It is 1971, and the air in the television studio is thick with the scent of hairspray and stale coffee.

John Banner sits comfortably in a low-slung velvet chair, his famous girth filling the frame as he smiles at the interviewer.

He looks nothing like the bumbling Sergeant Schultz today.

He is dressed in a sharp suit, looking every bit the sophisticated European stage actor he was before the world fell in love with his Luftwaffe uniform.

A young man in the front row of the audience raises his hand, his eyes bright with the kind of reverence only a “Hogan’s Heroes” superfan can manage.

The young man asks a question that John has heard a hundred times before, yet it always brings a specific sparkle to his eyes.

“Mr. Banner, we always see Schultz eating the prisoners’ food or Klink’s snacks. Did you ever actually get to eat any of it, or was it all just plastic props?”

John lets out a deep, resonant laugh that starts in his chest and vibrates through the microphone.

He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and the audience leans in with him.

He tells them that while most of the food on television is indeed made of wax or painted wood to survive the hot studio lights, there was one specific morning on the Paramount backlot that changed everything.

It was a cold Tuesday in late November, the kind of California morning where the dampness seeps into your bones despite the heavy wool of the costumes.

The scene called for Colonel Klink to be hosting a small gathering for a visiting general, and the prop department had, for reasons unknown, decided to bring in actual, steaming bratwurst from a local deli.

The aroma was filling the entire soundstage, distracting every hungry actor in the room.

The director, Gene Reynolds, was pushing for a quick take because they were behind schedule.

John explains that he was supposed to be standing guard by the door, remaining completely invisible as Hogan and Klink traded barbs near the buffet table.

He was starving, having skipped breakfast to make his 5:00 AM makeup call.

As the cameras began to roll, his stomach let out a growl so loud he feared the boom mic had picked it up.

He stood there, perfectly still in his helmet and overcoat, watching the steam rise off those sausages just three feet away.

The hunger simply won the battle against my professional training.

Hogan was in the middle of a long, convoluted explanation about a missing map, and Werner Klemperer, as Klink, was doing his usual routine of looking intensely skeptical.

The camera was tight on their faces, and I knew, mathematically, that I was out of the frame.

I took one silent, giant step to my left, reached out a hand that felt like it belonged to a thief, and snatched the largest, juiciest bratwurst off the silver platter.

My plan was simple: I would tuck it into my cheek, return to my position, and wait for the “cut” to actually chew.

But I had vastly underestimated the heat of a sausage that had been sitting under a heat lamp for twenty minutes.

The moment that scalding meat hit the inside of my mouth, my eyes nearly popped out of my head.

I couldn’t spit it out because the red light was on, and I couldn’t swallow it because it was the size of a small rolling pin.

I just stood there, my right cheek bulging like a squirrel preparing for a nuclear winter, tears of pain and regret streaming down my face.

Suddenly, the script required Klink to whirl around and bark an order at me.

Werner turned, his monocle firmly in place, and he stopped dead in his tracks.

He looked at my face, then at the empty spot on the platter, then back at my face.

The silence stretched for what felt like an eternity.

I knew I had to say my line, which was the classic, “I see nothing!”

I opened my mouth just a fraction, trying to keep the sausage from falling onto my boots, and what came out was a muffled, wet, “I shee nushin!”

Werner’s face turned a shade of purple I didn’t know was possible for a human being.

He tried to stay in character, his lip quivering, but then he looked down and saw the grease dripping onto my pristine uniform.

He broke. He didn’t just laugh; he shrieked.

He doubled over, pointing at my bulging jaw, and that was the signal for the entire crew to lose their minds.

The camera operator, a man who had seen everything in Hollywood, actually let go of the handles because he was shaking so hard with laughter that the frame was jumping up and down.

But the real chaos started when the “dogs” were brought in.

We had these two Dobermans on set for the guard scenes, and they were usually very well-behaved, but they hadn’t been fed yet either.

The moment they caught the scent of the deli-fresh bratwurst emanating from my mouth, they broke their leashes.

Before I could react, I was being tackled by eighty-pound dogs who were convinced that Sergeant Schultz was a human vending machine.

I fell backward into a rack of prop rifles, the dogs were licking my face with frantic intensity, and the bratwurst finally went flying across the floor.

The director was screaming for someone to catch the dogs, but the grips were on the floor gasping for air, unable to move.

Bob Crane was leaning against the fireplace, laughing so hard he had to hold onto the mantel to keep from collapsing.

It took twenty minutes to get the dogs out of the room and another thirty to get the makeup department to fix the tear tracks and the dog slobber on my face.

Every time we tried to restart the scene, Werner would look at my cheek, see a tiny glint of grease I had missed, and start howling all over again.

That was the day we realized that Schultz wasn’t just a character I played; he was a spirit of appetite that lived inside me.

To this day, whenever I see a sausage, I check to see if there are any Dobermans in the vicinity before I take a bite.

We spent six years pretending to be in a grim prisoner-of-war camp, but the truth was, we were just a group of friends who couldn’t stay serious long enough to save our lives.

That little moment of greed turned into a legend on the set, and from then on, the prop masters would hide little treats in the scenes just to see if they could bait me into ruining another take.

It reminded us all that even in the middle of a fake war, there is always room for a little snack and a lot of laughter.

I suppose that is the real secret to why people still watch us after all these years—they can see the joy behind the uniforms.

What is your favorite memory of watching the gang at Stalag 13?