I really don't want to count this because it is just a throwaway joke and, worse, it doesn't make any freaking sense but, well, what the hell. Yes, Batman and Hogan's Heroes it seems are part of the same world due to the stupid Batman "climbing up the building" bit.

   One of the running gags on Batman was having Batman and Robin climbing up the side of a building. It was shot sideways so that the side of the building on screen was the floor of the studio in real life with the duo walking along holding onto a climbing rope. Every time they climbed a building some celebrity would always stick their head out of a window to say hello. In the 1966 episode "It's The Way You Play The Game" instead of a celebrity popping out it was (and again this makes NO sense) Werner Klemperer as his character from Hogan's Heroes Colonel Klink.

   Don't see a problem? Well then you must not know the show Hogan's Heroes. It was a show set in World War II and was about a group of German prisoners of war. Hogan and his men were kept in a prison camp in Germany named Stalag 13 and unknown to the head of the camp, Colonel Klink, actively fought as a resistance unit while pretending to be prisoners. They would sneak out of the camp all of the time while the less than brilliant Klink never caught on.

   So the problem? Well Hogan's Heroes was set in WWII which puts it in the 1940's. And while Batman has in point of fact existed back in the 40's, the Batman TV show seemed pretty solidly set in the decade it was made in, the 60's. So twenty years after the war, an established Nazi is just hanging out in the U.S. and apparently hasn't aged a day. Not only that but you would think that spotting a Nazi war criminal in his city that Batman might, oh, I dunno ARREST HIM!!!

   So I will now attempt to make this work. Okay, first lets assume that because Klink was such a bonehead he was not held to be a true war criminal. Maybe Hogan and the boys testified that without Klink's being a moron they could not have accomplished all they did behind his back. Thusly he without intending to actually helped the Allies in the war.

   The time problem. I am going with Dick Clark syndrome. Yep. Klink is just one of thse fools who refuses to age.

   Next problem? He was dressed, if I recall correctly, in his Nazi attire. Explanation? Ummm, he's a freak.

   Which leaves one more curiosity. Batman was on ABC. Hogan's Heroes was on CBS! This makes this a verry noteworthy crossover. Years later NBC's Seinfeld claimed to have the first cross-network crossover with CBS's Murphy Brown. I don't count it on this list because in point of fact the story had the character of Kramer acting in an episode of Murphy Brown. That established that Seinfeld and Murphy Brown were NOT part of the same reality and a big chunk of what I am doing is establishing which show's share a reality. Then later NBC's Homicide and Fox's The X-Files claimed to have done the first REAL cross-network crossover with Homicide's Detective Munch appearing on an episode of The X-Files. Well both these shows can go suck an egg. Batman and Klink beat them to the punch by about 30 years...even if it was totally illogical.

Other Batman Crossover Links
Batman and The Addams Family
Batman and The Green Hornet

Other Hogan's Heroes Crossover Links
Hogan's Heroes and Green Acres


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