User Reviews

Hogan needs to get some radio equipment over to the underground in Heidelberg or they will not be able to transmit. It just so happens that Schultz's hometown is Heidelberg and he is going there in a few days on leave. But when Schultz gets in a argument with his wife, he tears up the three day pass papers and Klink will not give him another. Hogan is going to have to come up with a plan to get Klink to reinstate the pass.

Hogan tells Klink how unhealthy Schultz is becoming and Klink orders a physical examination for Schultz. Hogan substitutes a much older man to stand-in for Schultz at the examination. When Klink gets the report of how unhealthy Schultz has become, he gives him the pass. But it is not over yet.

The writers did their best in giving us a fresh script to view. The main problem is that the plot has been done over and over again on so many shows that it was not that interesting. They did throw in a few good lines but the episode entertainment value was less than expected. Just an average show.

With padding as ample as that on portly Sergeant Schultz, "Killer Klink" is a one-joke premise stretched nearly to the breaking point that produces at best mild amusement while you keep checking the clock to see how much more you have to watch. The catalyst in this slight script by industry journeymen Harvey Bullock and R. S. Allen is a female underground agent in Heidelberg whose radio is on the fritz, prompting the Heroes, Colonel Hogan's intelligence and sabotage unit operating secretly from German prisoner-of-war camp Stalag 13, to smuggle the necessary parts to repair it to her. But who can they get to transport them?

Conveniently, Sergeant of the Guard Schultz not only lives in Heidelberg but will be going there on his three-day pass, and once Hogan lays on a sob story--complete with Corporal LeBeau's mournful harmonica playing in the background--about the girl in Heidelberg who captured his heart before she had the Gestapo capture him after he bailed out of his bomber, Schultz agrees to take her some flowers topped with a suggestive card and with the radio parts safely hidden in the pot. But when Schultz's wife Gretchen (Barbara Morrison), come to Stalag 13 to collect him, gets the wrong idea about the flowers, they fight, with Schultz tearing up his pass in the heat of the moment. And then, when he tries to get Colonel Klink to issue him another one, the camp commandant, affronted at this disrespect to his authority, instead orders middle-aged, overweight Schultz to walk a post complete with heavy pack from here to eternity. Or at least until the end of this episode, which is nearly as long.

Talk about Contrivance City. And this is only the set-up. Here's the kicker. When Oscar Schnitzer (Walter Janovitz), the veterinarian-cum-underground contact who tends the guard dogs, comes to camp with his eighty-year-old father, Hogan is inspired to persuade Klink that Schultz looks terrible after doing all that marching, prompting Klink to order a physical for him, only instead of Schultz going to the doctor, Hogan gets Schnitzer's father to--

--Checking your clock yet? Because this is a long way to go to get to the punchline involving reliable sitcom stalwart Parley Baer as the doctor who tells Klink that Schultz is suffering from--wait for it--premature aging and really could use a furlough. Har! Har! Did you hear the rimshot?

What's funnier is the post in the Goofs section for "Killer Klink" by some pompous idiot mansplaining--and you just know it had to be a guy who submitted this--how the metric system doesn't employ fractions and it really should be expressed as a decimal blah blah blah. Because, you know, "Hogan's Heroes" was a serious drama that did scrupulous research to ensure accuracy and never entertained the comedic possibilities of spoofing das metrische System. On the other hand, considering how tired the one joke is in this episode, that might not be a bad approach.