Creators Bernard Fein & Albert S. Ruddy
Starring Bob Crane, Werner Klemperer & John Banner
Rated PG
Score 6/6

The inmates of a German World War II prisoner of war camp conduct an espionage and sabotage campaign right under the noses of their warders.
Season 1 Episode 1 The Informer: The prisoners create an elaborate underground ruse to fool a German spy that has been placed in their ranks.

For those of you who have ever wondered, Hogan’s Heroes aired from September 17, 1965 until March 28, 1971 running for 6 seasons with a total of 168 episodes and of the 168 episodes only one of them was broadcast in black and white and it was a little odd watching an episode in black and white.

The character of Vladimir Minsk, a Soviet POW played by Leonid Kinskey, was intended to be a series regular. However, Kinskey declined to continue with the series. Stewart Moss, who played an American POW named Olson in the pilot, also declined an offer to become a series regular. Larry Hovis was intended to be a guest star in the pilot only. However, producer Ed Feldman was impressed by his performance and Hovis’s character was changed from a lieutenant to a sergeant. It’s interesting to think that even though the entire series had a certain cartoon logic to it that changes were made between the first and second episodes where some of the prisoners’ luxuries, such as an underground steam room, were eliminated to make the situation marginally more plausible. Even with the changes to make the whole situation ‘plausible’ it didn’t but importantly the show has always just been fun in a goofy sort of way and the key component to that fun was opening seconds of theHogan’s Heroes March by Jerry Fielding .I enjoyed Noam Pitlik’s performance as Wagner and the seemingly fearless way the character was dealt with. It is interesting to note that according to his filmography over the course of the show’s run Pitlik went on to appear in seven different episodes as seven different characters. On a side note according to William Christopher’s (better known as Father Francis Mulcahy) filmography he appeared in four different episodes as four different characters. But though I am barely through rewatching the first season at the moment, what I really love about the show was the philosophy of Colonel Hogan which I think is brilliantly summed up in one of his lines from the second episode Hold That Tiger ‘Look, I got the idea of stealing it, right? The rest is detail.’