It is funny how a single sound or a specific smell can bring it all back to you. I was sitting in this small, dimly lit podcast studio last week, and the host pulled out this grainy, black-and-white production still from 1967.

It was a photo of me as Newkirk, standing in Klink’s office, and just looking at the tilt of my hat made the memories come rushing back like a flood. You have to understand that filming Hogan’s Heroes was a bizarre, wonderful paradox.

We were on this backlot at 40 Acres in Culver City, dressed in heavy wool uniforms under the blistering California sun, pretending to be in a freezing German winter. The physical discomfort was constant, but the camaraderie was what kept us sane.

Werner Klemperer, who played Klink, was the anchor of that show. He was an incredibly sophisticated man, a concert violinist, and a survivor who had a very strict rule about how Klink should be portrayed.

He insisted that Klink must never succeed, but he also insisted that Klink must be played with a certain Prussian dignity. If Klink became a total clown, the stakes of the show disappeared. So, Werner was always very focused, very “in the zone” during our scenes in his office.

He had this way of tightening his jaw and adjusting that monocle that told everyone on the crew that it was time to work. We were filming an episode late in the third season, and the energy was just… off.

We had been shooting for fourteen hours. The air conditioning in the studio had failed, and we were all dripping with sweat under those tunics.

John Banner was standing in the corner as Schultz, looking like he was about to melt into the floorboards. I looked over at Werner, and he was being so perfectly, annoyingly professional.

He had every line down pat. He hadn’t missed a beat all day. And something inside me just snapped. I decided, right then and there, that I was going to destroy him.

I leaned in close for my scheduled bit of dialogue.

And that’s when it happened.

I was supposed to deliver a line about a hidden radio or some nonsense involving the underground, but as I leaned into Werner’s personal space, I didn’t say the line at all.

Instead, I looked him straight in the eye—just inches away—and I let out this tiny, high-pitched, pathetic whimpering sound, like a very small dog that had been stepped on.

At the same time, I crossed my eyes so hard I thought they might stay that way permanently, and I began to slowly wag my tongue at him.

Now, you have to remember the context. Werner is standing there in his full, stiff Commandant’s regalia. He is prepared for a serious confrontation.

When I made that sound and that face, his entire world collapsed. I saw the exact moment his brain short-circuited. His eyes widened, and he tried to maintain that icy, aristocratic glare, but his cheek started to twitch.

The twitch moved to his lip, and then the unthinkable happened. The monocle, which was usually held in place by sheer Prussian willpower, popped out of his eye socket.

It didn’t just fall; it hit his desk with a sharp “clack,” bounced off a ceramic schnapps carafe, and began to spin like a top right in front of him.

The silence in the room lasted for maybe a heartbeat before Werner let out a sound that I can only describe as a strangled honk. He tried to turn it into a cough, but it was too late.

He doubled over, clutching the edge of the desk, and started laughing so hard that no sound was actually coming out of his mouth. He was just vibrating with pure, unadulterated joy.

Once Werner went, the dam broke. John Banner, who had been trying to stay stoic in the background, let out a belly laugh that literally shook the set walls.

He was leaning against a “stone” chimney that was actually made of painted plywood, and I genuinely thought he was going to bring the whole office down on top of us.

The director, Gene Reynolds, screamed “Cut!” but he wasn’t angry. I looked over at the camera crew, and the primary operator had actually stepped away from the eyepiece because he couldn’t stop shaking.

The film was probably just a blur of Klink’s office ceiling at that point. The sound mixer had his headphones around his neck and was wiping tears from his eyes.

We spent the next twenty minutes trying to recover, but every time Werner looked at me, he would see my face in his mind and start all over again.

He kept saying, “Richard, you are a devil, a complete devil,” in that wonderful accent of his. We had to stop production and send everyone to Kraft Services for a coffee break just to reset the “seriousness” of the set.

It was one of those moments where the absurdity of what we were doing—grown men playing dress-up in a mock POW camp—really hit us.

That blooper never made it to the public, of course. In those days, the outtakes were often buried or burned, but the memory of Werner Klemperer, the most disciplined man in Hollywood, losing his dignity over a crossed-eye Newkirk is something I’ll carry forever.

It wasn’t just about the joke; it was about the release. We were a family, and sometimes a family just needs to fall apart laughing in the middle of a long day.

Looking back, I think those moments of total chaos were the reason the show had so much heart. We weren’t just reciting lines; we were genuinely having the time of our lives, even when the lights were hot and the days were long.

Werner eventually got his monocle back in, straightened his tunic, and we finished the scene in one take after that. But for the rest of the week, all I had to do was make a faint whimpering sound, and he would start to sweat.

That was the power of the Hogan’s crew. We knew how to work, but more importantly, we knew how to break the rules.

It is a rare thing to find a group of people who can turn a grueling workday into a memory that still makes you grin forty years later.

What’s a moment in your life where you couldn’t stop laughing at the worst possible time?