Hogan’s Heroes: Season 1 Ep 22, “The Pizza Parlor”

LOGLINE: To get an Italian officer to defect, the Heroes use pizza to tempt him.

Colonel Klink has been assigned the task of training an Italian POW camp commander, Major Bonacelli, in the ins and outs of running a POW camp, because, after all, "there’s never been a successful escape from Stalag 13." Klink announces this to the me along wiuth an admonishment to keep everything clean and give a good impression.

Bonacelli is less than enthusiastic about his assignment, and on his way to Stalag 13 tries to get his driver to take him to Switzerland, finally drawing his gun on him. An Allied bombing raid interrupts the argument as the driver gets out of the car and runs into the woods. Just as Bonacelli is prepared to drive himself to the border, a second staff car arrives carrying Corporal Langenscheidt, who says that Colonel Klink sent him to accompany Bonacelli. The Italian protests, but eventually follows them to the camp.

Meanwhile, the Heroes are playing volleyball and get Schultz to join them. Newkirk is holding Schultz’s rifle and standing with Hogan when Klink and Bonacelli walk up. Klink introduces Hogan to Bonacelli, and Hogan remarks that’s always good to meet one of their allies. Klink reminds him that the Italians are the Germans’ allies, and Hogan says "Don’t tell me, tell them." Bonacelli notices Newkirk holding Schultz’s gun, and tells Klink that in Italian prison camps the POW’s are not allowed to carry guns. This riles Klink, who tells Schultz to take his gun away from Newkirk. Schultz assures the kommandant that the gun isn’t loaded, getting Klink even madder.

Langenscheidt approaches Klink and Bonacelli and asks what they’d like for dinner. Bonacelli starts ordering antipasto, minestrone soup, and pasta, but Klink stops him and orders potato soup, boiled potatoes, potato pancakes, sauerkraut and sauerbraten for both of them. As they walk off, Hogan, noting the distress on Bonacelli’s face, says "Bon Appetit!"

In the barracks, Hogan says that he thinks he knows a way to flip Bonacelli to their side by exploiting his weaknesses. Newkirk suggests that maybe music would be the key, and Kinch asks if anyone knows the words to "Santa Lucia." Hogan asks LeBeau if he could make a pizza; LeBeau is offended by the idea that he would have to cook "cardboard covered with tomato sauce," but Hogan prevails, saying that they all need to make sacrifices. LeBeau needs a recipe for pizza, and Garlotti (another POW) says that his father runs a pizzeria in Newark. Hogan sends the men out to ask the other prisoners if they have a pizza recipe.

Bonacelli and Schultz are walking through the camp when they hear "Santa Lucia" coming from Hogan’s barracks, and then they smell the pizza. Schultz naturally gets all excited ("FOOD!"), but Bonacelli says he wants to go in alone. Once in the barracks, they serve him his pizza and a cup of wine. He likes the pizza, and they tell him the recipe is from Garlotti’s. He says he’s going to go there, and lets it slip that he intends on defecting. Hogan talks him into working as an agent for the Allies from Capezio.

The next day (or later), Bonacelli is leaving for home, and a hospital truck pulls in with Bonacelli’s driver. He tells Klink that Bonacelli is a deserter and a traitor, and Klink has Bonacelli locked in the cooler. Carter suggests escaping and letting Bonacelli find him, but Hogan is thinking bigger.

Bonacelli is sitting in the cell in the cooler when a panel in the floor opens. It’s Hogan, who tells him to get into the tunnel, that he (Bonacelli) is going to recapture some escaped prisoners.

In his office, Klink is on the phone with Berlin, telling them what happened with Bonacelli. While he’s on the phone, Schultz rushes in and tries to tell the kommandant something, but gets shushed several times while Klink is schmoozing the general at the other end of the line. When he hangs up, Schultz tells him that there’s been an escape, ten prisoners, eleven if he counts Bonacelli.

Hogan and his crew are waiting for Bonacelli to join them and start to worry that he headed for Switzerland, but he joins them, tired from running around in the woods. In the camp, Langenscheidt returns with a dog and tells Klink that he was unable to find the escapees. Klink naturally tells the dog that he couldn’t find a can of dog food, at which point the dog starts barking and growling. While all this is going on, they hear whistling (the "Hogan’s Heroes" theme), and Bonacelli marches the prisoners in.

At the end, Klink calls Hogan to his office and reads him a letter from Bonacelli, including news that the Allied prisoners under Bonacelli’s command spend 16 hours a day five days a week, making pizza…

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
• Jon Cedar as Langenscheidt
• Hans Conreid as Bonacelli
• Joey Tata as Garlotti
• Ernest Sarracino as Mr. Garlotti
• Harry Lauter as Submarine Commander
• Jack Goode as Captain Henderson
• Elisa Ingram as ATS Sergeant
• Bart Stevens as German driver

Bonacelli returns in a later episode, played by Vito Scotti.