Hogan's a Hero

On Saturday afternoon I attended the Democratic Women’s Caucus picnic. We Democrats are so tasteful and understated that I had to drive around the park where it was being held, three times before I could finally find us. I couldn’t help but think that if the GOP Women’s Caucus was holding a picnic that they would have had a banner lit up like a “War on”Christmas tree . I was told that we had had some balloons but some kids from another picnic enclosure came over and popped them, and that oddly, the ladies of the Democratic Women’s Caucus let them live... I would imagine that The GOP Women’s Caucus would have out sourced killing them, called FAUX News to report this wanton case of Republican bashing and than would have raised seven different kinds of hell with the city for allowing such wanton acts of bigotry against white persons to take place on their property.. . I would have simply tied the undisciplined little balloon popping bastards to the enclosure and then kicked their parents in the head for raising such rude offspring and left it at that, but that would be the difference between the GOP and myself.

Saturday night I watched Auto Focus . Sigh. I have had it on my Netflix list since I joined but I kept moving it down. I was afraid the movie would be to a fan of his about the same as it would be like to a big fan of Family Affair to run across the actress who played Buffy’s autopsy report. I am glad that this movie got made after I was a grown up fan instead of a little kid fan; when I really lurved Col. Hogan. I’m very glad that when I was a little kid my knowledge of pop culture hadn’t fully matured and 1) I didn’t know he was dead and in fact been brutally murdered, and that 2) what a miserable, deeply depressed, addicted, self hating and delusional person the actor who portrayed him was. Ignorance is bliss.

When I was in college and the late Larry “Sgt. Carter” Hovis was one of my instructors, he was asked (not by me) about Bob Crane and he said the man showed up every day prepared and ready to work and that in his experience, Bob Crane was a good guy.

He didn’t know the details about Cranes other life until years later when he was called before a couple of grand juries after Cranes death. Larry really didn’t want to take about him or his porn issues anymore. I didn't blame him. I would imagine that there would be nothing like having to testify about a friend before a grand jury to really make you not want to talk about that friend ever again.

According to the movie, Cranes’ porn habit was almost life long and deeply ingrained into his personality. He appeared to have worked very hard to keep his life extremely compartmentalized, it’s no surprise that most of the people from his “straight life” didn’t have a clue. It helped that Crane was very, very conservative and you just don’t see many porn fetishists that are also big fans of Richard Nixon. The movie didn’t say much about his support for the republican party, for that I had to read a book about Hogans Heroes( Shut. Up). I think learning about his politics caused me more discomfort about the man than learning about his porn.

The truth is totally not going to stop me from watching my Hogans Heroes DVDs , although I won’t be watching the out take real included on the season 2 DVDs. I was, until I saw that the blooper real was “Edited by Bob Crane!”, thanks to the movie, I know how and why he learned how to edit tape and I’m not going there.

I still love the show though, Crane wasn’t the only person with the capacity for self delusion. In my world Col. Hogan is still Super!Heroic!Really Cool!Nazi foiling!Col. Hogan-man! and of course, Sgt. Carter is still with us.