Wednesday, December 6, 2017

A Classic TV Christmas- Advent 2017 Day


When is a Christmas TV episode NOT a Christmas TV episode? When it's the gang of Hogan's Heroes, of course!

Hogan's Heroes started in 1965 and ran for 6 seasons until 1971. It was a sitcom about a group of soldiers in World War II, made prisoners in a Nazi POW camp. These guys could have broken out any time they wanted but they decided that they could do more damage to the Axis powers by sneaking out at night and doing covert missions. Well one night, Hogan and his men entered their secret tunnel only to emerge in Hollywood, 1965! 



The soldiers exited an escape tunnel onto the set of an ABC show called Hollywood Palace. This show had a rotating cast of hosts. So why was Hogan's Heroes crossing over with Hollywood Palace? It turns out that the producer of Hogan's Heroes was the one and only Bing 'White Christmas' Crosby. Crosby, who was hosting the show's Christmas episode (December 25, 1965), decided he was going to plug his new sitcom that night.

Instead of having just the actors come on stage as themselves, Crosby had them emerge from a tunnel onto the stage in full costume acting as their characters from Hogan's Heroes. It was a weird time travel kinda episode that got even weirder when a couple of Nazis later emerge from the tunnel!



John Banner and Werner Klemperer, appearing on the show in the characters of Sgt. Schultz and Commandant Klink, recaptured the escapees and try to get them back to the Stalag. But once Bing offers to let them sing later, they all decide to have a nice Christmas in America- if only for one night!

Later, Bing Crosby fulfills his promise by letting Banner and Klemperer sing Silent Night in their native German. Only, this time, they wore tuxedos and were never referred in character. The same happened for actor Robert Clary, who played French Resistance fighter LeBeau on Hogan's Heroes. He was brought up to sing a French carol and not referred to in character either. 



To my extensive knowledge, this is the one and only 'Christmas' episode to star the cast of Hogan's Heroes. They never had an episode on the actual show set around Christmas. A lot of snow. But nothing festive. But then how festive can you get in a Nazi POW camp?

(OKAY- That's not quite true. There is an episode from October 1965, in which Hogan tells Klink that one of his men is dying and will not see Christmas. Thus, they throw a big party for the guy. But it is not a Christmas episode and was more of a prank than anything else. So I do not count it! But I did use a couple of photos from the episode in this post!)

One of the oddest holiday episodes ever, as my Advent gift for you all today, I present to you the original 1965 episode of Hollywood Parade, complete with original 1960s commercials. Enjoy and until next time- Merry Christmas!


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