Everybody Loves a Snowman


Series:	Hogan's Heroes
Episode:	Everybody Loves a Snowman
Original Airdate:	December 09, 1967
Production Number:	5784-78
Written by:	Arthur Julian
Directed by:	Bob Sweeney
Produced by:	Edward H. Feldman & William A. Calihan

Regular[]

This is the seventy-eighth produced episode of the series, but is the seventy-sixth episode to be shown on television and is the fourteenth episode shown for the Third Season.
Carter mentions that he grew up in Bullfrog, a suburb of Crabapple Junction, North Dakota, "your big city's Crabapple Junction", he said, and once won a snowman-building contest there. Many fans also take this to be his birthplace, although it is never named as such in the story.
The "Kommandant Heydrich" mentioned in this episode is not the same as SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Reich Main Security Office and official head of both the Gestapo and SD (SS Special Security Division). The Heydrich of history was killed by Czech SOE agents in 1942.
Hochstetter remembers Hogan from his previous visits to Stalag 13.
Hogan tells Morgan, "In this camp there are 20 barracks. We have a tunnel connecting to all but one -- Barracks 4." The tunnel to Barracks 4 caved in during the events depicted in I Look Better in Basic Black.

This takes place in February of 1944. The date can be derived by taking Schultz's estimate of how long he'd like to be off duty - "I'll be back in August" - and working backwards.
This takes place almost immediately after Reverend Kommandant Klink. Both are Hochstetter episodes, he wears his "Berlin uniform" in both, and the impending snowstorm in that story becomes the blizzard of this one.
Three days prior to this episode, USAAF Captain Morgan and his men are shot down during an Allied bombing raid on Hammelburg. According to Hochstetter, they bombed the local Gestapo headquarters "last Monday night" and "wiped out the garrison, killing Kommandant Heydrich, knocked the Führer's picture off the wall -- EVERYTHING!!!" Morgan and his men spend the next three days on the run, aided by the underground, until they can be brought to our heroes at Stalag 13.
This is the last episode in which Hochstetter wears his "Berlin uniform." It is also the last episode in which he appears to be operating as a special investigator for the SS. In many of his subsequent appearances, he will make reference to operating out of the Hammelburg office of the Gestapo. His clothing will also change after this visit to Stalag 13. This evidence points to Hochstetter being reassigned to Hammelburg immediately after "Everybody Loves a Snowman", presumably to take the place of the late Kommandant Heydrich.

Hochstetter loses the heel of his boot when he kicks in the floor over the faux secret tunnel. Actor Howard Caine (Hochstetter) covers this well, but not entirely. You can see him walking with an exaggerated limp for a few brief seconds before he heads out the door.
Most likely a script oversight, but when the prisoners of Hogan's barracks are moved to a different barracks, Hogan mentions the odds being "twenty to one" that they won't be sent to Barracks 4, the only barracks without a tunnel. As any punter knows, the longer the odds are on anything, the higher the chance of it not coming to fruition, and since Hogan did mention the odds were of them NOT being sent to Barracks 4, he unwittingly gambled that the prisoners would indeed be sent to Barracks 4.

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An Evening of Generals

Next episode:
The Hostage