100 Fun Facts About Hogan's Heroes

On which American network did Hogan's Heroes originally run?

CBS. The network ended up in court over its hit, sued by two playwrights who said the sitcom copied their prison-camp play, and it won.

Which instrument does Colonel Klink play, enthusiastically and very badly?

The violin. His scraping is a running gag, and Hogan puts it to use, coaxing a recital out of him at dinner to keep a visiting general busy while his men photograph the general's papers.

Hogan's Heroes co-creator Albert S. Ruddy later won an Oscar for producing which film?

The Godfather. Ruddy went from a prison-camp sitcom to the 1972 best picture winner within a decade, and took a second Oscar for Million Dollar Baby.

What is the prison camp in Hogan's Heroes called?

Stalag 13. The pilot actually calls it Camp 13; the German name, short for Stammlager, only arrived once the show went to series.

Near which real German town does Hogan's Heroes place its prison camp?

Hammelburg. The real town did have prison camps on its edge, and in spring 1945 General Patton sent a raid there that failed to free his captured son-in-law.

Which 2002 film stars Greg Kinnear as Bob Crane, the star of Hogan's Heroes?

Auto Focus. Paul Schrader's film follows Crane's slide from clean-cut sitcom lead to his murder in an Arizona apartment in 1978.

Which branch of the US military does Hogan belong to?

The Army Air Forces. Hogan was a bomber commander shot down on a raid, which is why his jailer is a Luftwaffe colonel: Germany's air arm held captured flyers.

Colonel Klink was voiced one last time by his original actor in a 1993 episode of which animated series?

The Simpsons. Klink turns up as Homer's guardian angel, the shape the spirit settles on after Homer fails to recognise Isaac Newton.

Otto, the father of Klink actor Werner Klemperer, was world famous in which profession?

A conductor. Otto Klemperer led the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the 1930s, and his son later returned to that world as a concert narrator and opera performer.

What had his agent not told the actor cast as Colonel Klink?

That the show was a comedy. The actor, who had played Nazis in serious films, said he was stunned to learn this one was meant to be funny.

In Hogan's Heroes, what does Sergeant Schultz insist whenever he stumbles on the prisoners' schemes?

I know nothing. John Banner had spent years cast as menacing Nazis in films before he turned a guard's plea of ignorance into the show's signature line.

Why does Sergeant Schultz never report what Hogan's men are up to?

He fears the Russian front. Reporting a plot would mean admitting it happened on his watch, so he prefers to look the other way.

What nationality is Corporal Louis LeBeau in Hogan's Heroes?

French. LeBeau's cooking is one of Hogan's weapons: his gourmet dinners keep visiting German officers at the table while the others go to work.

What was the real-life history of Robert Clary, who played LeBeau?

He survived a Nazi concentration camp. Deported at 16, he spent 31 months in the camps, and said a comedy about prisoners of war was night and day from what he had seen.

Which skills does Corporal Peter Newkirk bring to Hogan's team?

Forgery, lock picking and tailoring. The tailoring keeps the team in disguise: Newkirk sews the uniforms and civilian clothes the prisoners wear whenever they slip out of camp.

A part in which 1965 film reportedly won Richard Dawson his place in Hogan's Heroes?

King Rat. That grim drama is set in a Japanese prison camp, so Dawson went straight from one prisoner-of-war story to another, this one played for laughs.

Which of Hogan's men runs the hidden radio that links the camp to London?

James Kinchloe. Kinch worked for the phone company back in Detroit, and he does more than transmit: he mimics German officers on the line to fool the enemy.

Kenneth Washington joined Hogan's Heroes when which original cast member left?

Ivan Dixon. He walked away before the final season, reportedly feeling underused, and built a second career as a director, notably of The Spook Who Sat by the Door.

What is Sergeant Carter's speciality in Hogan's Heroes?

Chemistry and explosives. Before the war the team's bomb-maker ran a drugstore in Muncie, Indiana, and he is the one man in the barracks who is shy around women.

In the Hogan's Heroes pilot, what is Larry Hovis's Carter doing at the camp?

Passing through as an escaped prisoner. Lieutenant Carter was written as a one-episode guest, but the producer liked Hovis so much that he came back as a sergeant and a regular.

In Hogan's Heroes, which Nazi leader does Sergeant Carter impersonate as a distraction?

Adolf Hitler. Carter bears such an eerie resemblance to him that the mild-mannered sergeant gets the job more than once.

What keeps the inept Colonel Klink in command of his camp in Hogan's Heroes?

