros.

time imo.

I think it was OK w people bc of the more "serious" story lines theyd have underneath, or in addition to the humor- the prisoners plots to undermine the nazis, nazis always getting thwarted.

that one Feel real....

It has a Nazi in it too and dancing Hitlers.

"Don't be stupid. Be a smarty. Come and join the Nazi Party!!"

When I was younger I was fascinated with the Holocaust, so I knew quite a bit about what happened, but for some reason I never associated the show with the Holocaust or the actual war my dad fought in. The show never mentioned anything more than the prisoner of war camps, and there just seemed to be a disassociation with the war altogether--this was comedy.

John Banner played a very similar role in the movie "36 Hours" with James Garner and Eva Marie Saint (1965) http://imdb.com/title/tt0057809. He seemed to be a bumbling sergeant in the German military, but he was very cynical and actually helped the main characters escape by killing one of his colleagues. This movie came out about the time that Hogan's Heroes debuted. It's a good movie if you can find it.

One of our "christian" TV stations shows Hogan's Heroes on Saturday night, and I love watching it. It's just so over-the-top, almost a parady of war films. But man, John Banner and Werner Klemperer were awesome! And so many good actors played bit or recurring roles. It was a really well-cast show.

And yes, I had a crush on Bob Crane as a 12-year-old--if I'd only known then what I know now--yikes!!

A show like this couldn't be done today--today's comedy is too dark, it would never work.

who played Maj. Hochstetter was born in Nashville Tennessee and in order to erase his southern accent mastered 32 foreign and American dialects. In 1961 he appeared as Hugo Wallner in Judgment at Nuremberg with Werner Kemperer who starred as Emil Hahn the most militant of the defendants. He was also an accomplished five-string banjo player who won trophies at 29 prominent banjo and fiddle contests for both Best Traditional Banjo and Traditional Singing. Caine was also Jewish.

A little trivia. The leather jacket worn by Bob Crane during the series was also worn by Frank Sinatra in "Von Ryan's Express" and Greg Kinnear in "Auto Focus".

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