Review (?) of Gilligans Island and Hogans Heroes

This is the first of my articles in a series about Old Television shows

Gillians Island and Hogans Heroes have been pathways to escapism at some point in my life of the past few years. They have provided a unique form of it, one that resides in complete escapism. They donut take place in conventional places and don't revolve around large casts and many areas. They are isolated, the former on a deserted island and the latter in a German POW camp during World War II. Both are comedies, which I have been especially keen on for awhile now, and both frequently explore far-fetched plots and outlandish scenarios, the essence of golden-age television you could say. More recently, my passion for Gilligan's Island has tapered off and I haven been able to finish the most recent season I purchased, but my love of Hogans Heroes has never dissipated and is alive as ever.

On the whole HH is the more quality show whereas Gilligan's Island, most of the time, leaves much to be desired. It has a lot of silly lines and cliché reactions and situations. It may have an imaginative plot, being stranded on a deserted island, but it still manages to fit neatly into a genre. Hogans Heroes on the other hand exploded and broke into genres never before explored. For one, it prominently featured an African American as Hogans second-in-charge, something never before seen. Though it took place in a German POW camp, it was not run by Nazis but by the Luftwaffe, and never mentioned the slaughter of six-plus million Jews and more. Concentration camps were the never the target of sabotage by Hogan and his commandos. Wilhelm, a Jewish actor who portrayed Kommandant Klink, reportedly accepted the role on the terms that Hogan always win their escapades. The actors who played Schultz and Le Beau respectively, were also Jewish. Ironically, Hogans Heroes re-runs have proved to be extremely popular in Germany and included a maid that was mentioned but never seen.

It could be argued that both series's have a fairly equal role in popular culture consciousness, perhaps Gilligan's Island has a slight edge because of the romantic setting and catchy theme song. Also Hogans Heroes is probably more infamous because of Bob Crane's (Hogan) pornographic film endeavors and mysterious murder, a renown Hollywood murder. As I said earlier HH is my favorite of the two. I have always had an interest in World War II, especially Germany.

The idea of Hogans Heroes that has molded itself into popular culture is the use of a secret tunnel. In Family Guy, a popular Fox animated comedy, an episode with Chris, Peters son, involves him having a job at a golfing range and while picking up balls the owner appears out of a secret tunnel from under the ground. He says to Chris, "Yeahs, it a secret tunnel, like in Hogans Heroes, wanna fight about it?" And in The Simpsons Homer envisions in his mind Klink as a gaurdian angel, Wikipedia mentions these as testaments to HH's popularity. I use these shows as examples because they are very popular in American and abroad culture. 

Hogans Heroes (Wikipedia)

Imdb