The studio lights were dim, the kind of amber glow that usually signaled the end of a long press day, but Richard Dawson was just getting started. He sat across from the interviewer, that familiar mischievous glint still dancing in his eyes even years after the gates of Stalag 13 had been torn down. He leaned back in the leather chair, the ghost of a British accent still coloring his words, and let out a soft, dry chuckle.
The interviewer had just mentioned a specific blooper reel that had recently surfaced at a fan convention. It was a grainy bit of 35mm film showing the cast of Hogan’s Heroes absolutely losing their minds during a high-stakes scene. Richard smiled, rubbing his chin as the memory hit him like a physical wave. He said that people often forgot how grueling those 1960s sitcom schedules were, especially when you were dressed in heavy wool uniforms under the blistering California sun.
To stay sane, they played games. They played tricks. But mostly, they tried to break John Banner. Richard described John as the soul of the show, a man who had escaped the horrors of real-world conflict only to find himself playing a bumbling sergeant in a comedy. Because John was so professional and so dedicated to the craft, he was the ultimate “white whale” for a prankster like Richard.
The conversation shifted to a specific night shoot during the third season. It was late, the crew was exhausted, and the director was pushing for one last perfect take of a barracks search. Richard remembered the smell of the fake snow and the way the lights bounced off the barbed wire. He told the interviewer that he had decided, right then and there, that the night needed a bit of “flavor” to keep everyone awake.
He had something small hidden in his palm, something he had scavenged from the craft services table earlier that afternoon. As the cameras began to roll, Richard felt a surge of adrenaline. He knew exactly how the scene was supposed to go, but he also knew that John Banner was about to have the most difficult thirty seconds of his career.
Richard watched John march into the barracks, chest puffed out, ready to be the Sergeant Schultz everyone loved.
And that is when Richard made his move.
Richard explained that as John Banner reached out to “search” Newkirk’s bunk for contraband, Richard stepped in under the guise of being a helpful, albeit sarcastic, prisoner. In one fluid motion, while “straightening” John’s heavy overcoat, Richard slipped a thick, room-temperature wedge of Limburger cheese directly into the deep, wool-lined pocket of Schultz’s uniform.
The studio audience in the interview laughed, but Richard held up a hand to emphasize the timing. This wasn’t just any cheese; it had been sitting near a heater for three hours. It was essentially a biological weapon housed in dairy.
For the first few seconds of the take, nothing happened. John was busy shouting about the “regulations” and how Colonel Klink was on the warpath. He was in the zone. But as the heat from the studio lights began to warm the pocket of his coat, a faint, pungent aroma began to rise. Richard stood just three inches away, watching John’s nostrils.
First, there was a slight twitch. Then, a look of genuine confusion crossed John’s face. He didn’t stop the scene, though. He was too much of a pro. He kept rummaging through the footlockers, but his movements became slower. He was trying to figure out if his own body had betrayed him or if something had crawled into the barracks and died.
The smell reached the director and the camera operators. Richard could see the cameraman’s shoulders start to shake. The silence on set, usually reserved for intense focus, was now thick with the desperate tension of thirty people trying not to breathe.
John finally pulled his hand out of the bunk and reached for his pocket to pull out a prop notebook. As his hand entered the pocket, he physically recoiled. He didn’t just smell it anymore; he had touched it. The texture, Richard said with a laugh, must have been haunting.
John froze. He looked at Richard, his eyes wide and watery. He knew. He knew exactly who had done it. He opened his mouth to deliver his iconic line, “I see nothing,” but as the scent wafted up into his face again, his voice cracked like a teenager’s.
“I… I…” John stammered. He tried to look at Bob Crane, who was biting his lip so hard it was turning white. John looked back at the pocket, then at the camera, and then finally back at Richard.
The dam broke. John didn’t just laugh; he bellowed. It was a deep, belly-shaking roar that echoed off the soundstage walls. He pulled the cheese out with two fingers, holding it like a dead rat, and shouted, “I see nothing, but I smell everything!”
The set descended into absolute anarchy. The director, who was usually a stickler for the schedule, fell off his chair. Two of the “German guards” by the door were leaning against each other, gasping for air. Bob Crane was doubled over, pounding his fist against a bunk.
Richard stood there, perfectly still, wearing the most innocent expression he could muster, which only made John laugh harder. John started chasing Richard around the barracks set, waving the melting wedge of Limburger like a weapon. The “war” had stopped, and for twenty minutes, production was at a total standstill because nobody could look at a wool coat without bursting into tears of laughter.
The crew eventually had to call a break just to air out the barracks. They couldn’t get the smell out of the coat for the rest of the night, which meant that for every subsequent take, John Banner had to stand there, smelling the prank, which would trigger a fresh round of giggles every time the director yelled “Action.”
Richard told the interviewer that it was his favorite memory because it captured the essence of the show. They were making a comedy in a setting that shouldn’t have been funny, and the only way to make it work was to love each other enough to be that ridiculous.
John never truly got him back for the cheese incident, mostly because Richard was too quick, but the “Schultz Scent” became a running joke for the rest of the season. Whenever a scene was dragging or the energy was low, someone would whisper “Limburger” near the microphone, and the morale would instantly lift.
Richard leaned back, a soft smile on his face as the memory settled. He noted that even years later, whenever he ran into John before his passing, John wouldn’t say hello first. He would simply sniff the air, look Richard in the eye, and start to grin.
It was a small, smelly moment, but in the high-pressure world of television, it was the kind of thing that turned a cast into a family.
Do you think modern TV sets still have this kind of chaotic, bonded energy behind the scenes?
