I was walking around best buy with my wife the other day when i stumbled across the hogans heroes DVD set for season 3 (didnt see any others). I commented to my wife that i loved hogans heros and the only time i would get to watch it as a kid growing up was when i was sick at home from school and it would air just around lunch time after A-Team and that I always wanted to have the series on DVD... when she said she had never seen or heard of it i went into immediate shock and that was it... the deal was sealed and we purchased the season 3 disk set.

That evening we watched about 70% of the 1967 - 1968 season! She loved it and we went back in search of Seasons 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 which we have since purchased.

As big of a fan as i have always been of the show, and as much as i knew about it there was just as much that i didnt know. The actor's Bios were most interesting.

For starters, John Banner (Sgt. Schultz) had left his native Austria to go to switzerland with a traveling acting business. While he was there, Nazi Germany and Austria United. Being a Jew John Banner had no choice but to immigrate to America to escape the Nazi's and their sweep across Europe. For the entire duration of the war, Banner worried about his family who was still in Austria, only at the end of the war did he discover that his entire family had been killed in a concentration camp!

In the 1960s, a 180 pound physically fit John Banner auditioned for the role of Sgt. Schultz - a part that he agreed to gain 100 pounds for! playing the role of a Nazi prison guard while being a Jew in every day life earned Banner some flack from the jewish community. But he said that he played the Sgt. Schultz character because he felt that it "Represents a certain goodness that can be found within every generation".

John Banner is probably my favorite character on the show, I laugh more at Shultz than i do at nearly any other character.

Wonderful acting talent came in more ways than one to the most unlikely comedic sucess of the 1960's. the multi talented Werner Klemperer, also a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, was a great dramatic actor and he only accepted the role based upon the agreement that the Nazi schemes would never succeed on the show. Using his varied acting talents, his is role as a Nazi Judge in the 1961 film "Judgement at Nuremberg" earned several awards. He served in the U.S. Army during World War 2, He was also a master violinist and a licensed attorney who at one time defended Robert Clary (Cpl. LeBeau) when he was accused of Bob Crane's (Col. Hogan) Murder!

other intersting facts about the show was that the set of Stalag 13 was built on the same studio lot where the mansion "Tara" from the 1939 film "gone with the wind" was built for filming. On the same lot, behind a row of trees, though never visible in any hogans heroes show, stood "Camp Henderson" the marine boot camp from the show "Gomer Pyle" also adjacent to stalag 13 was the set for the town scenes for the Andy Griffith Show.

I think that the only additions to the DVD set that would have really made the set great would have been the addition of "pop up facts" like i have seen in other DVD sets. As the show would play, little windows would pop up with interesting trivia about the show or about a particular scene etc. Also, out takes would have been great though i doubt any out takes from the show were ever preserved.

Another classic and also proof that they don't make sitcoms like that anymore. Most of what we see on TV now won't be watched 30 years later.

Quote:

Most of what was on TV 30 years ago won't be watched now. The amount of pointless shite on TV hasn't changed much. But the good stuff will get remembered and the bad forgotten.

An old favorite of mine... imagine that; a bunch of
Jews making a very funny sitcom about a Nazi POW camp... who knew?

If you've ever seen Stalag 17, the brilliant drama that inspired it, it somehow makes it funnier...

Any "behind the scenes" footage or commentary?