Praise the Fuhrer and Pass the Ammunition
- Episode aired Jan 20, 1967
- TV-PG
- 26m
IMDb RATING
7.8/10
191
YOUR RATING
Nearby war games inspire Hogan to replace some of the blank German ammunition with live ammo, using Klink's birthday as a diversion.Nearby war games inspire Hogan to replace some of the blank German ammunition with live ammo, using Klink's birthday as a diversion.Nearby war games inspire Hogan to replace some of the blank German ammunition with live ammo, using Klink's birthday as a diversion.
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Did you know
- TriviaIn the song that LeBeau was singing in the show 'Alouette', the literal translation of 'Alouette, Gentille Alouette; Alouette, Je te plumerai' is 'Lark, Nice Lark; Lark, I am going to pluck you'. 'Je te plumerai la tête' means 'I will pluck your head.' 'Je te plumerai' means 'I will pluck you' or 'I will fleece you' or 'I will take you for every cent you have'. While he was singing, LeBeau was sometimes making a plucking gesture.
- GoofsAfter Hogan meets with Klink to discuss the party (where Klink says it might become quite a diversion), there is a fade out/in to meeting with Hogan, Newkirk, LeBeau, and Kinchloe at the corner of Barracks 2. LeBeau says, "I will personally hold him spellbound with my repertoire of songs, dances and snappy patters." As LeBeau is saying this, Kinchloe has a pencil in his right hand, writing some notes on a sheet of paper he has in his left hand. There is a cut to a side view of the four men, and now Kinchloe has the end of the pencil in his mouth.
- Quotes
Cpl. Peter Newkirk: [as Humphrey Bogart] Sprechen sie deutsch?
Cpl. Peter Newkirk: [as Sydney Greenstreet] Fluently, sir, fluently.
Cpl. Peter Newkirk: [as Humphrey Bogart] Then droppen sie dead.
Featured review
Praise to Elinson, Who Passes His Audition
It's a shame that "Praise the Fuhrer and Pass the Ammunition" was the only "Hogan's Heroes" episode Jack Elinson wrote. The long-time television writer and US Army veteran who had served in Italy during World War Two captured both the serious and humorous flavor of the series his first time out with this well-scripted story that employs the effective approach of disguising dramatic intrigue with a comical distraction, namely, a celebration of Colonel Klink's birthday with an operation to sabotage a German war games exercise to deadly effect.
Elinson starts his story with a figurative, if not literal, bang. Visiting Stalag 13, SS Colonel Deutsch informs Klink that his Waffen-SS regiment will be conducting war games exercises nearby. Played by celebrated television heavy Frank Marth, Deutsch displays all the coldness, ruthlessness and arrogance of Nazi Germany's elite fighting men. Spotting the prisoners of war on parade, he tosses a trademark "potato masher" grenade toward them. Everyone hits the deck expecting the explosion except for Colonel Hogan, the ranking POW who also leads the covert intelligence and sabotage unit operating from Stalag 13, who picks up the dummy grenade, to be used during the war games, before his barbed exchange with Deutsch. The dummy grenade also inspires Hogan's plan to return the favor.
Hogan's plan? Substitute some of the dummy ordnance with live ammunition purloined from the camp's arsenal. Great idea--but how to execute it? When Sergeant Schultz drops by, looking for a black-market gift for Klink's birthday, it inspires Hogan to host a gala variety show for Klink while engineering the removal of a competent guard overseeing the arsenal's security, to be replaced by the reliably incompetent Schultz.
Already Elinson demonstrates that he understands the mechanics of a typical "Hogan's Heroes" caper, and the first half of "Praise the Fuhrer and Pass the Ammunition" contains a lively blend of comedy and credibility up to the variety show. Here the narrative drags, with an unsmiling Deutsch sitting grimly and restlessly next to delighted-fool Klink while Robert Clary's Corporal LeBeau delivers a vaudeville-tinged rendition of "Alouette" and Richard Dawson's Corporal Newkirk trots out his "Maltese Falcon" impersonations as the entertainment must be drawn out to cover the ammunition switch.
Nevertheless, Elinson delivers a promising debut complete with a sly, droll touch: Clary singing a jaunty song about the dismembering of a bird to Germans who might be unwittingly blown apart by live ammo. After his impressive Master Race introduction, which displays the Germans as the formidable foes they were, Marth recedes into the narrative, a disappointment, while Werner Klemperer has to don his fatuous-Klink persona, although John Banner plays his comic stooge to perfection. Praise to Elinson, who passes his audition. Too bad he never returned for an encore.
Elinson starts his story with a figurative, if not literal, bang. Visiting Stalag 13, SS Colonel Deutsch informs Klink that his Waffen-SS regiment will be conducting war games exercises nearby. Played by celebrated television heavy Frank Marth, Deutsch displays all the coldness, ruthlessness and arrogance of Nazi Germany's elite fighting men. Spotting the prisoners of war on parade, he tosses a trademark "potato masher" grenade toward them. Everyone hits the deck expecting the explosion except for Colonel Hogan, the ranking POW who also leads the covert intelligence and sabotage unit operating from Stalag 13, who picks up the dummy grenade, to be used during the war games, before his barbed exchange with Deutsch. The dummy grenade also inspires Hogan's plan to return the favor.
Hogan's plan? Substitute some of the dummy ordnance with live ammunition purloined from the camp's arsenal. Great idea--but how to execute it? When Sergeant Schultz drops by, looking for a black-market gift for Klink's birthday, it inspires Hogan to host a gala variety show for Klink while engineering the removal of a competent guard overseeing the arsenal's security, to be replaced by the reliably incompetent Schultz.
Already Elinson demonstrates that he understands the mechanics of a typical "Hogan's Heroes" caper, and the first half of "Praise the Fuhrer and Pass the Ammunition" contains a lively blend of comedy and credibility up to the variety show. Here the narrative drags, with an unsmiling Deutsch sitting grimly and restlessly next to delighted-fool Klink while Robert Clary's Corporal LeBeau delivers a vaudeville-tinged rendition of "Alouette" and Richard Dawson's Corporal Newkirk trots out his "Maltese Falcon" impersonations as the entertainment must be drawn out to cover the ammunition switch.
Nevertheless, Elinson delivers a promising debut complete with a sly, droll touch: Clary singing a jaunty song about the dismembering of a bird to Germans who might be unwittingly blown apart by live ammo. After his impressive Master Race introduction, which displays the Germans as the formidable foes they were, Marth recedes into the narrative, a disappointment, while Werner Klemperer has to don his fatuous-Klink persona, although John Banner plays his comic stooge to perfection. Praise to Elinson, who passes his audition. Too bad he never returned for an encore.
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- darryl-tahirali
- Mar 25, 2022
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