Sketch o’the Week: Hogan’s Heroes!

Here we go with our newest sketch series entitled “TV shows Tom watched after school as a kid”. This week we visit Stalag 13 and everybody’s favorite lovable looney Nazis! This might be the most unlikely sitcom in the history of TV, and that includes all those starring an unattractive male comedian who somehow had a super hot wife. “Hogan’s Heroes” a COMEDY set in a World War II nazi prisoner of war camp. The nazi’s were all incompetent idiots and the camp was a cover for a covert Allied special ops team that did all manner of espionage, sabotage and resistance assistance. Our sketch is of main stars Bob Crane as Col. Hogan, Werner Klemperer as Col. Klink and John Banner as Sgt. Schultz.

Despite the bizarre premise and setting, the show was a hit that ran for six seasons from 1965-1971. It was one of my favorite after school shows, and it wasn’t until I was in high school and learned about WWII and what the Nazis really were that the weirdness of the sitcom hit home. Later I learned that Klemperer, Banner and Leon Askin who played a Nazi general in the show were actually Jewish, and Robert Clary who played prisoner/special ops frenchman Corp. LeBeau was not only Jewish but actually was imprisoned as a child in the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald, and the rest of his family died at Auschwitz. Klemperer said in interviews that he would only accept the role if the producers guaranteed that his character and the Nazis depicted in the show were never shown to be competent or smart. Clary wrote a book about his time on the show and his family history that I’d love to read sometime.

In a way, this show was a smart way to stick it to the Nazis again… by ridiculing them. Still, no way does a show like the get made today.