No prisoner has ever escaped. Hogan's men protect that record themselves, because a sharper commandant might notice what they are really up to.

In Hogan's Heroes, Klink's commanding general keeps trying to marry him off to which relative?

His widowed sister. The general treats Klink with open contempt, yet still thinks him good enough for Gertrude, to the horror of the prospective groom.

Which two officers above Colonel Klink is Hogan constantly outwitting in Hogan's Heroes?

Burkhalter and Hochstetter. The general silences Klink with 'Shut up, Klink!', and the Gestapo major calls Hogan the most dangerous man in all Germany yet never pins a thing on him.

In Hogan's Heroes, what are the prisoners' resistance contacts collectively called?

The Underground. When the Gestapo holds several of its leaders in the camp, Hogan gets them released by convincing the Germans that the war is over.

How do escaping Allied prisoners get in and out of the camp in Hogan's Heroes?

Through a secret tunnel network. One entrance is hidden under a doghouse in the guard-dog kennel, the last place a nervous German sentry wants to search.

What sets the Hogan's Heroes pilot apart from every later episode?

It was filmed in black and white. The pilot was shot back in 1964, and by the time it aired the following year the series around it was being made in colour.

Which first-year series beat Hogan's Heroes to the 1967 Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series?

The Monkees. Hogan's Heroes was up for the top comedy Emmy three years running and lost every time, on this occasion to a show about a made-for-TV pop group.

Which Hogan's Heroes cast member won both of the show's Emmy Awards?

Werner Klemperer. He won as supporting actor in 1968 and 1969, while the show's leading man was nominated twice and went home empty-handed.

Who composed the theme music of Hogan's Heroes?

Jerry Fielding. He later wrote lyrics to his wordless march so that four of the cast could sing it on their own album of wartime songs.

Which Hogan's Heroes cast member played the drums on the show's theme?

Bob Crane. He was a drummer long before he was an actor: as a schoolboy in Connecticut he played in dance bands and with a symphony orchestra.

The authors of which 1951 play sued over the premise of Hogan's Heroes?

Stalag 17. Its authors had been prisoners of the Germans themselves, but a judge threw their case out, finding a striking difference in dramatic mood between the two.

Why did Leonid Kinskey, a Russian prisoner in the pilot, turn down Hogan's Heroes?

He felt uneasy about Nazi comedy. Kinskey, the bartender Sascha in Casablanca, would not stay with a show that played Nazis for laughs, so his place in the barracks went to Sergeant Carter.

Which production company made Hogan's Heroes?

Bing Crosby Productions. The crooner's company acquired the idea from its two creators, and decades later went to court arguing that the deal covered a film version too.

Which magazine parodied Hogan's Heroes as 'Hokum's Heroes'?

Mad. Its 1967 spoof, drawn by Jack Davis, ran under the heading 'Mein Kamp Humor Dept.' and closed with a sharper one-page sequel, 'Hochman's Heroes'.

In Hogan's Heroes, who supplies the camp's guard dogs while secretly working with the resistance?

The town's veterinarian. Oscar Schnitzer's truck doubles as the team's taxi in and out of camp, because no guard is brave enough to search a van full of snarling dogs.

Why does Sergeant Carter wear gloves in most Hogan's Heroes episodes?

To hide the actor's wedding ring. Larry Hovis refused to take it off, so his unmarried character kept his left hand gloved or out of shot.

What did the standing orders given to Hogan's unit tell the prisoners to do?

Harass and injure the enemy by every means. The same orders tell them to help other prisoners escape, which is why Hogan's own men are the ones who stay behind.

In Hogan's Heroes, what does Schultz claim to have run before the war?

Germany's biggest toy company. Civilian life would turn the ranks upside down: the sergeant owned a toy empire, while his commandant, by his own account, had been a bookkeeper.

Before Hogan's Heroes, the actor who played Klink portrayed which real Nazi war criminal in a 1961 film?

Adolf Eichmann. He took the title role in Operation Eichmann and, the same year, played a Nazi defendant in Judgment at Nuremberg, four years before the bumbling Klink.

What was notable about the actors playing the four main Germans in Hogan's Heroes?

They were Jewish, some of them refugees. Werner Klemperer, John Banner and Leon Askin had all fled the Nazis, and went on to play them as fools every week.

Bob Crane married the actress behind which Hogan's Heroes character?

Hilda, Klink's secretary. Sigrid Valdis played her from the second season on, and in 1970 she and Crane got married right there on the show's own set.

