There was one episode of Hogan’s Heroes in which William Christopher (Fr Mulcahey on MASH***) substituted for Larry Hovis (who must have been sick that week). They kind of kept him in the background, and he only had one or two lines; I guess they thought no one would notice (but my younger brother and I did).
I can’t find a cite for this anywhere, but I know it happened. Maybe someone with the ***HH ***DVD collection can identify the episode?
According to IMDB, Christopher appeared in four different episodes of Hogan’s Heroes, in four different roles. I remember seeing at least one of those episodes, and I do seem to recall that he was playing a similar role to Carter. Of those four episodes, the one where his credits include a rank is this one from the first season, where he’s credited as “Lieutenant Donner”, so I wonder if that’s the one you remember.
I remembered (and looked up) all of those, but there was also one in which he definitely played TSgt Andrew Carter (and was apparently not credited for it).
At the time, he was occasionally featured in Gomer Pyle, USMC, which was also filmed on the Desilu lot. So he was well-known to the production people.
In addition to Lt Donner, he was also the beer-drinking German private in the episode where Carter wants to escape, and a POW masquerading as a German officer in the one where Carter impersonates Adolf Hitler.
Never mind, I’ve found the episode:
He was indeed featured, but apparently credited as another character (Thomas). All of his lines were Carter’s.
Genius, yes. Black guy, yes. Nerd, not seeing it.
Head of the Class was more than just Arvid. It literally had one of every species of Nerd:
The Fat Nerd, The Preppy Nerd, The Type A Nerd, The Mousy, Quiet Nerd, The Drama Geek, The Foreign Exchange Student and so on and so on.
More trivia, the School name (Millard Fillmore High was a shout out to Welcome Back Kotter’s school name, James Buchanan High)
Come to think of it, Father Mulcahey of MAS*H had many nerd qualities.
ISTM Major Winchester was even more so - a medicine nerd with awkward social skills.
Not at all. He was a social elite, far above the hoi polloi. That’s almost the direct opposite of nerd.
Byers was the clean-cut conservative corporate-looking guy.
Frohike may have dressed non-nerd (but then again, Booger was a Nerd in RotN) but he and Langly were the computer geeks…
That would describe Niles Crane also. There’s some overlap with nerdism, but it’s not quite the same.
The most obvious recent one is Malcolm in Malcolm in the Middle. From IMDB:
He was a nerd who tried desperately to not be seen as a nerd.
Harold Green from the Red Green Show and maybe Carlton from Fresh Prince, but maybe he was more preppy…?
How is that a call-out? High schools named after presidents are quite common.
My mother attended Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn, which could have been where the name for the school in *Kotter *came from. But I could see the school in Head of the Class being a small homage to that.
Why couldn’t both of them be from any of the thousands of president-named schools in the country?
Because the creators of the show specifically picked another President as an homage to the other show.
Speaking of Carter, she and Daniel Jackson were rather nerdy on SG-1. It was nice having nerds in two different fields, instead of just one “smart guy.”
Damn, my memory is failing me. *Kincheloe *was the radio wizard, wasn’t he? Carter was the *explosives *geek. Which makes him the spiritual ancestor of H.M. “Howling Mad” Murdock, although he was far more of a loon than a nerd.
And the school in “Boy Meets World” was John Adams HS, named for William “Mr. Feeny” Daniels’ character in 1776. This fall’s sequel, “Girl Meets World” with Cory and Topanga as the parents, will be set in John Quincy Adams HS.
Just so you know.
I was trying dig up that memory also, I haven’t seen the show since it was first on. I recall both of them being radio experts, but mostly Kinch doing that. Carter was on more episodes so perhaps he filled in that position at some point. One recollection is an episode where they had to put up an X shaped radio antenna that wouldn’t be noticed so Hogan bent each of the prongs 90 degrees to make it the shape of a swastika and then I think it was Carter who had to climb up on a building to mount it.