Cold War Television: The Military Comedy

Persuasive entertainment television in the 1960s included the military comedy, which was also created to remind the public of America’s military superiority over the evils in the world.  In the case of Hogan’s Heroes which ran from 1965 to 1971, Colonel Bob Hogan ran a successful military operation from inside a Nazi prisoner of war camp.  Not only did Hogan’s Heroes remind us that America was successful in defeating Nazism, but it allowed war to become an unrealistic, and fun, fantasy by characterizing the Nazi soldiers as bumbling idiots. Other military comedies that broadcast between 1962 through 1967 included McHale’s Navy, Gomer Pyle USMC, F-Troop, and The Wackiest Ship in the Navy, among others.  These all had a common goal in creating the fantasy associated with the military, especially in the post-war society where the U.S. was perceived as militarily superior in light of the successes of World War II.  The military comedy not only reminded viewers of U.S superiority in shows like Hogan's Heroes, but also succeeded as a means of escapism, especially as the U.S. drew nearer to military involvement in Vietnam.  “These war stories and comedic encounters prolonged the inability of the American citizenry to confront the reality of war.”  In effect, the war comedy allowed for the escapism to support military involvement in Vietnam by detaching the American public from the horrors associated with war.

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Source:  J. Fred McDonald, Television and the Red Menace: The Video Road to Vietnam, 2009.  Accessed December 16, 2011. http://jfredmacdonald.com/trm/index.htm