belphegor1982 | 30 Days of Hogan's Heroes

Day 3 – Favourite supporting character, male?

Colonel (Group Captain, really – proper RAF rank) Rodney Crittendon.

First time I saw an episode with him, he really rubbed me the wrong way – I like an upper-class twit caricature any day, but his sort of absolute obliviousness and wrong genre savvy just... grated. And then he appeared in six more episodes (seven if you count “Lady Chitterly’s Lover” as two separate parts) and slowly grew on me. Yes, he’s a bit of an idiot, has a tendency to bungle the simplest missions (for a given value of “simple” – this is Hogan’s Heroes, after all) and do and say exactly the wrong things... But he’s also shown to care about his men, feel very guilty and self-deprecating when they’re captured (which was at least partially his fault), and be well-meaning and kind-hearted.

Crittendon: (...) the look I saw on the faces of my command, I’ll remember until my dying day. I failed them, Hogan. I failed them.
Hogan (sighs): You, uh... You saved the lives of your men, Colonel.
Crittendon: I’d rather you didn’t call me that. I’m a disgrace to this uniform. A vital mission has been ruined because I... I had to do things my way. (“Crittendon’s Commandos”)

And he actually does pretty well in “Lady Chitterly’s Lover” – has a substantial part in saving the day, as a matter of fact.

Despite the film being set in 1926, Bernard Fox’s character Winston Havelock in The Mummy is so reminiscent of Crittendon (probably intentionally, since Steve Sommers mentions Hogan’s Heroes in his commentary) that I just can’t keep a stiff upper lip when I watch it now. I can just imagine Winston as an uncle of Crittendon’s...

Of course, Sgt. Moffitt’s great fanfiction The Crittendon Chronicles also has a lot to do with my soft spot for the man. He is a nincompoop, but an endearing one :o)