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Released by: CBS/Paramount
Released on: November 24, 2009.
Director: Various
Cast: Bob Crane, Werner Klemperer, Richard Dawson, Larry Hovis, John Banner
Year: Various
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The Series:
What's not funny about Nazi concentration camps? If Hogan's Heroes is to be believed, nothing! In fact, judging by the way things go down in this series, life in Stalag 13 wasn't too bad for our group of American prisoners of war, sentenced to serve in the camp under the watchful eye of one Colonel Klink. Sure, he may have been a bit of a curmudgeon sometimes, but there's nary a firing squad, massive oven, or gas chamber in site.
But if you put the merits of this completely bizarre premise aside and through historical accuracy out the window and try really, really hard to forget everything you learned about the horrors of the Nazi death camps and what was done to the prisoners who were crammed into them during the second world war, Hogan's Heroes is pretty funny stuff. Shamelessly goofy, utterly predictable, very repetitive and not exactly the definition of high brow or intelligent humor, but still… it's pretty funny stuff.
The basic premise of Hogan's Heroes is a simple one, but it worked, as it provided the writers plenty of opportunity to get the cast of characters into all manner of wacky hi-jinks. Essentially, Colonel Robert Hogan (Bob Crane) leads a group of miscreant American soldiers captured by the Nazis during the Second World War. They're tossed into Stalag 13, a prison camp, run by Colonel Klink (Werner Klemperer) and Sergeant Shultz (John Banner).
What the German's fail to realize is that the American's aren't really meant to try to escape the camp, despite how they may talk about it and act when they're around. They are in fact in the camp to act as spies and to send information back to the Allied forces to aid in the war effort. Hogan, along with Newkirk (Richard Dawson), LeBeau (Robert Clary) Kinchloe (Ivan Dixon) and Carter (Larry Hovis) must keep up appearances so that the German's don't catch on to their plan without making too much of an effort to get out of the camp and ruin the intelligence gathering. Thankfully, the German's aren't the most intelligent lot, at least these ones aren't, which makes things a little easier for Hogan and his crew.
Hogan's Heroes ran on CBS for six full seasons and did well not only in America but in a lot of international markets as well. The series developed quite a following during its heyday and remains a popular title even now, which would explain this re-release from CBS/Paramount which contains each and every episode of the series. While the series might not be as topical as it may have appeared when it first aired, many of the gags still work well thanks to the great comedic timing of the cast and some clever writing. The characters are endearing in a strange sort of way - yes, even the Nazis - and it's hard not to have a good time with the series even if its subject matter really doesn't feel like something a comedy series should have ever been based on in the first place.
The series definitely deserves its strange little place in television history, and while it may still be seen by some as a fairly blatant rip off of Stalag 17 (the producers were taken to court over this and won), the really light mixing of humor and setting somehow manages to work against the odds. Time has been kind to Bob Crane and his rag tag crew of POW's, as their antics still hold up and they're still easy to root for after all these years.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Each of the episodes is presented in its original 1.33.1 fullframe aspect ratio, as it should be. The pilot episode is in black and white, the rest of the episodes are in full color. Overall, the quality of the video in this set is pretty solid despite the fact that it's all interlaced. There is some minor print damage noticeable throughout in the form of specks and the occasional scratch but other than that, these all look quite good. The black and white episode looks a tad dark but has nice contrast and a good level of detail noticeable in it. The color episodes are a slightly more mixed bag, in that some episodes look better than others in terms of picture quality and overall clarity. A few spots look a little bit on the soft side and in some scenes the colors are a little more washed out than in other scenes. As a whole, however, the image is perfectly acceptable and the episodes are always very watchable and of decent quality. There aren't any mpeg compression problems, and edge enhancement is mild, though noticeable.
