User Reviews

Hogan has to get some maps to the underground in order for them to destroy a convoy with vital supply from reaching its destination. But getting the maps to the underground became more difficult when a stray bomb damaged the escape tunnel. Now getting out of camp is not going to be simple.

Klink has been making some stick figures on paper when all of the sudden Hogan claims that Klink has potential in art. So Klink starts painting these figures thinking that he could be some famous artist.

Hogan now has a plan to get the maps out of camp. He keeps telling Klink that he needs to display his art at the local gallery. When Klink finally agrees, Hogan places the maps in back of the paintings so that the underground can receive the maps and destroy the convoy.

Perhaps this episode may not be every persons favorite-but the show was entertaining enough to hold the interest to the end. The story was routine but the way the underground was able to get to the maps was quite funny at times. There was enough here to make for a enjoyable show.

After a rather dark, serious episode, the show returns to the comic German-buffoonery of the bulk of the series. And a good one at that.

REVIEWERS NOTE: I really despise reviewers who tell others what they should and shouldn't write and how they should use this site.

It's even more irritating when they use phrases and terms, the meaning of which they clearly do not understand. For instance, look up "confirmation bias" before trying to use it; you are only embarrassing yourself.

This is to fulfill the silly mandatory 600 character minimum requirement. This is to fulfill the silly mandatory 600 character minimum requirement.

When Colonel Hogan, the leader of the Allied intelligence and sabotage unit operating clandestinely from a German prisoner-of-war camp, takes notice of the doodles done by Colonel Klink, the commandant of Stalag 13, that leads to "Klink's Masterpiece," or at least a comical facsimile of paintings that figure into the Heroes' scheme to smuggle maps vital to an underground operation to destroy German convoys containing war materiel in Phil Sharp's lively tale that, while not a work of art, is certainly an entertaining portrait that holds together from start to finish with some funny moments en route to a great closing delivery from Bob Crane.

The Heroes' underground contact is Rhona (Victoria Carroll), a Hammelburg art gallery owner under increasing surveillance by the Gestapo, which necessitates her giving Hogan a homing pigeon in order to contact her. As Klink is upbraiding Hogan because the prisoners are not participating in any recreational activities, Hogan points out Klink's artistic talent in the scribbles--sorry, doodles--he is making. Wait, there's more.

The Heroes' inside source at "staff headquarters" is a janitor, which means that the maps Sergeant Carter has received from the source have all been shredded into little pieces, forcing the Heroes to glue them together like jigsaw puzzles, and when Klink barges in on them, Hogan claims that they're old maps he tore up so the prisoners can assemble them as a "recreational activity." Finally, a German fighter-bomber with a bomb stuck in its rack, making it a danger in trying to land, dislodges it near the camp, with the resultant explosion collapsing the tunnels, meaning that the Heroes cannot deliver the maps to Rhona. Or can they?

All of this is elaborate contrivance, but hang on because Sharp actually makes it all work with a little "squab Lorraine" left over for Sergeant Schultz, always on the lookout for food, particularly when it's Corporal LeBeau who prepares it.

Returning to Klink with more analysis on his artistic talent, Hogan persuades him to take up painting, even supplying him with paint, canvases, and frames along with the awestruck encouragement of the Heroes as LeBeau even tears up from the beauty of it all. Yes, Klink, his vanity duly stroked by Hogan, is the unwitting dupe yet again, but when Hogan convinces Klink to show a few of his paintings to Rhona at the art gallery in town to validate his genius, Hogan can insert the now-reconstructed maps behind each canvas, with Klink insisting that Hogan accompany him into--

--You see how that all worked out? The climax at the art gallery, giving "temperamental genius" Klink fatuous reign as he vacillates in selling his artwork, winds up "Klink's Masterpiece" on a humorous and satisfying note, with Karl Bruck, one of the three "art collectors" present, getting in some amusing asides while Carroll, in her final "Hogan's Heroes" appearance, delivers a fine guest performance, even matching wits with Crane in the introduction.

And what of the "squab Lorraine"? Purely a time-filler, but still amusing too: Schultz had caught the Heroes with Rhona's pigeon in the barracks, prompting the Heroes to claim they caught it for additional fortification. What fortification it is, too. When Schultz returns, he is incredulous to find a full platter of "squab Lorraine" (which looks suspiciously like Colonel Sanders's Original Recipe Kentucky Fried Chicken) from an unlikely pigeon as Sharp fries up a decent batch of "Hogan's Heroes" hilarity encapsulated by Crane's final line to Werner Klemperer about the vicissitudes of fame and especially fortune in the art world.

REVIEWER'S NOTE: What makes a review "helpful"? Every reader of course decides that for themselves. For me, a review is helpful if it explains why the reviewer liked or disliked the work or why they thought it was good or not good. Whether I agree with the reviewer's conclusion is irrelevant. "Helpful" reviews tell me how and why the reviewer came to their conclusion, not what that conclusion may be. Differences of opinion are inevitable. I don't need "confirmation bias" for my own conclusions. Do you?