As a kid growing up in Northeast Ohio, I always loved to hear that the Cleveland Indians' game was rained out. Why? Well, of course the Indians sucked in the 70's. But the real reason was "Rainout Theater", where they would show Hogan's Heroes episodes back to back.
Of the handful of you reading this, I hear a few of you gasp--"That was a horrible show! Incredibly insensitive!" Well, before I start a review of the series, I wanted to get a few things straight.
When Hogan's Heroes premiered in 1965, bizarre sitcoms were in their heyday, including these premises:
- A Martian living in a boarding house
- A post-Civil War fort run by buffoons
- A dead Mother reincarnated as a car
- An Ozark family living in a Beverly Hills mansion
- Stereotypes marooned on a tropical island (long before Lost)
- A man married to a witch, and another to a genie
- Two separate shows with ghoulish people living in scary mansions
A show about saboteurs in a WWII prisoner of war camp seems tame by comparison.
Notice I said "Prisoner of War" camp. It wasn't a concentration camp. So, the arguments about how tasteless the show was are faulty. I also want to note that the actors playing the recurring Nazis on the show were actually Jewish, and fled Germany because of WWII.
As far as making light of the Nazis--see the filmography of Mel Brooks. Almost every film he has made takes a shot at Hitler.
Finally, about Bob Crane. The less said about his private life, the better (although I do recommend Auto Focus, the biopic with Greg Kinnear). That should have no impact on how you like or dislike the series. If we knew everything about our favorite TV stars and based our viewing decisions on that info, we would be watching a lot of documentaries.
So, I hope that clears up things.
I'm not planning to do separate entries for all 168 episodes--I'll just bring up some interesting points as I go through the "Kommandant's Kollection" DVD boxed set I got for Christmas. I'll also give you some info on the cast.
The show was created by Bernard Fein and Albert S. Ruddy. Fein was an active presence in front of the camera in the late 50's and 60's--his best known role was on The Phil Silvers Show. Ruddy did slightly better--he produced The Godfather and Million Dollar Baby. On the other hand, he wrote Megaforce. Bing Crosby's company led the production--they also did Ben Casey and The Great Santini. It was produced at the same studio as That Girl and Mayberry R.F.D.
Was it a terrible show? Well, it was nominated for 12 Emmys and won two, both for Werner Klemperer.
More to come...