I have never 'gotten' Hogan's Heroes

[Squealy]

It was not a concentration camp. It was a prison camp for allied soldiers. All the difference in the world.

Yes, that was my point. People confuse "prison camp" with "concentration camp" because it's the Germans.

[omom]

When I was a kid our local station had a daily block of HH/Gomer Pyle/Gilligans Isle/Beverly Hillbillies. Would always argue with my sister, who wanted to watch the Waltons/Littlie Prarie block on another channel.

[seed_drill]

You'll see it described as "a comedy show set in a concentration camp" sometimes. Now that would be hard to pull off.

The closest I recall to this was the Masterpiece Theatre comedy about The German's counterfeiting program designed to destabilize the British Pound. Many of the "team members" were pulled from concentration camps, but it was not actually set in one.

[Blencathra]

What's the difference?

/!*&*&^^(&^)&)_(&!!!!!!!!!! (cough, splutter)

[Blencathra]

The closest I recall to this was the Masterpiece Theatre comedy about The German's counterfeiting program designed to destabilize the British Pound. Many of the "team members" were pulled from concentration camps, but it was not actually set in one.

This was done over here in a series called "Private Schulz" (co-incidentally) - another series I enjoyed at the time but don't know how well it would appear today


See this...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Private-Schulz-Michael-Elphick/dp/B001A47GDO/ref=wl_it_dp?ie=UTF8&coliid=I3LZRG2DXH15VJ&colid=K6LF7UHGUR8R

[tommy-thewho]

I thought it was funny as young as I was I enjoyed it..

I haven't seen an episode in years.... Alway remember Schultz.. I know nothing.....

[TheiPodAvenger]

You'll see it described as "a comedy show set in a concentration camp" sometimes. Now that would be hard to pull off.

Mad Magazine did a parody of the show with exactly that premise:

http://www.hogansheroesfanclub.com/images/magazineMad108January1967Page8Medium.gif

[Oatsdad]

Considering it's a sitcom set in a Nazi prison camp, I don't know how much edgier it could have gotten.

As others have mentioned, a prison camp isn't automatically as intense as a CONCENTRATION camp. Now THAT would be edgy!

But there's nothing "edgy" about the humor of "HH" - at least as far as I remember, as it's been years since I saw it. IIRC, the series was really pretty safe and standard 1960s sitcom stuff - the comedy wasn't daring or "out there".

So "HH" could've been a TON edgier!

[Blencathra]

I thought it was funny as young as I was I enjoyed it..

I haven't seen an episode in years.... Alway remember Schultz.. I know nothing.....

Yea, that phrase has stuck with me - I still always think of him and his intonation when I hear someone say those words.

[jrice]

It was one of my faves at that time but like many (most?) of the sitcoms of that era I don't feel like they have aged well. I pass across the odd HH episode but can't bring myself to watch one all the way through.

Now Get Smart - that's another story. I still find that really funny.

[dkmonroe]

As others have mentioned, a prison camp isn't automatically as intense as a CONCENTRATION camp. Now THAT would be edgy!

But there's nothing "edgy" about the humor of "HH" - at least as far as I remember, as it's been years since I saw it. IIRC, the series was really pretty safe and standard 1960s sitcom stuff - the comedy wasn't daring or "out there".

So "HH" could've been a TON edgier!

Actually, I don't think it could have been. In the 60's, the concept itself was edge aplenty. What where they gonna do, have Hogan get waterboarded between wisecracks?

It was a screwball comedy because, a)that's the way they did things then, and b)there was pretty much a limit on how far they were gonna go on TV in the 60's. The generation who fought in that war, and who lost loved ones, were in their 40's at the time. Many men that I knew from that generation, if they had any real close contact with the events at all, were really loathe to talk about it. My wife's grandfather was present at the liberation of a concentration camp, and he wouldn't say a word about it. Any attempt to make truly edgy humor out of that period would not have been made.

[David R. Modny]

Anyway, as I did in a previous thread on the subject, I'll quote Gilbert Gottfried's take...

Gilbert Gottfried. Now *there's* a guy that I just don't "get."

Different strokes. :)

[mr_mjb1960]

It was based,I think,on the movie "Stalag 13",but not totally on it..loosely based,I think. Michael Boyce

[zen archer]

I just bought season 1 on DVD , great memories of watching this show as a kid .
i love Hogans Heroes.

[Jack White]

This show popped up in another thread back in April.

