RIP Charles Osgood

[Mr._Graybeard]

Maybe that colleague only remembered Tiffany-like progamming such as the Hillbillies, Gomer and Green Acres.

People like to trash the Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres et al., for their cornpone themes, but damn, the writing was quite good. The casting was inspired. That's why they live on as reruns 60 years after some were first broadcast.

CBS dominated sitcom programming at the time. Think of a memorable '60s half-hour comedy, and it's likely it aired on CBS. Andy Griffith. **** Van Dyke. Gilligan's Island. Hogan's Heroes. Certainly not all of them were great (I can't watch Gilligan or Hogan) but the Hillbillies were hardly the worst of the lot.

 

[BTExpress]

Every time we're driving and see some rundown shack, wife says, "Look, a Haney place . . ."

And we both intentionally mispronounce things ("shoosting" instead of "shooting") that Lisa mispronounced.

 

[Neutral Corner]

My father (who commanded an Army infantry company in Normandy) hated Hogan's Heroes. "Son, the Nazis were lots of things, but stupid wasn't one of them!"

 

[Liut]

My father (who commanded an Army infantry company in Normandy) hated Hogan's Heroes. "Son, the Nazis were lots of things, but stupid wasn't one of them!"

Robert Graysmith's book "The Murder of Bob Crane" gets into executives' concern about the overall concept.
As mentioned up-thread, some of the writing for these CBS sitcoms was quite imaginative but Minnow might have been on to something.
Anyway, those programs paid the freight for CBS News ... until they were purged.

 

[Songbird]

"Son, the Nazis were lots of things, but stupid wasn't one of them!"

And they knew their tongues.

 

[Starman]

Ehh. My dad's oldest brother was killed on March 19, 1944 when his B-17 went down in a training/recon mission over Normandy, 6 weeks before D-Day.

My dad (a year younger) also served in WWII and Korea, but never saw combat. Another uncle served at the very tail end of WWII, stayed in the USAF to fly bombing missions in Korea and Vietnam, and finally retired as a full colonel in 1979 after 35 years in.

Neither of them had any problems with HH. They didn't think it was the funniest thing they ever saw either, but they weren't offended by it as many seem to be.

My dad said if they had portrayed the Nazis as well-meaning friendly people who were maybe a bit misguided-- now THAT would have pissed him off.

I guess, watching the series, Klink and Schultz do pretty much lean in that direction; they're both basically ok people personally, but they themselves don't do anything really sadistic or evil.

It is made clear the Nazis higher up the food chain are very nasty people; Klink and Schultz are shown as pretty much helpless victims carried along by an evil machine.

 

[da man]

I read once that Hogan's Heroes was the most popular show in Germany in the '90s.

 

[Starman]

Well I could see the German WWII generation liking it because it depicted the Germans as basically helpless decent people swept along in an unstoppable war machine run by evil people you never actually saw.

I think it could be redone in an interesting and occasionally funny way, but it would have to be made clear onscreen:

1) The Nazis were evil killers

2) Hogan and his guys were working very actively to KILL Nazis, not just gum up their plans.

 

[da man]

Ehh. My dad's oldest brother was killed on March 19, 1944 when his B-17 went down in a training/recon mission over Normandy, 6 weeks before D-Day.

My dad (a year younger) also served in WWII and Korea, but never saw combat. Another uncle served at the very tail end of WWII, stayed in the USAF to fly bombing missions in Korea and Vietnam, and finally retired as a full colonel in 1979 after 35 years in.

Neither of them had any problems with HH. They didn't think it was the funniest thing they ever saw either, but they weren't offended by it as many seem to be.

My dad said if they had portrayed the Nazis as well-meaning friendly people who were maybe a bit misguided-- now THAT would have pissed him off.

I guess, watching the series, Klink and Schultz do pretty much lean in that direction; they're both basically ok people personally, but they themselves don't do anything really sadistic or evil.

It is made clear the Nazis higher up the food chain are very nasty people; Klink and Schultz are shown as pretty much helpless victims carried along by an evil machine.

