Product Description:
Follow the fun with this bunch of military madcaps who as allied
soldiers confined to a german pow camp do their hilarious best to
cause mayhem and sabotage the german war machine right under their
captors noses! Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 05/01/2007
Starring: Bob Crane Robert Clary Rating: Nr
Amazon.com:
Two years after 1963's The Great Escape thrilled movie audiences
with a tale of Allied soldiers working cooperatively to flee a World
War II-era prisoner-of-war camp, CBS found a hit situation comedy in
the loosely similar Hogan's Heroes. Initially dismissed by critics
as being in poor taste, the half-hour show starred Bob Crane
(previously known for a supporting role on The Donna Reed Show) as
Colonel Robert Hogan, leader of a resourceful band of French,
British and American guests of the German Luftwaffe. Rather than sit
out the war with his fellow captives, Hogan essentially used the POW
camp, Stalag 13, as a base for sabotaging Nazi operations whenever
possible, helping important prisoners escape, supporting the
Resistance, gathering intelligence for the Allies, and generally
screwing up enemy battlefield plans. The work was always dangerous,
but Hogan's crew had a number of advantages: a network of
underground tunnels beneath the camp (some leading to a nearby
town), a flair for disguises, the complementary talents of Hogan's
key staff, and the reliable idiocy of camp Commandant Klink (Werner
Klemperer) and willful ignorance of lead officer Sergeant Schultz
(John Banner).
Season one of Hogan's Heroes found all of these elements securely in
place and the series balancing farce with suspense. Typical
storylines include "Hold the Tiger," in which the boys smuggle a new
German Tiger Tank into the camp, disassemble it to construct a
blueprint, and then reassemble it under Klink's nose. "The
Prisoner's Prisoner" finds Hogan kidnapping a Nazi general, sneaking
him into Stalag 13, and tricking him—a la Mission: Impossible--to
reveal troop plans. In "The Prince from the Phone Company," one of
Hogan's most-trusted confederates, radio operator Kinchloe (Ivan
Dixon), disguises himself as an African prince trying to secure
money from the Third Reich. Half the fun of these shows is watching
Hogan thinking quickly on his feet whenever things start to go
wrong, or when one of Klink's more intelligent superiors becomes
suspicious that not everything at Stalag 13 is as under control as
it seems. Besides Dixon, the other players making up Hogan's elite
squad include Richard Dawson as the slightly disreputable Newkirk
(with a talent for thievery), Larry Hovis as chemistry whiz Carter,
and Robert Clary as the charming LeBeau. --Tom Keogh
