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DVD Hogan's Heroes - The Complete 2nd Season
A top 10 show in its first season (a top 20 show in its second), Hogan's Heroes, like Gilligan's Island, got little love from critics during its seven-year run, but it would come to be ranked among TV's guiltiest pleasures. Hogan's Heroes has gotten something of a bad rap. It is not a situation comedy set in a concentration camp. It is, instead, set in a P.O.W. camp, where Col. Hogan (Bob Crane, a former top radio jock, in his star-making role) and his men "trick the dumb Germans," to quote the late Crane's former wife, Sigrid Valdis, in her enlightening commentary on the episode, "Hogan Gives a Birthday Party." While Valdis reveals that the film Von Ryan's Express was a key inspiration for the series, the show seems to takes its cue from Billy Wilder's Stalag 17, with its blend of comedy (albeit more broad than darkly cynical) and espionage action. Though camp commandant Col. Klink (Werner Klemperer, who would win an Emmy for his career-defining role) was, in the words of one character, "a bubble-headed fool," Hogan's Heroes was not quite a burlesque of bad taste.
Seemingly in response to wide-ranging outrage over the show's misunderstood premise (a Mad magazine parody at the time was brutal), there are some bracing dramatic moments that cut through the comedy. In "Operation Briefcase," Hogan is recruited to assist an attempt to assassinate Hitler. Hogan disdainfully tells the German plotter, "It's the least you can do, considering you're the same bunch of guys who put him in business." In the episode "Will the Real Adolf Hitler Please Stand Up?" Hogan explodes at one of his men when he imitates Hitler. "Imitating that nut in Berlin," he fumes. "It's not all that funny." But somehow, Hogan's Heroes is, thanks to Crane and Klemperer ("You talk about two people born to play a part," remarks Valdis), not to mention John Banner as the jowl-cheeked buffoon, Sgt. Schultz, and the rest of the crack ensemble, including real-life concentration camp survivor Robert Clary as LeBeau, Richard Dawson as Newkirk, Ivan Dixon as "Kinch," and Valdis herself, who debuted this season as Klink's secretary, Hilda, she of the scene-stealing tight sweaters and low-cut peasant blouses, and whose chief dialogue consisted of "Col. Hogan to see the commandant." The extras are a retro blast. The most bizarre is a commercial in which Carol Channing is smuggled into the barracks to enjoy a Jello dessert with Hogan and company. --Donald Liebenson
Review(s): DVD Hogan's Heroes - The Complete 2nd Season
Love This collection
Hogan's Heroes was one of those rare shows that tried to be hokey and serious at the same time. We knew it was nonsense, but we loved it anyway. This second season collection has some great bonus features including home movies of the Crane wedding, home movies on the set, CBS promos, and the cast appearing in a couple other shows of that era including "The Lucy Show".
The color and sound are first rate, and the episodes appear untampered with. Have fun watching this.
Hogan's Heroes=MY FAVORITE SHOW EVER!!!!!
My family and I love Hogan's Heroes. In fact we like LOTS of old shows!They're so much better than what is on Tv now. (I can't hardly watch the stuff!) It's not just older people like my dad (who was around when the show started)who like it either. All my friends love it too! They're funny, clever, and imaginative!!! I can never decide who my favorite character is b/c they're all so great! These shows are great! I wish they had entertaining wholesome entertainment like this for MY generation!
Captives with a Captive Audience
Season Two picks up where Season One left off. The only significant change was that Sigrid Valdis joined the cast permanently as Klink's secretary. Valdis guest starred in an earlier Season One episode. One of the things that makes Season Two so enjoyable is that there are no significant changes in plot or characters. Hogan and his men continue to foil the Nazis while at the same time protecting Klink from being sent to the Eastern Front.
By its second season, HOGAN'S HEROES lost its top ten spot in the ratings, but maintained a very respectable position in the top 20s. This was no easy feat for a World War Two sitcom. John Banner is just as loveable as Sergeant Schultz. During the second season there was increased professioal rivalry between Banner and Klemperer in each episode. In the end, Schultz, even when he is in the background of a shot, always steals the scene with his boyish expressions.
True to all Season Two DVD releases, HOGAN'S HEROES boasts special features including home movies taken on the set with narration by Sigrid Valdis. There are also some promotional spots by Klemperer and short clips of cast appearances on other shows. Additionally the opening DVD selection menu has more graphics and sound effects. The quality of the DVD release is exceptional.
Realize too that this show is 40 years old. Its historical setting makes the sitcom timeless. HOGAN'S HEROES continued its Bing Crosby Production schedule at Desilu studios and the outdoor lot adjacent to Gomer Pyle and Mayberry. Note too that most of the outdoor episodes are supposed to be taking place in the wintertime. For the most part the series succeeds in portraying cold climate with oily gray smoke coming from metal chimneys, white powder scattered on the ground and sometimes on the foliage, and actors clasping themselves as if they were in freezing cold. However, lush green deciduous vegetation in the background betrays a warmer climate.
