Customer Reviews

Hogan's Heroes - The Complete Series

5 star:		(60)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Like me, you'd probably be happy to spend the money they're asking for this complete set of all six seasons of Hogan's Heroes. If it were only the show being reviewed here, 5 stars wouldn't have been enough! But like me, you'll probably also be disappointed when you receive your package only to find that there is nothing here that you couldn't have gotten for around $23 less by just ordering the individual seasons at (current Amazon price) $15.99.

It's a sucker deal! There's absolutely no advantage to paying the extra dough because you get nothing extra for the money! Not even a nice box to contain and/or display the set, nothing at all other than the same six seasons, in the same untidy packaging that you'd get for the lower price of $95.94 if buying the seasons separately! And with Amazon's free shipping on orders over $25 or free 2-day shipping with an Amazon prime membership, shipping costs don't play into it at all.

The set doesn't display nicely on a shelf because the spines aren't uniform, nor are the seasons identically packaged.

Season 1: 5 discs, each in its own slimcase.

Seasons 2 and 3: 5 discs in only 3 slimcases (per season), meaning that two of the three cases contain 2 discs each.

Seasons 4, 5 and 6: 4 discs in two slimcases (per season).

That's 6 sets in boxes of three different sizes with unidentical print design on the spines. There is no "good side" to display!

What the...? Add it all up and you have an untidy, not so great looking set for purposes of presentation on a shelf or media rack. Still, it's Hogan's Heroes! Buy it, but be smart and buy the separate seasons!

The complete set of six seasons was well worth the wait. I saw Season Six at Walmart and almost bought it there but when I found the complete set on Amazon, it was one of those, "now's the time" purchases (wincing as I clicked the purchase button...) ;^D

You will fine all the episodes very entertaining with lots of healthy laughs. It is really neat watching my kids enjoy the program as much as I have and still do.

The problem is tearing them away from small installments (they wanted to watch four in one sitting). 168 episodes is alot but most of us who saw the originals and re-runs had to wait a week at a time - the wonders of technology today.

Anyhow, the quality of this set is excellent, remastered DVDs, there are a few bonuses on some of the season sets, if there was a negative more bonus material would have been a plus.

Opinion statement: Some say M*A*S*H was the all time hit, Actually I liked Hogan's Heros more and it was more family friendly, very minimal adult-type humor, Hogan's Heros has the type of humor the kids can enjoy, even at their level. Hogan's Heros successful six seasons paved the way for M*A*S*H to become a reality and a success.

It is a good family friendly set and I'll not hesitate to recommend it. It is an investment in some fun moments with you spouse and kids! (...that's 65 cents per episode...)

It took me years to assemble something close to a complete collection of Hogan's Heroes episodes from the edited television re-runs back in the 1990's. It was a labor of love that paid off well in the years before the glut of DVD re-releases. Of all the wonderful television classics now available, none excites me more than Hogan's Heroes: one of the most unique, entertaining, and magical creations in television history. I have been patiently awaiting the day when the complete series would become available and I am thrilled that that day is finally here.

Having said that I think greater care and attention to detail should have been devoted to the presentation and packaging of this one-of-a-kind television classic. I would have liked to have seen more DVD extras including more commentary, interviews, subtitle options, maybe a half-hour documentary, and definately a specially designed box to house all the DVDs. This product is simply the individual season packages bundled together in shrink wrap. But alas one can't expect too much from the major studios and their preoccupation with the bottom line (for a prime example of this check out the hack job they did with TV classics like WKRP In Cincinnati and Happy Days... thankfully music copyright royalties are not an issue with the DVD release of Hogan's Heroes).

Fans everywhere can now enjoy, complete and without interruption, any and every episode of the heroics of Hogan and his men in the comfort of their own home. If this isn't modern living I don't know what is.