Where were the outdoor camp scenes of Hogan's Heroes filmed?

The 40 Acres backlot in Culver City. Germany's endless winter was faked under the California sun, on a lot that had also been Atlanta in Gone with the Wind.

Which sport did Sergeant Kinchloe of Hogan's Heroes compete in before the war?

Boxing. Kinch fought in Golden Gloves tournaments back home, so Klink orders him to spar with a camp guard entered in a Luftwaffe boxing tournament.

Which 1975 film used and wrecked the old Hogan's Heroes camp set for its finale?

Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS. The sitcom had been off the air for three years and the camp was coming down anyway, so the low-budget shocker wrecked it on camera.

The actor who played Colonel Klink took the part on what condition?

Klink must never come out the hero. He told the writers he would quit the moment a script let the colonel win; he wanted Klink to get it every time.

Under what German title has Hogan's Heroes aired in Germany since 1994?

Ein Käfig voller Helden. It means 'a cage full of heroes'; the first German run, in 1992, flopped under another title until the dialogue was rewritten to make everyone sillier.

In the German dub of Hogan's Heroes, Klink and Schultz were given which two regional accents?

Saxon and Bavarian. The rewritten dub leaned on regional stereotypes to make both men plainly comic, and gave Klink an unseen cleaning lady who works in the nude.

What nickname do his German captors hang on the diminutive Corporal LeBeau in Hogan's Heroes?

The cockroach. It is Sergeant Schultz's name for him, yet the same guard is easily bought: a plate of LeBeau's cooking gets the prisoners the information they are after.

Which game show did Richard Dawson, Newkirk in Hogan's Heroes, host from 1976 to 1985?

Family Feud. He became famous there for kissing the female contestants, and came back to host it again in 1994 after nine years away.

Why does Larry Hovis's character, Sergeant Carter, wear gloves in most episodes of Hogan's Heroes?

To hide a wedding ring: Hovis refused to take his off for the role, and Carter is a bachelor with a fiancée waiting at home, so gloves covered it.

In which animated series does Colonel Klink of Hogan's Heroes turn up as a guardian angel?

The Simpsons cast Klink as Homer's guardian angel in a 1993 episode, after Homer fails to recognise Sir Isaac Newton. The original actor voiced him, and Homer blurts out the truth about Hogan's operation.

What does Klink's portly sergeant of the guard claim he owned before the war in Hogan's Heroes?

A toy company, and the largest in Germany, by his own account in one episode. Elsewhere he pleads poverty and borrows money from the prisoners.

What sets the pilot of Hogan's Heroes, The Informer, apart from every other episode of the sitcom?

It is in black-and-white because the network announced its big push into colour only after buying the series, so every later episode was filmed in colour.

Which Best Picture winner did a co-creator of Hogan's Heroes produce just a year after the sitcom ended?

The Godfather brought him a first Best Picture Oscar. A second followed for Million Dollar Baby, and he also co-created Walker, Texas Ranger.

Which nursery-tale code name do resistance contacts use for Colonel Hogan in Hogan's Heroes?

Papa Bear is the only name the resistance knows him by, which lets Hogan send Newkirk to a secret meeting in his place when Klink plans a surprise bed check.

Hogan's Heroes editor Michael Kahn later won three Oscars cutting films for which director?

Steven Spielberg hired Kahn for Close Encounters of the Third Kind and kept him for decades. All three of Kahn's Oscars came for Spielberg pictures.

What did test screenings of the Hogan's Heroes pilot convince the network that the sitcom needed?

A laugh track made the difference: audiences shown the pilot without one rated it poorly, while the version with canned laughter went over well.

Which accessory is Colonel Klink of Hogan's Heroes rarely seen without, often alongside a riding crop?

A monocle sits in Klink's left eye throughout the series. He is drawn as a vain, muddling career officer of Prussian descent, not as an ardent Nazi.

On which other 1960s series did Colonel Klink of Hogan's Heroes lean out of a window during a wall climb?

Batman featured Klink in one of its window cameos in 1966. He tells the Dynamic Duo that he is hunting for a secret agent in Gotham City.

Which insect nickname do the Germans in Hogan's Heroes give the diminutive chef Corporal LeBeau?

The cockroach is their name for LeBeau because of his size, which also lets him hide in Klink's office safe, in crates and in a dumbwaiter, although he is claustrophobic.

Which instrument does Colonel Klink of Hogan's Heroes play with great enthusiasm and no talent at all?

The violin is Klink's passion, and he is hopeless at it. He landed in a military academy only after failing his entrance exams for law or medical school.

