An anachronism is use of an object,event,expression of another historical period n a time in which it doesn't belong.
In a season 1 episode, Hogan, in trying to identify an object, uttered the familiar question, "is it bigger than a bread box?" Steve Allen originated and popularized that query while a panelist on the What's My Line TV game show...some ten years later.
Any other examples of anachronisms on H.H.?
well the 'goofs' section cites the mention of Eva Braun... which was a post-war revelation... and top secret, or at least far from common knowledge during the War years
I seem to recall them citing a Play or a book, which some one claims to have read in High school...
- everyone being at least 25,
- the show occurring post 1943, as per the pilot
this would put their HS Years in the mid 30s; assuming they even had HS, as post 8th Grade education was not 100% at this time... the Book in Question was also only published circa 1940
forgive my vagueness... it's been ages... but I think it was cited here on another trhead
I searched "Eva Braun" in the NY Times archives and found her name wasn't mentioned until mid-1945 with one notable exception. Eva was cited in a November 1942 review of a book about the Nazi leaders in connection with Dolph allegedly being celibate. She was referred to as "Eva Braun, a Bavarian." So she wasn't a top secret but barely known in the USA. May have been a different story in Germany where Eva was probably gossiped about, not openly. Hogan was a clearinghouse of such info and often enlightened Klink.
Hogan was a clearinghouse of such info and often enlightened Klink.
"Speedy Gonzalez" is a good get, and probably the Pentagon as well. Now, if Hogan had said "chopper" instead of "helicopter"....
I thought that "fink," which became popular in the 1960s, was a possibility. But its origin was early 20th Century. On the other hand, I don't recall hearing the term in any classic 30s/40s film.
Was the term "doggie bag" (except for the bag of a real dog) in use during WWII? Hogan used it to refer to leftovers from a meal out.
shareSteve Allen originated and popularized that query while a panelist on the What's My Line TV game show...some ten years later.
I've also heard Bart Simpson credited for popularizing 'aye caramba', but my 7th grade Spanish teacher was using it years before The Simpsons first aired. Similar timeline, different environment for Jerry Seingfeld and 'yadda yadda yadda'.
The question is whether that query was in the common parlance so that Hogan picked it up and repeated it. In this case, probably the script writer was unaware of its origin and erred.
shareI wouldn't be surprised if some of the anachronisms were on purpose, as jokes.
Like a Steve Allen reference. That would have been almost current when the show was written.
And most of the writers would have been of ages when they remembered WW2.
What I'm saying is that a deliberate, conscious Steve Allen reference could have been a conscious decision for the benefit of the joke.
F-Troop was full of deliberate anachronisms.
So was the Flintstones.
This is my signature line: http://flapdoodlefiles.blogspot.com/
F Troop was a spoof where anything goes. Hogan's Heroes plots were farfetched, but their weekly missions of sabotage,etc. were taken seriously. The anachronisms are random and far and few between which leads me to believe that they were simple errors.
shareMakes you wonder why the writers never looked up any of this stuff on the internet...they could have avoided most of these anachronisms just by using Google.
Too much trouble to punch in all the data using those Hollerith cards...
shareGood one flapdoodle64. An implied anachronism in a thread about anachronisms. For anyone who didn't catch it, the internet didn't exist when HH was being produced.
Glad you caught the joke.
As a guy born in 1964, I can tell you that pre-internet, research was completely different.
The people writing the scripts for this show simply would not have spent the time going to the library & looking up the date when the 1st Speedy Gonzalez cartoon premiered.
Also, there was no home technology for recording these shows either, so they had no expectation that an audience would be picking the nits we pick today.