The comedian Gilbert Gottfried (AF-lac!) has a bit about the least likely idea to make a sitcom about. Picture this: A Nazi-era German prisoner-of-war camp; allied inmates behind barbed-wire. It's a Comedy! Yeah, right. But somehow it made it into production & now it's out on DVD, finally. I'm not saying it's the greatest sitcom or anything, but it's a vaudevillian incarnation; a treat of the first order, and can be watched again and again---the test of a genuinely whimsical show. ("Family Ties" & "Barney Miller," amongst others, were funny when they were running, but are not at all interesting to me anymore, for instance.) Quite possibly, the thing that saves "Hogan's Heroes" is that it wasn't contemporary when it came out. The plots of this WW2-set show run the gamut of the allied inmates trying to swipe or disable anything of a military nature that passes through the camp, to kidnapping German scientists, blowing up bridges miles from camp, and impersonating German officers in town...as they utilize escape tunnels to leave and return to camp, as well as employing hidden radio transmitters to send and receive coded messages from London, and most importantly play on Camp Kommandant Colonel Klink's gullibility to make him an unwitting partner in some measure, in their exploits. TV programs set in specific historical periods are simply not as easily "dated" as other shows are (think of "Sanford & Son," "Growing Pains; even dramas the likes of "Hill St. Blues"). "M*A*S*H," for instance, is still a great show and, like Hogan's Heroes," is holding up well. Exaggerated characters helps too---think of Hawkeye Pierce's Groucho Marx-inspired one-liners in "M*A*S*H." Colonel Klink likewise is a standout, and is thus (in my opinion at least) the real star of "Hogan's Heroes;" in the same sense that Gracie Allen was more essential than George Burns in making the great Burns & Allen combination successful. Klink's flamboyantly delicious delivery of his oft-repeated (of course, ridiculously untrue) lines, admonishing anyone and everyone that "There has Nev-er been an escape from Stalag 13!" or "This is the toughest P-O-W camp in all of Germany," never get old. Even funnier is when he cannot even finish such lines before being told to shut up by General Burkhalter or other visiting superior officers. While you're at it too, there's another show very much like this one. It was made in the the UK and is called "Allo, Allo." It's also set in WW2 Europe, but this time in a German-occupied French town. Akin to "Hogan's Heroes" the Germans are likewise obtuse while the French resistance attempts to persuade the same unfortunate cafe owner each episode to facilitate their wacky schemes along the lines of Hogan's men. Check out some reviews of it. If you're a fan of "Hogan's Heroes" you'll probably think it a riot; I do. Cheers!

A series of easy going half hour improbable but well written stories. The series is without malice and even after 40 years is sheer comedy.
Can be watched again and again.

While this show was airing long before I was around, I remember watching the re-runs with my father. I always enjoyed Hogan's Heroes far more than the other WWII films that we often watched together, although now that I am older I have a new appreciation for films like Midway.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the show, it's about a group of allied pilots from England, the U.S., and France who are in a German P.O.W. camp during WWII, guarded by Commandant Klink and the illustrious Sergeant Shultz. If you are wondering how on Earth this constitutes as a comedy, you are not alone--even Werner Klemperer, the actor who portrays Commandant Klink and whose Jewish father had to flee Germany in the 1930s to escape Hitler, thought the producers were crazy. The beauty of the show is the satirical premise that within a P.O.W. camp could be the greatest sabotage ring operating in Germany during the war. Throughout the show's run, Colonel Hogan (Bob Crane) and his men (although they are often assisted by others) blow up bridges, destroy factories, leak troop movements and diagrams of new weapons to the British, discredit the Gestapo, and perhaps most importantly, smuggle countless prisoners and defectors to England, usually via a secret submarine but other times via plane, train, and even a hot air balloon constructed in camp! Then there are the girls, or "birds" as resident Englander Corporal Newkirk (Richard Dawson--pre-Family Fued) calls them, who are slender, buxom, and usually fall head-over-heels for ladies' man Colonel Hogan. The show isn't free of cliche or sexism (come on, this was the 60s!), but it's still immensely enjoyable.

