Hogan’s Heroes: Season 1 Episode 9, “Go Light On The Heavy Water”

LOGLINE: Hogan convinces Kommandant Klink that the heavy water being stored at Stalag 13 is a youth potion.

Captain Mueller is transporting some important cargo to Berlin from Norway and gets caught in a bombing raid, so he drives to Stalag 13 and asks to stay there until the bombing raids have stopped, knowing that the Allies wouldn’t bomb a POW camp. When Klink asks him what’s in the truck, Mueller tells him that it’s a barrel of water.

Hogan and his men see the truck in the compound and the number of soldiers guarding it and are trying to figure out what it is. Schultz comes in asking for some after shave, which Hogan is more than happy to give him–for information on what’s in the truck. Schultz tells him it’s a barrel of water, and nothing makes him change his story.

Hogan and Kinch go out with a NO SMOKING sign and tell the guard that Klink ordered them to tack it up because he didn’t want the nitroglycerin in the truck to blow up. The guard tells him it’s water, but they tack the sign up anyway. Newkirk then comes up to the truck and tries to light a cigarette. All the guards descend on Newkirk, who protests loudly while Carter sneaks into the truck and fills his canteen with the water. When he’s done, Hogan breaks up the scuffle between Newkirk and the guards, which by now has drawn the attention of Klink, who tells Hogan there’s no explosive material in the truck, just a barrel of water.

Now more convinced than ever that whatever is in the barrel is not water, he has Carter pour some of it, and it look likes water, smells like water, and tastes like water. Kinch comes up from the radio room and relays the message that the crew on the submarine wants to talk to Hogan. They tell him that it’s actually "heavy water," used in nuclear experiments, and tell him to destroy it.

Hogan goes to Klink and apologizes for the misunderstanding about the water, saying that he heard it was from a spa in Norway, that LeBeau told him Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette would go to the spa for the water. He says that Louis XVI had been losing his hair, but after drinking the water he needed to hire a new barber.

Klink can’t resist, so he climbs into the back of the truck, ostensibly to make sure that everything is all right, and drinks a cup of it. He returns to his office and has Helga come in to take dictation, and she looks at him like something dramatic has changed, and brushes what she says are "dandruff flakes" off his jacket. Hogan comes in and says the same thing.

At night, Klink decides to steal the barrel and replace it with a barrel of regular water, and enlists Schultz’s help. They’re caught by Mueller, who tells Klink what it is. Here’s what happens after that…

This was one of the funnier episodes. Watching Hogan play Klink’s narcissism against him, with the ever-lovely Helga abetting him, was one of the funnier things about the it, and seeing Klink’s reaction to the smoke bomb and clutching his Pickelhaube helmet to his chest as he prepared to jump out the window was worth waiting until the end to see.

CAST:

• Bob Crane as Hogan
• Werner Klemperer as Klink
• John Banner as Schultz
• Richard Dawson as Newkirk
• Ivan Dixon as Kinchloe
• Larry Hovis as Carter
• Cynthia Lynn as Helga
• Eddie Firestone as Scotty
• John Stephenson as Mueller

This was the only episode that Robert Clary wasn’t in, although LeBeau is mentioned. Larry Hovis and Richard Dawson, who appeared on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, would be absent occasionally later in the series, usually not at the same time.

Back with Episode 10 soon!