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auxiliarydetective · 3 years ago

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So... @kittychan-sings-enka wanted a Hogan's Heroes musical... My hyperfixation decided HELL YEAH. Then my brain remembered my backstage tour of the Bodyguard musical from, like, four or five years ago... and here we are.

Hogan's Heroes: The Musical

(Title is a work in progress)

First of all, let me talk to you about the stage. During my backstage tour, I got introduced to how the different set pieces were moved. This musical would need lots of moving parts and the actors would be required to move with the set at times. The different locations we would definitely need would be:

Klink's office (with the little vestibule or whatever you might call it where Fräulein Helga/Hilda has her desk)

Barracks 2

The outside area of the camp (facing the gate so that we can have a proper roll call with Klink coming from the right, out of his office and the prisoners on the left, where the barracks are)

The tunnels' main room

The characters moving into the tunnels is possibly the most difficult version of what I mean by "actors would be required to move with the set". The bunk bed with the ladder is part of the barracks' set and opens into a hatch in the stage for when the tunnels aren't necessary. Someone can just come into the barracks from below. But if someone has to enter the tunnel and we, as the audience, need to follow him, the whole set of the barracks would be moved up and the ladder, fitting into the stage hatch, would be pulled up with it, while the actor is climbing on it. Slowly, mind you. They might hide behind the frame of the bunk and the walls of ground beneath it while the ladder is going up. Then, when the ladder is pulled fully out of the hatch, they can start climbing down further as the hatch closes and the rest of the set is transported onto the stage. The rest of the way is jumped down and the ladder moves up fully. Now, this sounds like a huge safety hazard and I don't know nearly as much about stage mechanisms as I pretend I do, but I'll just assume this works. This is all just for fun after all.

Now, the cast and what I imagine their "voiceclaims", I guess:

Col. Robert Hogan - Bob Crane (I haven't found any clips of him singing that would work well as an example here, but as far as I'm aware, he was a great singer) Alternatively: Rayvon Owen or Jeffrey James. He was a bit hard to figure out...

T.Sgt. Andrew Carter - Larry Hovis or Von Smith. Now, listen, I know Larry Hovis was a professional singer and he's literally the one who played Carter, but his singing voice is a bit too deep for the character in my opinion. So, I picked someone as an alternate who also looks like they could play Carter and has that bit of quirkiness and higher-pitched tone I had in mind. Also, I simply adore his collabs with PMJ and his song "The Mystery of Mister V", so let me be a fangirl.

SSG James "Kinch" Kinchloe - Ivan Dixon. No question about it, not even getting an alternate. I mean, come on now!

Cpl. Louis LeBeau - Robert Clary. Again, no reason to set an alternate. And I wouldn't have been able to find an alternate with a French accent if I had tried and I just can't imagine him without that

Cpl. Peter Newkirk - Richard Dawson (who clearly wasn't a singer - I'm sorry, but it's true. Both of his songs on the album the cast made are mostly spoken-word, but I picked this song because you can hear his singing voice better. Don't get me wrong, I still love Richard Dawson and my boy Newkirk, but you'll have to agree with me that he was the worst singer out of the cast) or Casey Abrams (just with a Cockney accent). With Newkirk, I had the same issue I had with LeBeau, that it's hard for me to imagine Newkirk without the accent in the same way I always think something's wrong when I hear Richard Dawson talk without that strong Cockney accent. But I still searched my brain for singers that could match Newkirk as a character and Richard Dawson's voice and I got reminded of Casey Abrams whose covers I also love. Now, he's far from a perfect fit, but he has a voice that's both raspy and smooth, which is what I associate with Newkirk as a character.

Oberst Wilhelm Klink & Feldwebel Hans Schultz (no, I will not stop using their German ranks) - Werner Klemperer & John Banner (very obvious, wouldn't replace them even if I could)

Major Kriminalrat Wolfgang Hochstetter - doesn't sing. I can't imagine Hochstetter singing

General Albert Burkhalter - Leon Askin (holy hell, is Leon Askin the German dub voice too-? Ahem-) I mean, this isn't really sung either, but I can't imagine Burkhalter full-on singing in a musical setting either, so something like this will have to do

SSG Richard Baker (yes, our boy is here and he's getting a duet with Kinch) - Wayne Brady or David Simmons Jr. I really couldn't find any info on Kenneth Washington's singing or find a clip of him singing, so... This'll have to do.

Viktoria "Vicky" Brandt/Zoe Allen - Marilyn Monroe (obviosly; this also isn't the only clip of Marilyn singing by far, I just picked an example. I wanted to link the "Kiss" scene from "Niagara", but the amount of singing in that scene is so small, even if it fits Vicky very well). You'll have to imagine her posh accent. Now, before you get annoyed at me for inserting Vicky again, she actually serves a very practical purpose as a character in this musical: The Heroes have to introduce themselves and their jobs, right? Well, the best opportunity for that is when someone new joins their organization permanently. Also, we just know the Heroes would tell absolutely everything about their jobs and not be vague if they wanted to impress a woman and that's the amount of information we need to make a good musical song, I'd say.

This post is already very long, so I'll get into the story and songs in another post...

#hogan's heroes #hogan's heroes: the musical #robert hogan #andrew carter #james kinchloe #louis lebeau #peter newkirk #oberst klink #feldwebel schultz #major hochstetter #general burkhalter #richard baker #oc: vicky brandt #zoe allen #headcanon #concept

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