CBS Presents This Program in Color

My old TV viewing on Netflix has recently extended to Hogan’s Heroes, Season 1, Disk 1. I watched that program after school for a while in early ’70s, and it was sometimes the subject of conversation around the lunchroom table in junior high. It’s an oddity of a show for a number of reasons, and though I’m not the first to point this out, the very idea is mildly astonishing: “Hey, let’s make a sitcom about POWs!” (I believe Mad magazine made that observation fairly early in the show’s run.)

Naturally, the POWs have to have the upper hand on the Germans, and so the complete implausibility of it all completely swamps whatever comedy is involved. Sure, it isn’t supposed to be realistic; no comedy is, especially TV comedies. But the setup is too far beyond my ability to suspend disbelief, at least as a grownup. I wasn’t so particular when I was 12, I guess.

Still, certain things about it are amusing or at least interesting. I understand that all the main German characters, who are played for buffoons, were portrayed by Jewish actors. I’m fond of John Banner’s Sgt. Schultz in particular, and it must be no accident that his catchphrase has long outlived him and the show. I’m also fond of show’s theme, a lively march of a TV theme if there ever was one.

Before every episode on the disk, except for the black & white pilot, there’s a ten-second segment in which the letters C-B-S drop onto the screen individually, and then an announcer says, “CBS presents this program in color!” The CBS eye then moves across the letters C-B-S and they change from gray to green, blue and red. Nice touch for the DVD. Reminds you that they were at the cusp of color TV, back in 1965.