10 US Sitcoms Aussie Kids Grew Up With In The 80s

8. Hogan's Heroes

17 September 1965 €“ 28 March 1971. 6 seasons. 168 episodes Hogan's Heroes was an unlikely sitcom. Set in German prisoner of war camp Stalag 13, overseen by the monocle'd Colonel Klink and his bumbling offsider Sergeant Schultz, the show followed the misadventures of US Air Force Colonel Robert E. Hogan and his fellow POWs who were using Stalag 13 as a base for undercover Allied operations. Aiding Hogan was a US Army sergeant, a US Air Force sergeant, a French Air Force corporal and a British Air Force corporal, each of whom had a specific role to play in day-to-day operations based around their specialist skills - tailor, chef, would-be chemist and telecommunications expert. Despite best efforts, Klink's and Schultz's collective incompetence means Hogan and said heroes are effectively free to come and go as they please. Klink proudly boasts of zero escapes during his tenure as camp commandant and Hogan is eager to maintain that record, along with the ruse that he and the crew are no more than helpless prisoners of war. The truth is that there's virtually nowhere in the camp that Hogan and his men can't get to via the elaborate system of tunnels they've built, including one to the outside world, but for the sake of Allied operations Hogan ensures that escape isn't just impossible, it's undesirable. When Hogan's Heroes ended, it just stopped. It was once written that the last episode was so unremarkable that the series had already used its basic plot in eleven other episodes. The war didn't end. The Germans didn't up and leave. And Hogan and his crew never got the kudos they deserved after six years of foiling the Germans at every turn. Clearly they weren't big on finales back in 1971.