We’ve talked before
about how some Comfort TV shows ended with an episode that provided closure for
its characters and its viewers. But these were the exception.
From the 1950s through
the 1970s, most series just stopped. Of these, the one that still bothers me
most is Hogan’s Heroes. It doesn’t take decades of hindsight to wonder
why we were not shown how the end of Germany’s involvement in World War II
played out at Stalag 13.
Was the creative team
caught off-guard? Hardly. According to Brenda Scott Royce’s fine book on the
series, everyone knew the show’s sixth season would be its last.
There was an
eagerness to get the series into syndication, which offered higher profit
potential, and a time-slot change had further cut into already sagging ratings.
Besides, this was something
that should have been prepared for years earlier. Hogan’s Heroes had a small stable of regular writers, including
Laurence Marks (68 episodes), Richard M. Powell (29 episodes) and Arthur Julian
(24 episodes). It’s inconceivable to me that at least one of them never came
forward to say, “Hey, I know how we wrap this up.”
The only plausible reason
it didn’t happen was a concern over how a finale would impact the series in
syndication. This was also an issue with The
Fugitive, as producer Quinn Martin worried no one would watch the reruns
because they knew how the show ended. And perhaps that concern was warranted,
as The Fugitive rarely aired in
syndication, while Hogan’s Heroes played
for the next 20 years.
Very different shows, of
course, and had Hogan’s shot a final
episode I can’t imagine it would have diminished the show’s enduring appeal.
How would it unfold?
Here’s my version.
In the opening scene, a message
is sent from London to the heroes’ underground radio: Hitler has killed himself
and Germany has surrendered. Hogan would make the announcement to LeBeau,
Newkirk, Carter and Baker (Ivan Dixon, who played Kinchloe, did not return for
season six). There would be much joy and celebration, and a discussion about
what they all planned to do now that their treacherous assignment has ended.
And unlike the show’s
creative team, this is a moment Hogan will have anticipated. Sure, he’ll say,
now we could wait for the Allies or walk out the front gate, but it seems more fitting
to make a final exit from Stalag 13 through the tunnels, disappearing for the
last time into the German countryside.
But before departing,
they’d ask for a word with Sgt. Schultz.
How many rescues and
sabotage plans would not have been possible without Schultz’s preference to not
know what was going on? Some of my favorite scenes in the series had Hogan not
just planning his strategies in Schultz’s presence, but offering to explain
them in detail, until the agitated Schultz fled the scene after yet another
declaration of his famous catchphrase: “I know nothing! I see nothing!”
Hogan would be content
to leave true believers like General Burkhalter and Major Hochstetter to their
fates. Particularly Hochstetter, the Gestapo leader who was as nasty a piece of
work as the show could introduce in a comedic premise.
But Schultz never wanted
to be a Nazi. As revealed in the episode “War Takes a Holiday,” before the war
he had been the owner of the Schatzi Toy Company. And while he had plenty of
stomach he certainly had no stomach for war, or the despicable agenda of his Führer. So Hogan would offer him and his family safe
passage to London or America. Or, if he preferred to stay, they would use some
of their appropriated funds to set him back up in the business he left after
being drafted.
Great sitcoms can handle
serious moments, and here would be an ideal opportunity to reveal what was
obvious to attentive viewers all along: Schultz was never as dumb or as
innocent as he presented himself. A clueless clown couldn’t build the largest
toy maker in Germany. He was making the best of a terrible situation, trying to
stay alive and away from the Russian front.
“I knew everything,” he
would tell Hogan as they parted company. “I saw everything. I just did nothing
because I knew you were right.”
But what of Colonel Klink,
whose ineptitude was even more decisive is securing an Allied victory?
The easy option would
have Hogan making one last unannounced visit to his office, with a “guess what
we’ve been doing all this time?” revelation. But that seems too obvious.
There could be an ironic
twist of Klink finally making General – having one of the most unqualified
German officers in the military not only surviving but advancing despite his
incompetence – sort of like how The Mary Tyler
Moore Show ended with Ted Baxter as the only WJM News employee who wasn’t
fired.
But I’ve always imagined
something more poignant so Werner Klemperer, who won multiple Emmys for his
portrayal of Klink, could also play a moment revealing the man beneath the
buffoon.
Klink calls Hogan to his
office to share a glass of champagne and toast the end of the war, but by then
Hogan and company are already gone. But before they leave, they expose every aspect
of their operation, which is finally discovered by the clueless commandant.
We watch as Klink walks
silently through the now-abandoned camp, its tunnels laid bare, along with the
maps and the coffee pot listening device, the stockpile of German uniforms, the
printing press, the sliding barbed-wire fence and the hinged doghouse.
As he realizes what a
fool he’s been all this time, an overhead crane shot would pull out from Klink
standing alone with this thoughts. Gradually his incredulity turns to a smile,
and perhaps even a laugh, as he enters Hogan’s quarters and offers an acquiescent
salute to a superior adversary. We then cut to Hogan and company in Paris –
joined by Marya and Tiger and maybe even Colonel Crittendon.
The episode would
conclude in Washington DC, with Hogan and his men in dress uniforms receiving
medals for their efforts in helping to win the war, as the stirring strains of
Jerry Fielding’s march emanate from a military band.
What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Think you could do better? You probably could. But if you’re not impressed I’m happy to direct you to yet another version, created a few years back by Mitchell Hadley at the It’s About TV blog. He plays the story out into the Korean conflict, the Kennedy administration, and up to the 1980s. He was always more ambitious than I am.
