(In a rare interview on the Hogans Heroes DVD box set, Dawson dismisses that, saying that if hed been the star of the show, We wouldve been off in three episodes.) And while everyone liked Banner, his castmates were occasionally annoyed by his habit of underplaying his lines in rehearsal and then stealing scenes when the cameras were pointed in his direction. Dawson bounced back best, launching a successful second career as a game-show personality. In an interview on the Hogans Heroes complete-series DVD set, Ruddy says that it took less than a day to remake the show as a WWII farce, because the core of the premise never changed: It was always about these clever fellows and how they lived like kings in some of the worst conditions imaginable. Albert S. Ruddy, who co-created Hogans Heroes with Bernard Feinand later co-wrote one of the great prison films, The Longest Yardoriginally intended to set the sitcom in a regular American jail, but rewrote the script when he heard that NBC was developing a show called Campo 44, set in an Italian WWII POW camp. For the first several seasons the "snow" on the roofs and on the ground was actually salt. To say that Hogans Heroes was politically incorrect would be an understatement. Ivan Nathaniel Dixon III (April 6, 1931 - March 16, 2008) was an American actor, director, and producer best known for his series role in the 1960s sitcom Hogan's Heroes, and for his starring roles in the 1964 independent drama Nothing But a Man and the 1967 television film The Final War of Olly Winter. Cynthia Lynn, who played Klink's secretary "Helga" in the first season, was replaced by Sigrid Valdis, who played "Hilda" at the insistence of Bob Crane after Valdis began dating (and later married) Bob Crane. 'Klink' is a German version of 'clink'. The show lasted on the air for six years, although American involvement in World War II lasted less than four years. Joe Gatto, a well-known Actor, announced that he was leaving the Impractical Jokers on December 31, 2021.