Hogan's Heroes
Wednesday 6:30pm
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Trivia
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Arthur Fonzarelli 1 months ago* Robert Clary, who played LeBeau, was actually a survivor of the Holocaust.
* Werner Klemperer, Howard Caine, Leon Askin, and John Banner, who play the chief Germans Klink, Hochstetter, Burkhalter and Schultz, were in fact all Jewish.
* Lasted on the air for seven years, although American involvement in WWII actually lasted less than four years.
* Werner Klemperer only agreed to play Col. Klink once he was assured (by the show's creator) that Klink would never succeed in his schemes.
* The black and white pilot episode originally included a Russian character.
* In the original black and white pilot, General Burkhalter was originally a colonel.
* In the pilot episode, Carter was a lieutenant and was only going to appear in that one episode.
* Among the recurring characters who appeared on the show were female French resistance fighter Tiger (played by Arlene Martel), Marya the White Russian (played by Nita Talbot) and the bumbling R.A.F. officer Colonel Crittendon (played by Bernard Fox).
* Another recurring character was Burkhalter's sister Frau Gertrude Linkmeyer, played by Kathleen Freeman.
* Howard Caine appeared earlier in two episodes playing different characters before he took on the role of Major Hochstetter.
* Larry Hovis, Sgt. Andrew Carter, refused to remove his wedding ring for the series. He wore gloves for the majority of his performance (although there were occasions when the ring was visible).
* Sergeant Schultz's nickname for LeBeau was "Cockroach".
* Schultz's rank is a Master Sergeant.
* The character of Sergeant Schultz, prior to the war, had been the president of a successful toy manufacturing company. It was also alluded to that Colonel Klink, at some point in his life, had been a strict school master and not a very good one, which seemed to result in his joining the Luftwaffe as a young man.
* Carter was from North Dakota and Kinch was from Detroit.
* Even though Klink acts like a coward, his military decorations indicate he is a combat hero from both WWI and WW II.
* The various code names that Hogan's outfit used were "Papa Bear", "Goldilocks", and "Little Red Riding Hood".
* Most night scenes are filmed using a "Day for Night" lens which is a special lens used to make scenes filmed during the day to look like night.
* The nearest town to Stalag 13 was Hammelburg.
* The leather jacket that 'Bob Crane' wore in this series was originally worn by Frank Sinatra in Von Ryan's Express (1965). It was later worn by Greg Kinnear in Auto Focus (2002).
* Although the show was a hit in syndication in Germany, certain liberties had to be taken. It's illegal to say "Heil Hitler" in Germany today (and is considered bad taste), so when the German soldiers gave the party salute, the characters said "How high is your corn?" The absurdity of it all was especially funny to German viewers.
* Schultz always called Hogan and his men "jolly jokers" whenever they played a trick on him.
* Salt was used to represent snow.
* The show was still very popular in its final season on the air. However, it was caught up in the "rural purge" that took place just before the 1971-1972 television season. The main reason it was canceled was due to the fact that it was felt that the show mainly appealed to rural audiences and older people in much the same way that shows like "The Beverly Hillbillies", "Green Acres", and "Hee Haw" were.
* Richard Dawson auditioned for the role of Hogan, but lost to Bob Crane. This led to friction between the two actors and when Crane was killed in 1978, Dawson did not attend the funeral.
* The set of Stalag 13 was built on the spot where the plantation house Tara once stood in _Gone With the Wind (1939)_ - on the 40-acre back lot at Culver City that was also home for "The Andy Griffith Show's" Mayberry and "Gomer Pyle's" Camp Henderson. -
Farmerdan1 11 days agoWerner Klemperer was born in Cologne Germany in 1922, he was the sone of Otto Klemperer a Jewish acomplished conductor and his mother a famouse soprano. They fled Nazi Germany imn 1935 to the USA where Werner attended a drama school hence his move intio acting. Werner was also an acomplished pianist and violinist which all started in his youth in Germany and even in a couple od eposodes he tries to play violin and does it badly, acting of course. Werner joined the US Army near the end of the war and entertained the troops, on leaving the army he went to broadway where his acting tallent took off. He came to fame through Hogans Heros, he was offered the part due to his German accent and his good acting skills, he agreed to take ther part on providing he could portray Klink as an idiotic fool to which the shows producer agreed. When looking at many of the tv shows on tv1 I would guess I have many favorites, but knowing about the history of Werner Klemperer makes it seem more realistic in the fact that he as well as some of the other cast were actualy effected by the war and yet they could put it behind them and entertain us.
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