Any HOGAN'S HEROES fans? in Off Topic Discussions Forum

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Any HOGAN'S HEROES fans?

Author	Comment
bela lugosi	Any HOGAN'S HEROES fans?	Lead	[-]
Jun 2 12 3:52 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I love this show! I've seen it many times before, but Me-TV is airing it every Sat night with a double blast. Werner Klemperer (Col Klink) and John Banner (Sgt Schultz) make the show as funny as it is. Bob Crane has that wink and nod 60s mod swinger guy thing going on. And the supporting cast is exemplary. It's in poor taste in a way, but if you can bracket that out (which I can), it's hilarious.
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will		#1	[-]
Jun 2 12 4:39 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	It isn't in as poor taste as The Producers. There is also a slight subtlety going on with Schultz and Klink. Although Klemplerer reportedly said to the producers he wouldn't do the show if his character was sympathetic, actually he is. He is pretty incompetent, not evil, is clearly not a fan of the Nazis who he fears, not admires, his "Heil Hitler" is pretty perfunctory, and his main motivation in everything is not to be sent to the Russian Front. Schultz is even more sympathetic, he just wants the war to be over so he can get back to his civilian life. He could care less who wins.
JoeSyz99		#2	[-]
Jun 2 12 4:51 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I always enjoyed the show. I think a favorite one would be the "Gonkulator" episode.
bela lugosi		#3	[-]
Jun 2 12 4:57 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I think Klemperer wouldn't do the shows if his character were sympathetic to Nazis eh? In that sense, he and Banner were definitely not! Love both of those guys.
will		#4	[-]
Jun 3 12 10:22 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Guess we will be seeing a Richard Dawson tribute on Me TV. Fortunately, it won't include episodes from Family Feud.
rvoyttbots		#5	[-]
Jun 3 12 11:08 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	There is one episode where the writers have Hogan acting completely opposite of his established charater. He is basically a whining coward in that one and it is so odd. I think it may have been A TIGER HUNT IN PARIS but not positive. Last Edited By: rvoyttbots Jun 3 12 11:33 AM. Edited 1 times.
Monstroso Sabroso		#6	[-]
Jun 3 12 11:34 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Well, my dad was a POW of the Germans during WW2, and HH was not in such bad taste that he'd object if we kids insisted on having it on CBS the night that show was on. That's saying something, I think. These days, they'd push the taste envelope with a concept like HH -- being "edgy"/offensive to 50% of the audience would be the selling point. In that day, even a possibly offensive concept was given the kind of mild treatment that could cut it with the sponsors, guaranteeing it would go down easy with 98% of the potential audience. --- That said, it's one of those shows I personally can't really revisit. The stand out of the series for me is John Banner. He's the one thing about it that's worth a pause whenever I happen to scan by an episode in progress. Funny man. "I consider it dispassionately as a possibility -- not hysterically as a fact." President William Windom
Mattel Jones		#7	[-]
Jun 3 12 12:06 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The Hogan's Heroes Jello Ad
will		#8	[-]
Jun 3 12 12:39 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Seinfeld bombed in Germany, but Hogan's Heroes was a huge hit when they ran it in the 1990s. But it turns out that is because they changed the show so much in the translation and dubbling, making it much sillier than the original version. They gave Klink and Schultz regional accents Germans look down on. Instead of "Heil Hitler," the characters say something nonsensical. Apparently Germans still have problems dealing with World War II. Previous attempts at translating the show more faithfully were even less popular than Seinfeld.
Grant		#9	[-]
Jun 3 12 2:01 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	bela lugosi wrote: I love this show! I've seen it many times before, but Me-TV is airing it every Sat night with a double blast. Werner Klemperer (Col Klink) and John Banner (Sgt Schultz) make the show as funny as it is. Bob Crane has that wink and nod 60s mod swinger guy thing going on. And the supporting cast is exemplary. It's in poor taste in a way, but if you can bracket that out (which I can), it's hilarious. As I've said before, my problem with it is a huge case of a "minority" one - it's that it isn't light ENOUGH. What I mean is, I don't like it when those frivolous-looking war comedies suddenly get dark. Like McHale's Navy, where they suddenly break away from the comedy to blow up some stock footage Japanese plane or boat. Or Hogan's Heroes with its stock footage factories blowing up. Or even the car of some one-time German character that you've actually seen (villainous character or not, that puts it into a different area). That's my problem with those two, and that's why I sort of prefer COMPLETELY frivolous war comedies, like F-Troop and ' Allo ' Allo.
will		#10	[-]
Jun 3 12 2:21 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	F-Troop didn't have any war. Their Indians were harmless. Allo Allo was hilarious in its very early years, but it is too much of a cartoon to sustain itself in later seasons. Nobody, certainly not the central character, is likable. Klink and Shultz are complex characters compared to the cross dressing and gay Nazis in Allo Allo. Those jokes are funny at first, but it gets tiresome repeating them year after year. And being a British show it doesn't have many episodes per season. If that had been an American show in the sixties with 25+ episodes, it would have been out of gas at the end of the first season.
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Grant		#11	[-]