This is my signature line: http://flapdoodlefiles.blogspot.com/
heck, plenty of shows Pre 1950 are lost to history entirely because even the Studios didn't save them for reruns (how much of early Dr Who was lost due to recycling the film as late as the mid 1960s
most shows, not only would not be taped by the Home User but save for some of the subjectively better ones being used for summer reruns might never be aired again...
it would only be with I Love Lucy, the decade before Hogan's Heroes that reruns became standard... and it took a while for the model to catch on
That was before Google was introduced. The writers should have used Alta Vista, Excite!, or Web Crawler.
shareIn the pilot episode just aired on METV, Hogan refers to "stereo" sound, which had been invented but not commercially available or even known by the public until the 1950's.
shareI think the worse case was that sign on the wall that is seen in every episode. It's a warning against improper civilian conduct that interferes with the German military and it's shown so clearly in one shot of some episode that if you freeze it you can read the whole thing. The problem is that it was done by the military commander in Brussels and is dated for December 1944. This conflicts with the whole timeline of the show which often revolves around the winter of 1942/43 (e.g., all of those Stalingrad jokes). Aside from the problem of having a sign intended for Belgium in a POW camp, the other bizarre aspect of this is the fact that in Dec. 1944 the Germans no longer had Brussels (recapturing it was one of the objectives for the Ardennes Offensive, better known as the Battle of the Bulge).
Eva Braun was absolutely a secret. In those days in German society such a thing would have been scandalous if it were public knowledge. Even people in the German military outside of his inner circle didn't learn of her relationship until after the war.
The Internet existed then but not in the form we think of it today. Access to it was restricted because it was still part of the military's infrastructure, but civilians who could justify a reason (like researchers) could be given access. Of course actually finding something was a different story, as the amount of content has increased exponentially in the last couple of decades. So, long story short, even if someone had access to a search engine (remember VERONICA?) they might not find what they were looking for.
And at the risk of going way, way off topic, we wouldn't have had the internet if there had been no WW II. We wouldn't have gone to the moon, no iPhones, no rock 'n roll, and we wouldn't be sitting here communicating with each other, mainly because you and I wouldn't be here. And no Hogan's Heroes.
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Sorry I wondered off topic. I took the road less travelled and this is what happened.
Newkirk's hair style is far more Beatles era than WW2.
shareEspecially of note is his sideburns. As the years go by they get gradually longer, until the end of the show when they practically reach his shirt collar!
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Keeping people straight since 1958. No need to thank me - I already know you are grateful.
On an episode from Season 2 aired last night, Hogan tells a newcomer he's been in Stalag 13 for 2 years. That blows a hole in the 42-43 scenario unless you think Hogan was shot down before Pearl Harbor.
shareWell, the "42-43 scenario" got busted all of the time. Every episode was filmed as if it were in winter (winter coats, snow and ice on the ground and buildings, although there were lots of green grass and green leafy trees - I wonder why they didn't use crews to pluck trees to keep them bare?), and since Hogan constantly made references to Stalingrad, that would have to be the winter of 42-43. But there were numerous episodes that violated that: the D-Day episode, there were stories where American troops were in France, the attempted assassination of Hitler, among others. At one point Schultz says that Hogan had been at Stalag 13 for three years and had arrived in the month of November. Assuming that was Nov. '42 (the earliest possible), that would mean the winter of 1945... when the war had been over for six months. And there's also the Dec. 1944 Verboten placard seen in every episode. I guess Hogan didn't run a very tight operation after all.
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Everyone may have an opinion but very few seem to have an informed one.
Right, there was no consistency. The series wasn't a chronological narrative not surprising with so many writers involved.
shareRight, there was no consistency. The series wasn't a chronological narrative not surprising with so many writers involved.
Could be that when Hogan's Heroes was originally picked up, the producers didn't know if the show would last more than 1 season, if that. So, no thought of a chronological narrative--just produce episodes with the best scripts even if they were slightly out of order historically.
shareThe show was never meant to be a documentary. The writers were just picking out various high points of WWII in the European theater, and crafting stories around them that they could at least semi-plausibly fit the Heroes into. That they managed to hit on the level of realism they sometimes did when all they were really aiming for was laughs is a testament to the quality of at least some of the show's writers.
shareAgreed. I don't think it would would as good today . With story arcs and some ongoing conflicts etc.
shareAs a ploy, the Heroes painted "Goering is a Rat Fink" and similar epithets on a stalag building. "Fink" was a term used in that era, but "rat fink" came to the fore years later in the 1960s.
shareI always took the Eva Braun reference as an example of the "underground's" thorough intelligence. The allied spies knew more about the details of Hitler's life than even most Germans. In one episode Hogan refers to Italy as an allied country, implying that he had access to information not known to the German army.
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