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July 14, 2020 | by Odette Odendaal

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In the way back popular television series “Hogan’s Heroes” Larry Hovis starred as a demolition expert. The rest of his life similarly blew up with talent and long-lasting love.

During the 1960s, Larry Hovis made a name for himself in showbiz when he landed a role in the popular television show “Hogan’s Heroes.” While he starred as the demolition expert Sgt. Carter on the show, there was so much more behind Hovis the person than being an actor.

Born in February 1936 in Wapato, Washington, Hovis grew up in Houston where he became the singer with a popular quartet in the 50s called the Mascots – his entry into professional entertainment while in his teens.

Hovis considered himself a singer above and beyond his other talents, and he also became a member of a popular jazz trio in addition to landing hosting duties on a daytime television show called “Surprise Party.”

He went on to marry his love, Carol Ann Corrigan in November 1960, and Hovis’s twenties then turned into an explosion of creativity.

While appearing in several stage productions, he tried his hand at writing songs which led to a recording contract with Capitol Records and the consequent release of a solo album he titled “My Heart Belongs to Only You.”

Writing of songs turned into the writing of screenplays and plays, and he even sold one called “Out of Sight. Hovis was a funny man as well, and he worked as a standup comedian in Santa Monic before Andry Griffiths’ manager and producer, Richard Linke spotted him.

Hovis’s career picked up after meeting Linke, and he landed a regular spot on “The Gomer Pyle Show” before being cast in “Hogan’s Heroes.”

The show ran for six years after it launched in September 1965, and within its first season became one of the top ten on television at the time. Throughout its run, “Hogan’s Heroes” earned 12 Emmy nominations.

However, as the show ended, Hovis found himself somewhat return to writing and performing when he starred in “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh In.” After that, Hovis maintained a balance between singer, writing, and acting.

In the 1990s, Hovis handed down his knowledge to university students until his death when he became a professor in the drama department at Southwest Texas State University. During the final months of his life in 2003, Hovis battled cancer before he passed at Christopher House, Hospice Austin, at the age of 67 in September that year.

Larry Hovis from Hogan’s Heroes

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It has been many years since the court case was settled to the favor of the show’s producers, Bing Crosby Productions, Al Ruddy, and the gang that concocted the TV sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes”.

Hogan’s Heroes has faded in and out of popularity, a few times now. Even the grizzly demise of the Sitcom’s Star , Bob Crane, is barely talked about these days. The only news now regarding the once popular TV sitcom is about a spin-off from Al Ruddy that in the makes. (Which don’t sound to promising to most of the shows fans). So, if you are a die hard Hogan’s Heroes fan like me, and you do a search on the origins of the television comedy show, you might come across some disturbing claims just like I did, that just don’t add up, or even sit right…

One of these claims that I see everywhere, especially on these tabloid type of websites , is that “Hogan’s Heroes” is based on a real POW Camp that was in Germany, known as “Stalag 13”. None of the television show’s writers were ever there, none of the producers were there either. Sure, their was a POW camp called Stalag 13, but there was many POW Stalag’s that were named after a number, as there were over 1000 POW camps in Germany during the second world war. No one who was held as a prisoner at the actual Stalag 13 was ever interviewed , or asked what life was like there, not by the TV shows creators, anyhow! The only thing that the Stalag 13 on the sitcom, and the real Stalag 13 had in common was the name, and perhaps the location, as the fictitious Stalag 13 was also located near Hammelburg, Germany.
The second claim that I come across all the time, by the same type of sites that are publishing alot of BS, is that Hogan’s Heroes is a spoof of the Movie, “The Great Escape”. While “Hogan’s Heroes” has much more in common with this movie than the sitcom does with the actual Stalag 13, The show is still a very far cry from the claim that “The Great Escape” was the origins of “Hogan’s Heroes”.

At the height of the television sitcoms popularity in 1971, Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski, the writers of the 1951 play “Stalag 17”, sued Bing Crosby Productions, the show’s legal owner and producer, for copyright infringement. Their lawsuit was unsuccessful. The production had been made into a movie by Paramount pictures in 1953, under the same title “Stalag 17”. While the legal case was lost, the question still remains. and there are quite a few similarities between the TV Show and the Movie. To many to be dismissed as coincidence by most fans of the TV sitcom, and the movie.

The First, and pilot episode of Hogan’s Heroes was titled “The Informer”. The whole premise of the pilot episode was about a planted informant placed within the prisoners, who were helping others to escape. The Paramount Movie, Stalag 17 had the very same plot, the difference being the 1953 movie was more true to the life of a POW, while the 1965 made farce, “Hogan’s Heroes” was definatally a comedy. In the Movie “Stalag 17”, could it be a coincidence that the commandant of Stalag 17, Oberst [Colonel] Scherbach, started off in the movie saying “You cannot escape from Stalag 17!” while Colonel Klink of Hogan’s Heroes says throughout the whole series (and in almost every episode)… “There has never been a successful escape from Stalag 13.” Besides the plots being almost the same, Could it be a coincidence that the overweight, aloof guard in both the movie, and the pilot episode,
collaborated with the prisoners, and was also so happened to be named Sgt Schultz? Makes you wonder if the California Courts that decided in favor of the TV show, actually watched either the movie, or the show.
Regardless…There are many similarities between the movie “Stalag 17” and the Sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes”. One is, that I like them both! However, I know Nothing!