Hold That Tiger

Hogan's Heroes
Season 1
Episode 2

This episode, and the all the following ones are in color and the regular cast is present and set. This episode introduces a recurring French underground agent, Tiger, whose name I am not entirely sure is not a play on the plot to steal a German Tiger Tank. In truth, I am not sure that Tiger was not intended to be a one-time character, used only for this episode.

The episode does lay out how well Hogan and his men have the German guards under their control. The most interesting part of this episode is that Colonel Klink suspects Hogan of something, while in others he is sure there is no way Hogan can have any part in the sabotage. Klink often waffles back and forth on believing Hogan and his men capable of the sabotage and suspecting they had a hand in it. Perhaps it's much like Sergeant Schultz, if he admits he knows, he must do something about that knowledge, and doing something with that knowledge will only serve to ensure he is sent for a nice long trip to the Russian Front.

Going into each episode, it is known from the beginning that Hogan's men will triumph over the Germans, so there is no real worry about Hogan's men., but it's still fun to watch how the sabotage is carried out and which of the Germans looks the most foolish. Klink is sometimes the fool, but Shultz almost never is. I think Hogan and his men need Schultz on their side too much to make too big a fool of him. This is one of the episodes where Klink ends up looking foolish and knows it, but he is also sure Hogan had a hand in it.

More to come as I work my way through the series. If you haven't checked out Hogan's Heroes yet, do so when you can. It's well worth the 22 minutes for an episode on DVD, or the half hour on a syndicated episode on live tv. And as a bonus, you'll get a lot of references in other shows. I have lost count how many references there are to Hogan's Heroes in more contemporary productions. It's definitely one of those "Ohh, so that's where that came from!" shows.