Making this series was a smart move to make on the producers' part, despite the oddball outline. There was enough distance from the bulk of the fallout from the war that audiences would appreciate such humor, especially as this was taking place during the rumbles of the Vietnam War. Unlike M*A*S*H, which portrayed the realities of the war (although centered around the Korean conflict, the show could easily be applied to Vietnam), Hogan's Heroes portrayed a farsical bent to the horror that was often applied to such camps in WWII. Generals are easily fooled into thinking that a prisoner doing a fairly decent impersonation of Hitler is the real McCoy, Sergeant Shultz and Colonel Klink are constantly manipulated into Hogan's hands with the mere mention of the Russian front, the Gestapo barely notice that a premier general has somehow developed a strong Russian accent (because he was being impersonated by a klutzy Russian actor), and even the German Shepherd guard dogs are sweet-as-pie to the prisioners while maintaining a gruff exterior around the guards. It's hardly the reality of the situation (although there was considerable sabotage inflicted by the various underground forces during the war, something the show often relies heavily upon for assistance for the Allied prisoners), but there's enough patriotism, incredible gags, and a great acting ensemble to keep audiences entertained for years.

As far as this packaging goes, now that it's been out for a while, the cost is comparable to buying the seasons individually. Season two has the most (and the best) special features, including Bob Crane's wedding, home movies taken on the set, CBS promos that are absolutely hilarious, a blooper reel, a Jell-o/Dream Whip commercial with the cast, and a few other tv spots. Most of the other seasons contain photo galleries and the occasional extra (like Werner Klemperer on The Pat Sajak Show). I found the quality to be very good, especially for a show of this age.

If you are a fan and haven't collected the individual seasons yet, this is definitely for you. If you have some of the first seasons already, there aren't any extra features in this package (that I know of). If you are wanting to check out the show first before you commit, I'd suggest renting the first or fourth season first (my favorites - although if you watch the original pilot episode you get a mixed message on one of the characters...he ends up staying as part of the "gang" when in the pilot he is just another soldier being sent to England). Most rental places will have it, especially on-line ones like Blockbuster and Netflix. It hasn't been shown on any cable/satellite channels for years that I know of (TV Land used to), so unfortunately this is as good as we are going to get at the moment.

I bought the entire set of Hogan's Heroes and have been watching them over and over again. These episodes bring back such great memories as I used to watch the series when the show originally aired on tv. My favorite on the show was always the late, talented BOB CRANE as the irresistable Colonel Hogan. I loved his quick wit and golden tongue when it came to manipulating Kommandant Klink and/or Sergeant Schultz. BOB CRANE was a brillant comedic actor with a great future ahead of him, but he suffered from a terrible addiction which destroyed him. As an actor, he is missed, but, thank God we have these DVDs to be able to watch and enjoy the performance of a talented actor.

This combination of comedians keeps me laughing time after time. From the sneaky Col. Hogan to the charming Schultz; I love them all.

I got the complete-series set as a birthday treat and eagerly waited to watch what I believed would be all the full-length episodes as originally aired. Since I had spent several years taping every episode I could find on TV in the 1990's, I knew I was then getting only edited shows from syndication re-runs. I also found that, depending on the channel, many episodes shown on one channel contained scenes that were not in the same episode on another channel. Imagine my GREAT disappointment when I started watching the new DVD's and discovered that they also deleted scenes from the majority of episodes.

While DVD's can offer extras (deleted scenes not shown in original airing, cast and director insider comments), that were rarely available on commercially-made tapes, I would rather have had NONE of the extras in exchange for getting ALL the episodes UN-edited! The quality of the DVD's is naturally better than my off-TV home-made tapes, and I'm sure the DVD's will last longer, but I still enjoy watching my OLD tapes to see the scenes that are blatantly missing from the NEW DVD's. I sure do wish they would bring out the unedited episodes in a new DVD set.

I purchased this series for my husband who was a huge Hogan's Heroes fan. He has watched all of them already and enjoyed seeing them again. I would recommend them.