It is funny how the mind works when you get to be my age. You can forget what you had for breakfast, but you can remember the exact temperature of a soundstage in 1967. I was sitting down for a podcast interview a few years ago, just a casual conversation about the “Golden Age” of television, when the host pulled out a folder of old production stills. He slid one across the table toward me. It was a grainy, black-and-white shot of the barracks set.

In the photo, I am standing by the stove, and John Banner is standing in the doorway. Most people look at that and see LeBeau and Schultz. But when I looked at it, I didn’t see the characters. I saw the day we almost lost our jobs because we couldn’t stop laughing.

The host asked me, “Robert, was it hard to stay serious with John Banner around?” I started laughing before he even finished the sentence. I told him that John was the most professional, gentle man you could ever meet, but he had this inadvertent comedic gravity. If he was in the room, something funny was going to happen.

We were filming an episode late in the second season. It was one of those days where everything was going wrong. The lighting rigs were buzzing, a fuse had blown earlier that morning, and we were about four hours behind schedule. Our director was a lovely man, but he was under a lot of pressure from the studio to wrap the scene before we hit overtime.

The scene was simple. Schultz was supposed to burst into the barracks, suspecting we were hiding something, and I was supposed to be at the table with a tray of “gourmet” pastries we’d smuggled in. The props department had been struggling that day. Because the lights were so hot, the real pastries we started with had wilted and turned into a soggy mess.

So, the prop master brought in these incredibly realistic-looking replacements. They were made of heavy industrial rubber and coated in a thick, high-gloss shellac to make them shine under the studio lights. They looked delicious, but they were essentially bricks.

We were all exhausted. Bob Crane was pacing, Richard Dawson was making his usual dry remarks about the catering, and I was just trying to remember my lines through the fog of a fourteen-hour day. The director called for quiet on the set. He told us, “One take, guys. Just give me one clean take and we all go home.”

The cameras started rolling. I took my place at the table, looking guilty as ever. The door flew open with a bang, and John Banner marched in, looking as stern as a man of his constitution could look. He was supposed to sniff the air, look at me, and deliver his famous line.

Then he looked at the tray.

John didn’t just look at the tray; he became hypnotized by it. Now, you have to understand that John Banner loved food in real life just as much as Schultz did on the screen. He saw those glossy, shellac-covered rubber éclairs and, for a split second, I think he forgot we were filming a television show. Or maybe he just wanted to give the director a bit of a “moment” to liven up a dull day.

He walked over to the table, his eyes wide, and instead of saying, “I see nothing,” he reached down and grabbed the largest, shiniest rubber pastry on the plate.

The entire room went silent. This wasn’t in the script. Bob Crane’s mouth dropped open. Richard Dawson leaned forward, his eyes twinkling because he knew something disastrous was about to happen. John took that heavy, industrial-grade rubber éclair and took a massive, theatrical bite.

The sound was what got us first. It wasn’t the sound of a man eating a pastry. It was a dull, hollow “thud” followed by the audible squeak of teeth sliding against high-gloss floor wax. John’s jaw hit that rubber and just… bounced.

For three seconds, John stood there with his teeth clamped onto this indestructible prop, his eyes bulging. He realized his mistake instantly. He realized it was rubber. He realized it was covered in chemicals. But he was such a pro that he tried to stay in character. He tried to chew it.

He made a face that I can only describe as a man trying to eat a car tire. His cheeks were bulging, and he was making these muffled, grunting noises while trying to maintain his “tough guard” expression.

I was the first to go. I tried to turn my laugh into a cough, but it came out as a high-pitched wheeze. Then I looked at Bob Crane. Bob had his head down on the bunk, and his shoulders were shaking so violently I thought he was having a seizure. Richard Dawson didn’t even try to hide it; he just turned his back to the camera and started howling.

The director screamed, “Cut! John, what are you doing? That’s a three-dollar prop!”

John finally managed to spit the rubber éclair back onto the tray. He looked at us, his face turning bright red, and in that thick Viennese accent of his, he shouted, “It’s not real! Why is it not real? It looks so beautiful!”

The crew was gone. The cameramen were leaning against their rigs, crying with laughter. The sound guy had to take his headphones off because our laughter was peaking the meters. We tried to pull ourselves together. We really did. The director was begging us to be professional.

“Please,” he said. “Just thirty seconds of acting. That’s all I need.”

We reset the scene. John went back outside the door. I sat back down. The tray was replaced on the table, including the éclair with John’s teeth marks clearly visible in the shellac. We waited for the signal.

“Action!”

The door opened. John walked in. He looked at me. I looked at him. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say a word, he looked down at the tray and saw the teeth marks. His lip started to quiver. He looked up at me with those big, puppy-dog eyes and whispered, “I still want to eat it.”

That was the end of the day. Bob Crane fell off the bunk and was rolling on the floor. Richard Dawson was literally gasping for air, pointing at the “wounded” pastry. Every time we tried to start the scene again for the next hour, someone would make a “squeak” sound with their shoes, and it would trigger the whole memory of John biting the rubber.

Eventually, the director gave up. He realized the “giggle loop” had taken over the set. When you get into one of those moods, there is no coming back. You aren’t actors anymore; you’re just kids in a classroom who saw something funny and can’t stop.

We ended up finishing the scene the next morning. But for the rest of the series, whenever things got too tense or we were working too late, someone would inevitably lean over to John and whisper, “Is it real, John?” And he would just wag his finger at us and give us that wonderful, booming laugh of his.

It’s moments like those that made that show what it was. We weren’t just a cast; we were a family that found joy in the absurdity of our jobs. People ask why the show had such great chemistry, and I tell them it’s because we were usually three seconds away from a laughing fit.

Even now, looking at that old photo, I can still hear the sound of John’s teeth hitting that rubber. It was the most delicious mistake we ever made.

Do you have a favorite memory of Schultz that always makes you smile?