Which branch of the German military runs the prison camp in Hogan's Heroes, with Klink as one of its colonels?

The Luftwaffe ran its own camps for captured Allied airmen, and Klink is one of its old-line officers, a veteran aviator of the First World War.

What was Corporal Newkirk of Hogan's Heroes in civilian life, a trade that suits his pickpocket talents?

A magician before the war, Newkirk is also the group's mimic, impersonating German officers and even Winston Churchill.

In which sport did Sergeant Kinchloe of Hogan's Heroes compete before the war, later facing a camp guard?

Boxing was Kinchloe's sport: he fought Golden Gloves matches as a middleweight, and came from Detroit, where he worked for the telephone company.

Sergeant Carter of Hogan's Heroes comes from the fictional town of Bullfrog, set in which American state?

North Dakota is home to Bullfrog, and a letter from a Sioux relative reveals that Carter is part Native American.

Which secretary takes over Colonel Klink's outer office from Helga after the first season of Hogan's Heroes?

Hilda arrived in season two, and Helga's exit was never explained on screen. Like her predecessor, she feeds Hogan information and backs up the stories he tells Klink.

Which sergeant replaces Kinchloe in Hogan's team for the final season of Hogan's Heroes, with no explanation given?

Baker simply appears in season six with no word about Kinchloe's fate, while Newkirk moves up to be Hogan's second-in-command.

What is unusual about the rifle carried by Klink's sergeant of the guard throughout Hogan's Heroes?

It is never loaded, and he is forever misplacing it or handing it to a prisoner to hold when he is distracted.

What false news does Hogan sell to Klink in Hogan's Heroes so that captured resistance leaders are set free?

The war is over, Hogan insists, and a Gestapo major is so convinced that he frees his captives and even gives them his car before an inspector general arrives with the truth.

Why did the producers of Hogan's Heroes keep the prison camp under snow in every season?

To allow any episode order: a permanent winter avoided continuity problems, so stories with obvious summer settings either skipped the outdoor set or kept the white stuff out of shot.

At which Hollywood studio were the indoor sets of Hogan's Heroes housed?

Desilu Studios, named for Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, housed the interiors. The cast filmed in warm Southern California bundled up in winter clothes, pretending to be cold.

The opening drum riff of the Hogan's Heroes theme matches one used in which 1962 war epic?

The Longest Day, the all-star film about the D-Day landings, used the same riff three years before the sitcom put it in its main title sequence.

What did four Hogan's Heroes cast members record together, complete with lyrics for the theme tune?

An album of wartime songs, Hogan's Heroes Sing the Best of World War II, featured the men behind LeBeau, Newkirk, Kinchloe and Carter.

How was Hogan's Heroes reworked to win over German television viewers after its first run there flopped?

The dialogue was rewritten to make the German characters look even more foolish, and the dub invented an unseen maid, Frau Kalinke, as Klink's perennial mistress.

Which civil rights organisation honoured Hogan's Heroes at its first annual awards, alongside Star Trek?

The NAACP honoured the producers at its first Image Awards in 1967. Casting Ivan Dixon as a capable, positively drawn sergeant was a major step for mid-1960s television.

Which star opened talks in 1998 to co-finance a Hogan's Heroes film with himself as the lead?

Mel Gibson was in talks with Paramount in 1998, but Paramount decided not to pursue the adaptation and the film rights moved on to other hands.

Gene Reynolds, a frequent Hogan's Heroes director, went on to produce which other military comedy series?

M*A*S*H was developed for television by Reynolds and Larry Gelbart, and Reynolds produced 120 episodes of it, trading a German prison camp for a Korean War field hospital.

The hero of Hogan's Heroes was named after Robert Hogan, a friend of the co-creator in which profession?

An actor by trade, the real Robert Hogan went on to guest-star in two episodes of the sitcom that borrowed his name.

Which relative does the general who oversees Colonel Klink want him to marry in Hogan's Heroes?

His sister, the overbearing Frau Linkmeyer, whose husband is missing in action, horrifies Klink as a prospective bride. Kathleen Freeman played her four times.

Which big-cat code name belongs to the resistance leader Hogan twice frees from the Gestapo in Hogan's Heroes?

Tiger has saved Hogan's life more than once, and he returns the favour by springing her from Gestapo headquarters in Paris and later from a train bound for Berlin.

What nationality is Marya, the flirtatious spy whose schemes keep colliding with Hogan's in Hogan's Heroes?