Jun 3 12 4:27 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Yes, but I meant that having Indians and cavalrymen AT ALL could have meant characters getting killed (even in a comedy), and F-Troop didn't do that. About the only scene I don't like in My Little Chickadee is the Indian attack scene, and not for "P.C." reasons. It's because that scene (as a kind of pro-feminist joke?) insists on Mae West picking off a lot of Indians, and it's the ONLY truly violent scene. Now, if that film had been FULL of her doing things like that, I'm not saying I would like it, but it would make sense. In the same way, I would've hated isolated episodes of F-Troop where someone got killed, and the show didn't do that. Even ' Allo ' Allo finally went in for that in some very LATE episodes, and I didn't like that. To me, there's nothing wrong with an impossibly light war comedy.
bela lugosi		#12	[-]
Jun 3 12 4:54 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Wow, scant praise for what I feel is a very funny show. Hope there are more "silent" fans out there.
Rick		#13	[-]
Jun 3 12 7:16 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I thought the show was okay when I was 15 or 16 years old, but the last time I saw an episode (still a long time ago, maybe 20-25 years back), I didn't see much humor. At the time it scarcely occurred to me that it might be in bad taste, it was just too silly. But in the mid-80s, I met my ex-wife's uncle who had spent a long stretch in a real Stalag. Somehow, in the day or two we spent with him, the subject of HOGAN'S HEROES came up and he was emphatically NOT amused. He didn't go into detail, no ranting and raving, and I can't remember exactly what he said, but it was crystal clear that he hated the show.
The Batman of Gotham		#14	[-]
Jun 3 12 8:07 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I've always loved HOGAN'S HEROES. The whole cast does a great job and - NO - I never considered it to be in bad taste. Rather, I thought it was admirable that people could look back on a bleak time of serious desperation with humor. If you've ever listened to any war era old time radio shows ( THE GREAT GILDERSLEEVE, FIBBER McGEE AND MOLLY, ABBOTT AND COSTELLO, COMMAND PERFORMANCE and others ) you're already aware that the Allied Forces were able to laugh at the expense of the Axis Powers. To me, HOGAN'S HEROES is merely a more direct extention of that spirit of patriotic optimism. I agree that Klink and Schultz were sympathetic characters who weren't really Nazis at heart. Schultz was more "lovable" than Klink but, both were clearly portrayed as victims of circumstance. Klemperer and Banner really made those characters shine! - GJS
skelton knaggs		#15	[-]
Jun 3 12 8:50 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Rod Serling was appalled by Hogans Heroes portraying Nazis as loveable bumbling idiots... "You can't smell any reefer, can you"?
will		#16	[-]
Jun 3 12 10:00 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Rod Serling wasn't very good with comedy. To me comedy without taking some risk isn't very interesting. Hogan's Heroes often was not a laugh riot, because it was not a complete farce like Get Smart or F Troop. Hogan wasn't Maxwell Smart or even Ernie Bilko. He wasn't a bumbler or a goof-off. He was good at his job. The Germans he directly had to deal with were not and to succeed in his non comic missions he had to make sure his incompetent adversaries were not replaced by more competent ones. That is where the comedy came from. The series was just a little more broad than Billy Wilder's Staleg 17. If that movie didn't exist we probably wouldn't be talking about Hogan's Heroes. Last Edited By: will Jun 3 12 10:22 PM. Edited 1 times.
Rick		#17	[-]
Jun 3 12 10:41 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Hogan's Heroes often was not a laugh riot...because of the writing. Dick Van Dyke as Rob Petrie was good at his job, too. Ernie Bilko was great at his job as he saw it. Andy Taylor might have been the greatest sheriff of all time. But the Van Dyke show, the Bilko show, Andy Griffith's show, Get Smart were all well-written for comic effect, and sometimes, particularly in Andy Griffith's case, as much more than comedy. Hogan's Heroes was standard TV comedy. Maybe slightly above average, but nowhere near the heights of The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Andy Griffith Show, You'll Never Get Rich or Get Smart. As it almost always is in any form of entertainment, it's all about the writing. Hogan's was okay, not embarrassing, but standard goofy TV stuff. I can't really comment on F Troop. I absolutely adored it when it was new, but it's been as long since I've seen it as it has been with Hogan's Heroes. So I imagine my opinion might be less kind these days. And Wilder's STALAG 17 is almost a masterpiece. It's true that Hogan probably owes its existence to the movie, but there's no comparison between them. Or if one must, the TV series is gonna come out looking pretty weak.
Grant		#18	[-]
Jun 3 12 10:41 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	skelton knaggs wrote: Rod Serling was appalled by Hogans Heroes portraying Nazis as loveable bumbling idiots... So was Mad Magazine. I hate to say it, but their satire of it gets a little preachy (IMO).
Wich2		#19	[-]
Jun 3 12 10:59 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Pretty hard to overdue jabs at such monstrous targets... >I can't really comment on F Troop.< Rick, the Wife and I caught several in reruns a few years ago. Like every series, it had weak moments - but when it's good, it's still GOOD! And speaking as a Van Dyke acolyte, Ken Berry is right there with him as "Best 60's TV Physical Comedian."
The Batman of Gotham		#20	[-]
Jun 3 12 11:39 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Yes, F-Troop is a lot of fun! It holds up very, very well after all these years! Concerning the writing for HOGAN'S HEROES, I would have to agree that it wasn't up there with DICK VAN DYKE, BILKO or ANDY GRIFFITH. But, even when the writing was just so-so, the character portrayals were still top notch. The performers made that series enjoyable to watch. - GJS
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Any HOGAN'S HEROES fans?

Any HOGAN'S HEROES fans?