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Authors: Robert Crane and Christopher Fryer
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enemy, all with a laugh track. The stark black-and-white cinematography helped with the look of the pilot episode, but more and more TV series were going to color so, of course,
Hogan’s
had to be in color as well. I never thought
Hogan’s Heroes
and
Combat!
looked as good in color as they did in black-and-white, but they had to conform for commercial reasons. Viewers were buying color television sets, and damn it, they wanted color programming.
After numerous test audience screenings, CBS felt that
Hogan’s Heroes
was going to become one of its most popular new weekly series.The strong buzz emanating from CBS programming executives traveled crosstown to Madison Avenue and the all-important advertisers, who in those days sponsored entire episodes. General Foods bought up commercial time and planned to use
Hogan’s Heroes
cast members to sell Jell-O.
Filming began in June 1965. My dad would go live on KNX at 6:05 in the morning, finish at 8:00, drive to Paramount or Culver City, depending on the three-day shooting schedule, and film all day and often into the early evening. Sometimes stunts involving tanks, trucks, and even airplanes would take the filming late into the night. My dad taped the 8:00 to 9:55 segments of his radio show at night after filming
Hogan’s
or on the weekends for the upcoming week. My mom, sisters, and I saw so little of him during the filming of the first eight episodes he was known as “Uncle Daddy” at our house.
CBS publicity created an onslaught of television, radio, and print ads for the show. Satirist Stan Freberg created a radio campaign:
Freberg: “So, can we say if you loved World War II, you’ll love
Hogan’s Heroes?
”
Crane: “No, we better not say that.”
Visiting the set became de rigueur for General Foods, Philip Morris, and Madison Avenue executives. There were also visits from American film master John Ford and English pop invader Dave Clark. There was a sense of fun in the air on the set as well as, more important, a scent of success.
For my dad, this was a long way from “Voice of Disc Jockey” on
The Twilight Zone
and a million light years from his small bedroom, consumed by a full drum set, at his parents’ Stamford, Connecticut, house. These could have been heady times for him, but there were no spare minutes to consider the changes afoot as the fame factor invaded our lives over the next few weeks.
Hogan’s Heroes
and KNX ate up his days.
Reluctantly, my dad met with Bob Sutton, who ran KNX and had hired him nine years earlier, to announce that he physically could not continue performing both jobs. Sutton took it well; like everyone else at KNX, he had heard nothing but great comments about the television series, not to mention the Freberg radio commercial spots for the show, which were running on the air all the time. Besides, CBS owned KNX so my dad wasn’t abandoning that family.
My dad was on his way to being Jack Lemmon, but he wouldn’t have minded being Buddy Rich or Louie Bellson either. He wasn’t in the Richor Bellson category, but he was a pretty damn good drummer. He had started out playing in his high school band at Stamford High, which is where he met my mom. She played the glockenspiel. He went on to play timpani with the Connecticut Symphony Orchestra for a while but was bored by it. His goal when he was a teenager was to be in the big bands, playing with Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, or Stan Kenton.
Buddy Rich, Bob Crane, and Louie Bellson, Redlands, California, 1978 (photo by Karen Crane; author’s collection).
At fifteen I put together a rock band with two friends, Dave Arnoff and Ron Heck. We were a power trio. Ron played lead, Dave was on bass, and I played the drums. I used my dad’s spare Gretsch drum set that he had at home for the band, but I was only a fair to average drummer. I could keep the beat and sing on key, but I couldn’t do any of the pyrotechnicsthat my dad could. Ron Heck always impressed me because he played
Hogan’s
had to be in color as well. I never thought
Hogan’s Heroes
and
Combat!
looked as good in color as they did in black-and-white, but they had to conform for commercial reasons. Viewers were buying color television sets, and damn it, they wanted color programming.
After numerous test audience screenings, CBS felt that
Hogan’s Heroes
was going to become one of its most popular new weekly series.The strong buzz emanating from CBS programming executives traveled crosstown to Madison Avenue and the all-important advertisers, who in those days sponsored entire episodes. General Foods bought up commercial time and planned to use
Hogan’s Heroes
cast members to sell Jell-O.
Filming began in June 1965. My dad would go live on KNX at 6:05 in the morning, finish at 8:00, drive to Paramount or Culver City, depending on the three-day shooting schedule, and film all day and often into the early evening. Sometimes stunts involving tanks, trucks, and even airplanes would take the filming late into the night. My dad taped the 8:00 to 9:55 segments of his radio show at night after filming
Hogan’s
or on the weekends for the upcoming week. My mom, sisters, and I saw so little of him during the filming of the first eight episodes he was known as “Uncle Daddy” at our house.
CBS publicity created an onslaught of television, radio, and print ads for the show. Satirist Stan Freberg created a radio campaign:
Freberg: “So, can we say if you loved World War II, you’ll love
Hogan’s Heroes?
”
Crane: “No, we better not say that.”
Visiting the set became de rigueur for General Foods, Philip Morris, and Madison Avenue executives. There were also visits from American film master John Ford and English pop invader Dave Clark. There was a sense of fun in the air on the set as well as, more important, a scent of success.
For my dad, this was a long way from “Voice of Disc Jockey” on
The Twilight Zone
and a million light years from his small bedroom, consumed by a full drum set, at his parents’ Stamford, Connecticut, house. These could have been heady times for him, but there were no spare minutes to consider the changes afoot as the fame factor invaded our lives over the next few weeks.
Hogan’s Heroes
and KNX ate up his days.
Reluctantly, my dad met with Bob Sutton, who ran KNX and had hired him nine years earlier, to announce that he physically could not continue performing both jobs. Sutton took it well; like everyone else at KNX, he had heard nothing but great comments about the television series, not to mention the Freberg radio commercial spots for the show, which were running on the air all the time. Besides, CBS owned KNX so my dad wasn’t abandoning that family.
My dad was on his way to being Jack Lemmon, but he wouldn’t have minded being Buddy Rich or Louie Bellson either. He wasn’t in the Richor Bellson category, but he was a pretty damn good drummer. He had started out playing in his high school band at Stamford High, which is where he met my mom. She played the glockenspiel. He went on to play timpani with the Connecticut Symphony Orchestra for a while but was bored by it. His goal when he was a teenager was to be in the big bands, playing with Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, or Stan Kenton.
Buddy Rich, Bob Crane, and Louie Bellson, Redlands, California, 1978 (photo by Karen Crane; author’s collection).
At fifteen I put together a rock band with two friends, Dave Arnoff and Ron Heck. We were a power trio. Ron played lead, Dave was on bass, and I played the drums. I used my dad’s spare Gretsch drum set that he had at home for the band, but I was only a fair to average drummer. I could keep the beat and sing on key, but I couldn’t do any of the pyrotechnicsthat my dad could. Ron Heck always impressed me because he played
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