Russian by birth, Marya is a White émigré who poses as the lover of high-ranking German officers and scientists in order to discredit them or set them up for arrest.

What is the profession of Oscar Schnitzer, the resistance man who smuggles people into camp in Hogan's Heroes?

A veterinarian, Schnitzer keeps the camp supplied with guard dogs, and the guards are too frightened of the animals to look inside his truck.

What is Colonel Klink's first name in Hogan's Heroes?

Wilhelm Klink shares his name with Kaiser Wilhelm II, who ruled Germany when Klink flew as an aviator in the First World War.

What does Colonel Crittendon say he would do if he learned fellow prisoners were spying in Hogan's Heroes?

Report them to the Germans, he tells Hogan, because in his view a prisoner's only job is to escape. His own escape attempts all fail through sheer incompetence.

Colonel Crittendon of Hogan's Heroes really holds which RAF rank, renamed so American viewers were not confused?

Group captain is the RAF equal of an American colonel, and because his date of rank is earlier than Hogan's, the dim-witted Crittendon can overrule him, always with disastrous results.

The commander of a prison camp in which Axis country visits Klink to study his methods in Hogan's Heroes?

Italy's Major Bonacelli would rather desert to Switzerland than fight, and Hogan talks him into going home to spy for the Allies instead.

Which artist painted the looted picture of a boy fifer that Hogan has copied in Paris in Hogan's Heroes?

Édouard Manet painted it, and in the episode a general takes it from the Louvre as a birthday present for a top Nazi, only for Hogan to hand back a copy.

Which huge piece of German hardware do the prisoners steal and dismantle inside camp in Hogan's Heroes?

A tank is driven into camp by Newkirk dressed as a Gestapo agent, taken apart so its blueprints can go to the Allies, then rebuilt and sent rolling off empty as a diversion.

Whom does Sergeant Kinchloe impersonate in Hogan's Heroes after a lookalike lands in camp to negotiate a submarine base?

An African prince named Makabana arrives to sell the Germans rights to a submarine base. Ivan Dixon played both men, and the cash from the deal lets Hogan move a group of escapees.

Which city's accent did Richard Dawson first propose for Corporal Newkirk before Hogan's Heroes producers said no?

Liverpool was Dawson's suggestion, and the producers rejected it. He went on to voice many of the posher British contacts heard from London as well as Newkirk.

Which big city is repeatedly named as the nearest to the camp in Hogan's Heroes, despite the real map?

Düsseldorf gets the mentions, although the real town the show places the camp beside lies far to the southeast in Franconia, nowhere near it.

Which below-ground luxury did the prisoners enjoy in the Hogan's Heroes pilot before it was cut as implausible?

A steam room featured in the pilot and was dropped once the series began, to make the prisoners' situation marginally more plausible.

Which escaped zoo animal do the prisoners of Hogan's Heroes adopt as a mascot called Freddy and use as a courier?

A chimpanzee freed when bombs hit the town zoo is brought back by Carter. Hogan lets Klink find him so that he is returned, carrying a spare part for a resistance transmitter.

Where do the prisoners of Hogan's Heroes hide stolen Nazi gold bars after disguising them with paint?

In Klink's front steps: the prisoners paint the gold bars red and ordinary bricks gold, put the fakes back on the truck and rebuild the commandant's steps with the real thing.

Where does Hogan tell the bald Colonel Klink a barrel of secret heavy water comes from in Hogan's Heroes?

A fountain of youth that might cure his baldness, Hogan claims, so that the vain commandant will try to swap the barrel for another himself.

What is the Gonculator, the supposed secret device that fools Klink and a general in Hogan's Heroes, in reality?

A rabbit trap built by Carter gets its grand name from Hogan on the spot, and a supply officer who has never heard of such a device pretends that it is classified.

Which lofty post do the prisoners fake for Klink on the eve of D-Day in Hogan's Heroes, paralysing the generals?

Chief of staff Klink has no idea what to do when news of the invasion arrives, the other generals refuse to help him, and the Normandy landings succeed.

Which job does Hogan demand for himself when Klink shoots a propaganda film about the camp in Hogan's Heroes?

Directing it lets Hogan cast the guard sergeant as the commandant and Klink as the sergeant, then film the Germans pushing the detonator as a real bridge blows up.

What shape of officers' club do the prisoners build for Klink in Hogan's Heroes to smuggle out an escapee?

A boat, which they call a yacht club. Hogan then tricks Klink into having the Germans haul it to the water, unaware that a British escapee and a stolen gun-sight are aboard.