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=145119&highlight=hogan%27s+heroes%26quot%3B%26q uot%3B

I hope no-one minds if I repeat a post of mine from that thread.

... Re. the tv show ["Hogan's Heroes"]. I watched it as a kid and always enjoyed it. I haven't seen it since. I have reservations as to whether it would hold up with a viewing today.

Here's a comment I found on the IMDB site, that puts the series into context.


A Show that has lost its context, 1 January 2004

Author: schappe1 from N Syracuse NY

The problem with Hogan's Heroes is that it has lost its context. People criticize it as a comedy set in a German prisoner of War camp, saying that trivializes the real human tragedies created by the Nazi regime. The thing is, Hogan's Heroes is not a spoof of prison camps. It's a spoof of World War II movies and TV shows. It came out in the wake of films like `The Longest Day', `The Great Escape', etc. which produced shows like `Combat', `The Gallant Men', 12 O'Clock High', all of which were hyper serious because of the subject matter. Such a trend requires a leavening spoof. And `Hogan's Heroes' and `McHale's Navy' provided that comic relief. Nobody ever criticized McHale's Navy for trivializing the Pacific War, any more than they criticized `F Troop' for not being a documentary about the Old West or `Get Smart' for not being written by John LaCarre. Why do we indict Hogan's heroes for being insensitive to the deprivations of the Nazis?

This show is itself based on a hit Broadway play and movie from a decade before called `Stalag 17' which won William Holden an Oscar. If you've seen Stalag 17, the humor there is much cruder and more oblivious of the real threat of the Nazis than Hogan's Heroes. Robert Strauss and Harvey Lembeck, (later to show up in another Military spoof to which HH also obviously owes a lot), decide at one point they would like to see some female Russian POWS take showers. They grab a bucket of paint and begin painting a stripe down the middle of the road toward the building where the showers are. This fools the guards until the paint a stripe right over to the window of this building, (the showers have windows?), and peer in. There is nothing this crude or insensitive in any episode of Hogan's Heroes. Yet this is a highly regarded film.

But now, 30 years later, when there are fewer films about that era made, the old show is viewed not a spoof of a show business trend but as a parody of the real event, which it was never really intended to be. This has allowed the critics to `pile on' and rip the show for being insensitive to the victims of Nazi oppression. All I remember is a funny show and that's all it was ever intended to be.

BTW, someone in an previous post mentioned that his father, a WWII vet, had no objections to the show and thought it was funny. I never knew of any veteran or anyone who was alive during the War who had a complaint about the premise or the execution of the show, either. It was extremely popular in its day and the only reason it was cancelled was a desire of the network to overhaul and update its entire programming schedule. The ratings at the time of its cancellation were still excellent.

[mrjinks]

It was one of my faves at that time but like many (most?) of the sitcoms of that era I don't feel like they have aged well. I pass across the odd HH episode but can't bring myself to watch one all the way through.

Now Get Smart - that's another story. I still find that really funny.

Ditto the thoughts on HH! And I'm very psyched that Get Smart is out on dvd next week. :goodie: It's #1 in my queue - I've been telling my son about that show for years (literally). I just hope it lives up to my (fond) memories!

[Jack White]

It was based,I think,on the movie "Stalag 13",but not totally on it..loosely based,I think. Michael Boyce


I think you meant to write "Stalag 17" - a play and later a film. 'Stalag 13' is the POW camp in "Hogan's Heroes".

[mr_mjb1960]

I think you meant to write "Stalag 17" - a play and later a film. 'Stalag 13' is the POW camp in "Hogan's Heroes".OOPSY..I'd noticed that a couple of posts ago..thanx for straighting me out on that! (I missed it by 4..can you believe that!):shake: OH WELL! You can't win 'em all! Michael Boyce

[Dan C]

This show popped up in another thread back in April.

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=145119&highlight=hogan%27s+heroes%26quot%3B%26q uot%3B

I hope no-one minds if I repeat a post of mine from that thread.



BTW, someone in an previous post mentioned that his father, a WWII vet, had no objections to the show and thought it was funny. I never knew of any veteran or anyone who was alive during the War who had a complaint about the premise or the execution of the show, either. It was extremely popular in its day and the only reason it was cancelled was a desire of the network to overhaul and update its entire programming schedule. The ratings at the time of its cancellation were still excellent.

Thanks for that Jack. Intersting read, and it does put things into context for me.

