Hogan’s Heroes: Season 1 Ep 11, “Happiness Is A Warm Sergeant”

LOGLINE: After Klink finds Sergeant Schultz drunk he gets a tough new replacement.

Captain Jeb Winslow, a tall, noisy Texan who was recently shot down over Düsseldorf, has made his way to Stalag 13 and is in need of the "Traveler’s Aid Society." LeBeau mets him outside the camp and brings him in through the emergency tunnel to meet Hogan. Hogan promises that they’ll get him on the submarine and back to London within 48 hours–until Kinch tells him that the radio has shorted out and they need new parts to get it working.

Hogan "volunteers" Newkirk to be the person who goes into town and get the new parts under the pretense that he has a bad tooth. They go to Klink, who sends Schultz with him, ordering them to see the dentist and come right home. Of course, Newkirk guides Schultz into a tavern, where the contact for the radio parts, the bartender, works. Schultz is reluctant, but Newkirk puts him at ease, saying they’re just going to have a drink before seeing the dentist, to relax.

Newkirk buys Schultz a beer, gets whiskey for himself, then gives the bartender the list of parts. They sit and drink, with Newkirk diverting Schultz’s attention and adding whiskey to the sergeant’s beer. By the time the bartender returns with the parts, Schultz is pretty well wasted.

Newkirk ends up pushing Schultz in a wheelbarrow back to the camp. Klink is furious, and tells Schultz that when he sobers up, he’ll walk a guardpost until his replacement arrives, at which point he’ll be transferred elsewhere.

Schultz walks the guardpost outside the gates when his replacement, Sgt. Krebs, arrives. He’s everything Schultz isn’t: alert, forceful, a stickler for the rules and military discipline, and real gung-ho.

Schultz drops by the barracks to ask for foot powder and has coffee with the Heroes, when Winslow wanders out of Hogan’s office looking for a cigarette and a light. He gets the former from Newkirk and the latter from Schultz–who suddenly realizes that Winslow isn’t on the prison roster and is probably the pilot shot down over Düsseldorf, and threatens to turn him in. Hogan talks him out of reporting Winslow, telling him that they will get Krebs transferred and him reinstated.

They start out by playing a couple of tricks on Krebs. Carter turns in a radio that ends up squirting water into Klink’s face. Kinch makes as though he’s talking to Hogan underground, implying there’s a tunnel under the ground. When Krebs brings Klink to the spot where Kinch was, the ground collapses under the kommandant.

Hogan, noting that Krebs eavesdrops at the window every night, has Carter, Newkirk, and LeBeau talk at the window about an escape for the next night. When Krebs asks Carter about it the next day, Carter gets indignant with him, saying he won’t rat out his buddies. Then, as the sergeant is leaving, Carter says goodbye to him.

Here’s what happens that night…

A similar story, with a new sergeant coming to Stalag 13 and Schultz possibly on his way to the Russian front, is in a further episode.

CAST:

• Bob Crane as Hogan
• Werner Klemperer as Klink
• John Banner as Schultz
• Robert Clary as LeBeau
• Richard Dawson as Newkirk
• Ivan Dixon as Kinchloe
• Larry Hovis as Carter
• Cynthia Lynn as Helga
• Bruce Yarnell as Winslow
• Norman Alden as Krebs
• Norbert Schiller as Max (the bartender)

Episode 12 coming soon…