Hogan's Heroes?

I had no idea Hogan's Heroes is on TV Land.

Right now.

;D

 

I think they started running it last week. I got home and the pilot -- filmed in black and white -- was on.

 

I have never seen the pilot.

The rest? I can probably recite each episode.

 

Love the show ... one lingering thought, however: They never made a formal final episode. Had they done so, bringing the war to a close, how would have that episode been written?

 

I know nothing!

 

You keep hearing stuff off-and-on about a Hogan's Heroes movie supposedly in the talking stages.

Before anybody gets going: Yes, we know the Nazis were vicious and evil, not lovable buffoons. We know there was nothing funny about genocide and torture.

The point of the series was that the good guys were smarter than the bad guys, and capable of making them look like fools.

The main premise of most of the "Hogan" movie ideas I've seen touches on both ends of the argument: It acknowledges that the leadership Nazis were fundamentally evil, and many of the lower-level functionaries (i.e. Klink and Schultz) were simply ordinary bunglers caught in the bureaucratic apparatus, and a highly-trained special-ops force working undercover could do a lot of things to sabotage the Nazis from inside, and make them look like idiots in the process.

So if they make the movie, what's your cast?

Most of the rumors have either Mel Gibson or Russell Crowe as Hogan; I suspect Gibson is out due to his little problems on the anti-semitic front.

Personally, I think John Cusack would make a good Hogan. Hanks or Clooney would be good too; they might want to look a little younger, or not quite the A-list, to keep the payroll under control. Gary Sinise might be a B-list guy who would do a good job.

Ben Kingsley, if he would go for it, would probably be good as Klink, or maybe Terence Stamp (just bring his General Zod persona out of mothballs).

John Goodman would be spot-on as Schultz.

Clive Owen would make a great Newkirk. (Or Crowe.)

LeBeau, Vincent Cassel (Toulour from the Oceans series).

Woody Harrelson or Steve Buscemi would be fine as Hovis. Kinchloe? Don Cheadle, or maybe Damon Wayans (where's he been lately?)

 

I found it interesting that all of the actors who played the main German characters in the series -- Klink, Schultz, Berkhalter and Hochstetter -- were Jewish.

 

Yeah, Werner Klemperer (Klink), if I recall the story, only accepted the gig on the condition that the Nazis could never be shown as getting the upper hand (although in 1965-66, that was probably not very likely anyway).

 

If you've seen Auto Focus, Paul Schrader's biopic on the weird and sad life of Bob Crane, you can't watch Hogan's Heroes in the same light ever again.

 

Yeah, I've seen it.

Basically, you have to realize intellectually that entertainers/athletes/anybody in the public eye do a lot of weird stuff when they're out of public view. Nothing anybody can do about it.

 

One thing I've often thought about that ties in with "Hogan's Heroes" -- if you were a kid in the '60s, WWII was EVERYWHERE. It permeated the culture much more than "hippies," who were unheard of -- where I lived, anyway -- until right at the end of the decade.
Movies and TV --- "The Dirty Dozen," "The Great Escape," "Combat," "Rat Patrol" ... I think by the late mid-to-late '60s, the only thing left to do was WWII comedy/farce, like "Hogan's Heroes" and "McHale's Navy" on TV, and the unforgettable, classic, "The Incredible Mr. Limpet" at the movies.
DAS LIMPET!!!

 

I loved Hogan's Heroes as a kid. It was one of those shows, like Gilligan's Island that was always on in the afternoons when I got home from school. I was about 10 or 11 when Bob Crane was killed and I remember reading all about it and not quite understanding what it all meant.

The reason I was able to read all about it? My grandmother, God love her, subscribed to the National Enquirer.