Yes, HOGAN'S HEROES does have a laughtrack. The laughtrack is the same as used in most Desilu/Paramount hosted television series. The same laughtrack was used until M*A*S*H ended its television run. Not bad for recorded laughter. You also have to admit that most multi-set and outdoor sitcoms fared better when equipped with laughtracks. Remember how HAPPY DAYS slipped downhill after they began including a studio audience?
HOGAN'S HEROES is a television show that you can watch over and over again. The fact that the show ran for six years, when all seasons are eventually released, guaranties that you will not grow tired of the episodes.
Related DVD's Hogan's Heroes - The Complete 2nd Season
Two years after 1963's The Great Escape thrilled movie audiences with a tale of Allied soldiers working cooperatively to flee a World War II-era prisoner-of-war camp, CBS found a hit situation comedy in the loosely similar Hogan's Heroes. Initially dismissed by critics as being in poor taste, the half-hour show starred Bob Crane (previously known for a supporting role on The Donna Reed Show) as Colonel Robert Hogan, leader of a resourceful band of French, British and American guests of the German Luftwaffe. Rather than sit out the war with his fellow captives, Hogan essentially used the POW camp, Stalag 13, as a base for sabotaging Nazi operations whenever possible, helping important prisoners escape, supporting the Resistance, gathering intelligence for the Allies,... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Howard Morris - John Rich - Robert Butler - Edward H. Feldman - Bob Sweeney DVD Release Date: Released the 15 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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"What is this man doing here?" an increasingly agitated Major Hochstetter of the Gestapo demands of Col. Klink (Werner Klemperer) in "War Takes a Holiday," one of the best episodes of Hogan's Heroes' third season (or any season, for that matter). "This man," of course, is Senior P.O.W. Officer Col. Hogan (Bob Crane), who, by now, has the run of Stalag 13, and seemingly, all of Europe. The beginning of the episode, "D-Day at Stalag 13," finds Hogan in London to receive his orders on how his barracks operation will further "tie up" the German general command to distract them from the planned Normandy landing. "You have quite a reputation for the offbeat and the bizarre, and for pulling it off," Hogan is told. And he more than lives up to it over the course of season 3. In "War Takes... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Marc Daniels - Howard Morris - Irving J. Moore - John Rich - Robert Butler DVD Release Date: Released the 07 March 2006 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Probably the most successful bad idea in television history, Hogan's Heroes took an appalling premise--the suffering of World War II prisoners-of-war played for laughs--and turned it into a hugely popular series that ran for six seasons. Wily Colonel Hogan (Bob Crane, previously a regular on The Donna Reed Show) and his merry multicultural band of P.O.W.s--including cocky cockney Newkirk (Richard Dawson, pre-Family Feud), softhearted Frenchman LeBeau (Robert Clary, later to appear on Days of Our Lives), clumsy explosives expert Carter (Larry Hovis), and steadfast radio operator Kinch (Ivan Dixon), one of the first black characters on television to be treated as an equal by his peers without any self-congratulatory comment--carried out spying and sabotage... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Marc Daniels - Howard Morris - Irving J. Moore - John Rich - Robert Butler DVD Release Date: Released the 15 August 2006 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Get ready for another season of wacky antics and laughs from the gang at Stalag 17. The guys are up to their old tricks to sabotage and subvert the Nazi efforts, along with the bungling Col. Klink and Sgt. Schultz. Here's what you can expect in Season 5.
The 26 episodes with original telecast dates include:
Episode 1: Hogan Goes Hollywood (9/26/1969)
Episode 2: The Well (10/3/1969)
Episode 3: The Klink Commandos (10/10/1969)
Episode 4: The Gasoline War (10/17/1969)
Episode 5: Unfair Exchange (10/24/1969)
Episode 6: The Kommandant Dies at Dawn (10/31/1969)
Episode 7: Bombsight (11/7/1969)
Episode 8: The Big Picture (11/14/1969)
Episode 9: The Big Gamble (11/21/1969)
Episode 10: The Defector... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Marc Daniels - Howard Morris - Irving J. Moore - John Rich - Robert Butler DVD Release Date: 19 December 2006
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As a child growing up in the 70's and 80's, I used to come home from school and watch The Munsters. I was absolutely fascinated with this series. The characters were hilarious, and the scripts were excellent! Now, the complete second season, comes to DVD in a 3 disc set. It features all 32 episodes from The Munsters second and final season. Don't forget about the 4 A&E Bios as bonus features! The 4 A&E Bios will be about, The Munsters, "America's First Family of Fright", Fred Gwynne, "More Than a Munster", Yvonne DeCarlo, "Gilded Lily", and Al Lewis, "Forever Grandpa". All packaged, in a Herman Munster head.
I would not miss the chance to own the second season of this fantastic family show!
Now, if you've only seen Season 2 episodes from TVLand, then you don't... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Fred Gwynne DVD Release Date: Released the 25 October 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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