This made me think of a scene in the movie Von Ryan's Express. The transport train, which has been taken over by escaping Allied prisoners, pulls into a train station run by German soldiers, the British chaplain poses as a German general to get them through the checkpoint. When the obviously bored clerk asks for his papers, the faux general goes off on him about his slovenly appearance and threatens to have him transferred to the Russian front. After the "general" stalks away, the clerk shakes his head and mutters, "Nazis. Mein Gott (my God)."

I always loved that scene because of what you just said. It showed not every German was a monster. This wasn't a Nazi -- just a guy doing his job because, in his mind, what choice does he have?

 

[Neutral Corner]

Dad played tag with the German paratroopers in the Normandy hedgerow country. He had a lot of respect for the German soldiers. Nazis, not so much. The clown like portrayal that was "Hogan's" basic premise really set his teeth on edge. It wasn't normal for him to express any strong feelings about a dumb TV show, but no one in our home had any doubt about his opinion of that one.

 

[ChrisLong]

My father (who commanded an Army infantry company in Normandy) hated Hogan's Heroes. "Son, the Nazis were lots of things, but stupid wasn't one of them!"

I think I've posted this before. My dad was at Normandy in Patton's troops. Mom wouldn't let us watch Hogan's Heroes. We would say, it's just a sit-com. She answered: There was nothing funny about it and the Germans weren't stupid.

 

[DanOregon]

I have to say, when I grew up - Hogan's Heroes and Mel Brooks (even Blues Brothers) were the main exposure I had to Nazis. Obviously evil in the history books, but at a young age they didn't really expose us to the horrors of the Holocaust until later. Even in the movies growing up the klan was shown to be losers. It blows my mind that that type are making a comeback.

 

[Starman]

Not to cause inter generational rioting at the CL dinner table, but Patton actually had almost nothing to do with D-Day itself.

https://www.historyonthenet.com/pattons-role-in-d-day

 

[Liut]

May have been the greatest decoy of the war.
Or maybe it was The Man Who Never Was. Read Montague's (spelling?) book and have seen the late 1950s film multiple times. The book was super detailed ... not the easiest read.

 

[HanSenSE]

Wasn't it illegal to teach anything about the NaIs in Germany? And so many in the post-war generations were surprised when seeing "Holocaust"?

 

[Liut]

“Short words, short sentences, short paragraphs,” Osgood was known to say. “There’s nothing that can’t be improved by making it shorter and better."

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

Robert Clary (LeBeau) was a holocaust survivor who lost much of his family. If he was OK with appearing on the show, I can't shame the concept. The problem with Hogan's Heroes was that it was so formulaic. Once you got past the bunk that turned into a ladder and the coffee pot that became a radio, the cleverness was all used up.

 

[Liut]

Robert Clary (LeBeau) was a holocaust survivor who lost much of his family. If he was OK with appearing on the show, I can't shame the concept. The problem with Hogan's Heroes was that it was so formulaic. Once you got past the bunk that turned into a ladder and the coffee pot that became a radio, the cleverness was all used up.

Clary was a good source for Graysmith's book. LOL! You're right. Personally, I liked the tree stump that opened up.

 

[micropolitan guy]

May have been the greatest decoy of the war.
Or maybe it was The Man Who Never Was. Read Montague's (spelling?) book and have seen the late 1950s film multiple times. The book was super detailed ... not the easiest read.

The Germans couldn't believe the Allies would keep their best general on the sidelines during the invasion. So that also helped sell the idea of Patton's fictional army and the landings at Calais, not Normandy, keeping some Nazi divisions out of play for the actual invasion.

 

[ChrisLong]

Not to cause inter generational rioting at the CL dinner table, but Patton actually had almost nothing to do with D-Day itself.

George S. Patton and His Role in D-Day - History

Our details are sketchy because Dad didn't want to talk about it. The best we could determine, his unit was 3 days late to Normandy because their supply ship was late getting to to England. When they got to France, they joined in with the troops making the push toward Berlin, securing the small towns in France and Germany. He said he saw Patton a few times zipping back and fourth in his Jeep. BTW, the 11th anniversary of Dad's death is in about 2 weeks. He died at age 96 in 2013.