Making fun of a terrible event in world history may not sit too well with a modern television audience, yet Hogan’s Heroes remains funny.
This series set up a back-and-forth battle between Allied prisoners and their Nazi handlers. Of course, the setting for this sitcom was World War II. Bob Crane, Werner Klemperer, and John Banner headlined the show’s cast. The Stalag 13 prisoners included Richard Dawson, Larry Hovis, Robert Clary, Ivan Dixon, and Kenneth Washington.
It debuted on CBS in 1965 and stuck around for six seasons. Throughout its episodes, Crane, who played Colonel Robert Hogan, had many run-ins with Klemperer’s Colonel Klink. In fact, these encounters played a pivotal role in the show’s humor.
But the POWs managed to get their giggles by getting Banner’s Sgt. Schultz to help them out. A kind of running gag was Clary, who played Corporal LeBeau, cooking up some delicious food for Schultz to eat. That way, Schultz’s appetite gets fed and the POWs find a way to keep themselves busy. Hogan’s Heroes was quite popular with viewers during the majority of its time on CBS. Yet, shows will run their course…and it happened for this one, too.
This Diverse Cast Was Quite Unique
One of the most amazing things fans of Hogan’s Heroes found out over the years is how many cast members were Jewish. It probably was not the most fun thing for these actors to play Nazis. Yet Klemperer, Banner, Leon Askin (who played General Burkhalter), and Howard Caine (who played Major Hochstetter) were Jews.
They managed to play Nazis in a bumbling way. Maybe for some of them, being able to do this took a little of the sting out of portraying terrible people. The scripts for the CBS show set it up so Hogan and the POWs were always getting the best of their captors.
Every show had an element of surprise to it. Hogan’s Heroes was so popular that it joined other CBS shows in going from black-and-white to color episodes. As we said, though, the sitcom ran its course and CBS canceled it in 1971.
One ‘Hogan’s Heroes’ Star Kept Quite Busy
When the show ended, Bob Crane needed to find more work in his career. He’d made appearances on some variety shows during his sitcom’s run. One time, Crane and some of his cast members showed up with Bing Crosby on ABC’s The Hollywood Palace. On this variety show, they appeared in their costumes reflecting their characters.
Crane found himself making a Disney movie titled Superdad, then he also made an appearance in another Disney movie titled Gus. Bob Crane showed up as a guest star on 1970s shows like Police Woman, Quincy, M.E., and The Love Boat.
He also was quite busy on the dinner theater circuit thanks to his involvement in a comedy play titled Beginner’s Luck. Crane bought the rights to that play and performed it in different dinner theaters.
While Crane was performing in these different shows and plays, the success he had during his time on the television series was not at the same level.
Bob Crane’s Life Destroys ‘Hogan’s Heroes’ Memories
It would be nice if memories of Bob Crane were only about his show business career. Sadly, though, it’s not. Crane had a dark side to his life, a private side his cast members didn’t know about.
Crane filled his private life with pornography and sexual encounters. As the story goes, Richard Dawson introduced Crane to John Henry Carpenter. It was Carpenter who shared his video camera equipment with Crane. They videotaped many of their sexual encounters.
Crane’s secret life also led him to meet some rather unscrupulous people. In 1978, while living in an apartment in Scottsdale, Ariz., Crane was murdered. He was in a long run of Beginner’s Luck. After a cast member of the play entered Crane’s apartment to find him dead, she called the police. They found Crane’s body with what may have been a tripod bludgeoned into him. Police also found an electrical cord wrapped around his neck.
Carpenter was arrested in 1992 after an investigation into the murder. He was acquitted, though, in a trial. Carpenter continued to say he was innocent through his death in 1998.
This seedy side that Bob Crane kept away from the public eye is quite public now. Years have gone by from Hogan’s Heroes’ heyday on CBS. Reruns are aired on different TV streaming platforms like PlutoTV. Watching Crane in his smart-aleck role as Hogan still brings laughs to the show’s fans. But his life and career remain stained due to his horrific death.
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Joe Rutland is an author, writer, and editor whose work has appeared on numerous large-scale digital platforms. Among them are Entrepreneur, The Good Men Project, The Huffington Post, Thrive Global, and Elite Daily. Rutland is on X at @JosephRutland5.
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