60th Anniversary of "Hogan's Heroes"

"Hogan's Heroes" premiered sixty years ago, September 17, 1965. It ran for six seasons, until April 1971. It was set in the fictional Luft Stalag 13, where the group of five prisoners in Barracks 2 conduct an impressive intelligence and sabotage effort via their tunnel system and communications, under the noses of the incompetent Luftwaffe commandant and bumbling sergeant. Seemingly the guards in the towers are all nearsighted, since the prisoners often pull some nonsense right out in the yard. The four major German roles and also Cpl. LeBeau were played by Jewish actors, who thus made fun of Nazis; Werner Klemperer, for instance, stipulated that his character Col. Klink must always be the fool. Every episode contained a reference to Klink's perfect record of no escapes, and also a reference to the Eastern Front. We love to end our day with reruns of the show on MeTV. The show received praise from the NAACP for having an African-American as second-in-command of the team. A lot of popular actors of the time guest starred in different roles over the six years. Some are still alive, like the entertaining Nita Talbot, but the regular cast have all passed away. 

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