Hogan's Heroes is presented in a fairly nice sounding Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono mix, in its original English language with an English closed captioning option. There are no foreign language subtitles available on any of the episodes in this set. Aside from some really mild background hiss that is present on pretty much each and every one of the episodes, this set sounds good. Music is properly balanced against the dialogue, which is consistently clean, clear, and easy to understand. While this one isn't going to blow you away, it does get the job done without any problems and it sounds better than you'd probably expect a four decade old television series to sound - and that instantly recognizable opening theme song sounds great.
All of the extra features are included on a fifth disc that is housed inside the digipack for Season Six. Here's what you'll find:
The Informer - this is an extended version of the original black and white pilot episode that comes with an introduction in which the star of My Three Sons talks to a tailor about the suit he's getting fitted for which segues into a scene involving the Skipper and Gilligan who are also hanging out in the wardrobe department where the two break character briefly to talk about what the wardrobe department does. This leads into a talk about the new show coming on CBS, Hogan's Heroes. It's an interesting alternate version that fans of the series will enjoy seeing.
From there, check out the five minute clip from the Hollywood Palace show where Bing Crosby talks over a clip from the show before Crane and the rest of the Heroes show up on the stage and goof off with Bing. It's all quite promotional feeling in nature, but it's funny enough to see the cast members staying in character and interacting with Bing.
Richard Dawson Remembers is a keen three part retrospective featurette with the actor who talks about the early days of the show, the cast members and some of the fond memories he has of his time working on the series. Dawson's getting up there in years but he's still got a sharp memory and a good sense of humor about him and he's got some really great stories to tell here. Shot in 2009, there's about forty four minutes worth of material here.
CBS has also dug out two great clips of Werner Klemperer at the Emmys from both the 1968 and 1969 ceremonies where he won Best Supporting Actor for a comedy series. The first clip is presented in black and white and the second in color. They're not in the best of shape but it's great to see them included here as Werner seems genuinely touched to receive the award both times and he's quite gracious about the honors bestowed upon him.
A Conversation With Co-Creator Al Ruddy is a twelve minute piece where the series' co-creator opens up about working on the series and where the odd idea came from for the series. Ruddy's got a great, tough guy voice and he's very easy to listen to as he talks about the prison aspect of the show, what was changed with the original pilot, and what it was like pitching the series to CBS in the first place. From there he talks about a plagiarism trial he was involved in, and about the various aspects of the series that they thought would make it work. Ruddy also supplies a four minute introduction for The Safecracker Suite where he talks about the trouble getting the series on the air and how it eventually wound up becoming a huge success and how CBS sold it to every country in the world except one - and that was Germany, where television executives saw it as insulting. Eventually the show was bought for a German audience but the jokes were all changed and the lines all completely rewritten so that they were more about contemporary problems that were occurring in the country at the time and not the Second World War. An alternate version of the Season One episode The Safecracker Suite follows this intro, in German with English subs, and yeah, Ruddy is right - it's completely bizarre and far, far different than the actual original episode.
Rounding out the extras on the discs is a pair of vintage promo spots, a photo montage set to the show's theme song (being performed by Bob Crane and his band), a digital version of the Mad Magazine parody (entitled Hokum's Heroes), a clip from CBS' Fall Preview Show Seven Wonderful Nights from 1965, menus and episode and chapter selection.
One thing worth noting about this set is that while the packaging looks very cool, the discs are housed inside small digipacks - one for each of the six seasons - that all fit inside the thicker cardboard housing. Unfortunately, the discs slip out of the digipacks very easily as there's no hub for them to snap on to, they just fit in cardboard pockets. None of the discs in this set got scratched, but many of them were loose.
The Final Word:
Given the high price tag of this set, those who already own the original releases probably won't want to invest in this set simply for the one disc of extra material despite the fact that it is all quite interesting. That said, those with an interest in the series will definitely want to get this version over the old one for the fact that yeah, it does have some goodies where the older discs didn't. Aside from that, despite the packaging problem, this is a nice set even if the transfers are identical to the previous releases.