The Good

Hogan’s Heroes is a masterclass in sitcoms. Not only does it make a World War 2 German prisoner of war camp funny, it does it intelligently!

Colonel Hogan, an American bomber pilot, and his men are stuck in Stalag 13 run by Colonel Klink, the toughest commandant in all of Germany (or so Klink says). In reality, the prisoners run the camp, and Klink is their prisoner. The “prisoners” organize everything from a network of tunnels underground, radio contact with London and an advanced rescue & sabotage operation right under the nose of Colonel Klink.

The brilliance of the show is the disconnect between Colonel Klink and reality. In his mind, he is one of the greatest military minds in all of Germany, yet in reality, he is nothing but a cringing bootlicker, an utterly incompetent moron who is harbouring a powerful underground unit without even knowing about it.

The acting is superb, too. Werner Klemperer, the actor for Colonel Klink, plays the egotistical imbecile to perfection. The way he talks, his interactions with his superiors and subordinates, even the way he moves, strike the perfect balance between arrogance and stupidity. The rest of the world thought so too, because the actor won two Emmy awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in ‘68 and ‘69.

Of course, one cannot talk about Hogan’s Heroes without mentioning Sergeant Schultz, the overweight, bumbling sidekick to Colonel Klink. He manages to be even dumber than Klink himself, although sometimes Schultz himself admits he’s not really on either side, he just needs the money. His catchphrase is, “I see nothing, nothing!”, and Hogan’s men don’t even bother hiding the tunnel or their sabotage plans when he shows up. Being threatened with the prospect of being sent to the Russian Front by Colonel Klink doesn’t help Schultz’s loyalty any though.

The Bad

Even I’ll admit, Hogan’s Heroes isn’t perfect. It’s a product of its time, which limits it in some ways, but I will address Jayden’s criticisms first.

To begin, what Colonel Klink drinks in the episode “Go Light on the Heavy Water” is in the title, heavy water. This is just water with an extra hydrogen atom, or H₃O. Although it’s used for nuclear experiments, it’s not radioactive at all, and is perfectly safe to drink.

It should be noted that Hogan’s Heroes doesn’t have any story arc whatsoever. It was made before TV shows had arcs and endings, so episodes were just filmed and then broadcast which is why there’s a D-Day episode, but none of the following episodes even mention it again.

The creators of Hogan’s Heroes made a conscious choice to sacrifice historical accuracy for accessibility to American viewers, as a TV series requiring the viewer to understand both English and German would fail miserably.

Of course, there was no such thing as CGI back then, so when the Heroes blew up something, they had to rely on World War 2 stock footage. The special effects are dated, for example, in scenes with snow on the ground, or especially when it’s supposed to be snowing, it is obviously just a white powder which lacks the weight and moisture of real snow. However; this is only noticed by the sharp eyes of a Canadian who is all too familiar with snow, and real snow is hard to come by in LA, where the series was filmed.

Hogan’s Heroes was filmed only a little over twenty years after the end of World War 2, but the design of the Germans was spot on even while most information about Nazi Germany was still classified. The Nazis were arrogant, inefficient, and incompetent. Colonel Klink embodies the Nazi mindset of their leaders perfectly and illustrates why they lost

Final rating:

4 / 5 stars.

Overall, an enjoyable show brought down only by minor factors.