The show really doesn't 'offend' me, but I still don't find it funny and I've never understood why it was so popular...and still is for the most part.

These days whenever I catch an episode I can't help but think of Bob Crane's creepy and tragic personal life. He had an engaging presence on screen though, which I assume is a big part of the show's success.

dan c

[David R. Modny]

I think a lot of the over-the-top satire does have to be taken in the context of the era in which it ran. It was no more outlandish at the time to see Klink pole-vaulting over a barbed-wire fence, then it was to see Granny on The Beverly Hillbillies wrestling The Boston Strong Girl, or Otis riding a donkey down Main Street on The Andy Griffith Show. One either finds the individual satires funny, or they don't. No one is going to convince that person otherwise. In truth, I think a lot of people could have just as easily been turned-off by the notion of Southerners being portrayed as slack-jawed yokels (i.e. Gomer and Goober), or a family of moonshiners and their escapades in Beverly Hills.

The great CBS "Rural Purge of 1971" was really a sign that sensibilities were changing. Personally, I prefer a lot of over-the-top, corny satire to warm, touching, "very special episodes" from sitcoms. And this is coming from someone who's probably as socially and politically to the left as anyone - the mindset that political correctness is usually attributed to.


PS - I feel like almost starting another thread about the ham-fisted editing of sitcoms in re-runs. The current TV Land airings of Hogan's Heroes are chopping around 5 minutes out of the 25:30 episodes. So much so...that quite a few of the episodes aren't even making complete sense anymore! The entire flow is disrupted.

[Henry the Horse]

You know, for the fact that this show took place only 20 or so years after WWII, I don't remember hearing a big outcry about the subject matter, as say MASH did when it came out. My Father was in WWII, and I honestly dont remember him saying anything negative about HH, as I'm sure he would've. Then again, I was only around 8 at the time, and my memory might be a bit foggy from that long ago...
I was around the same age when the show came out and my father was also a WWII vet, who fought in Germany, and he really got a kick out of the show. It was slapstick, and I used to like it a lot. I haven't watched an episode in many years though.

[Henry the Horse]

I never really got it either. I used to watch it a bit because, if I remember correctly, it came on after one of my favorite shows, The Wild Wild West. The intro, the theme music etc. was real good and kinda got you up and hopeful that a good show was coming on...maybe this week it'll be good. But no, it was usually a bit disappointing. But I probably put up with it knowing the Gomer Pyle was on afterward. It was usually good imo.

But like someone else said, there's a bunch of 'em I never got.
That was a good line-up of shows on Friday night! Wild, Wild, West is still my all-time fave. :righton:
Incidentally, that was Wrecking Crew member Carol Kaye playing the bass line in both themes from Wild, Wild, West and Hogans' Heroes! They were both really good sounding theme songs!

[dkmonroe]

You know, for the fact that this show took place only 20 or so years after WWII, I don't remember hearing a big outcry about the subject matter, as say MASH did when it came out. My Father was in WWII, and I honestly dont remember him saying anything negative about HH, as I'm sure he would've. Then again, I was only around 8 at the time, and my memory might be a bit foggy from that long ago...

I think it's all in how the subject was treated. HH was all screwball comedy but M.A.S.H. tried to make all sorts of philosophical statements about military politics and warfare and so on within the context of a television comedy. That's inherently going to make for more controversy.

[dgsinner]

Ever since I was a kid I hated this show. It was in endless repeats back in the late 70s and on quite a bit IIRC.

I never hated the show, I'd sit and watch it in the day, but I wasn't especially fond of it either. And, like most kids, by the time I was 8 or 10 and watching war movies all the time, I was kind of puzzled by a group of Allied prisoners who chose to stay in a German prison. Didn't quite get the premise.

Dale

[Jack White]

I think it's all in how the subject was treated. HH was all screwball comedy but M.A.S.H. tried to make all sorts of philosophical statements about military politics and warfare and so on within the context of a television comedy. That's inherently going to make for more controversy.

Also that MASH, a show set during the Korean War, was really a show about the war in Viet-Nam.

Even in a comedy with a ridiculous premise like HH, there was an acceptance of the purpose of WWII, especially in hindsight. The show would never criticize our participation in the war nor the need to fight and win. MASH and Viet-Nam did not share that sensibility. I just wish that the people behind MASH for all of their 'preachiness' would have had the courage of its own convictions and set the show (and the preceding film) in Viet-Nam.