Whenever I detect
Members of the other sex
(You may think that’s the worst rhyming couplet in the history of song lyrics. But it may not even be the worst rhyming couplet in today’s featured song.)
* * * * *
“Hogan’s Heroes” – a sixties sitcom set in a World War II POW camp – was one of the least likely hit television shows of my youth. Who knew that America’s funny bone was ready to be tickled by a comedy featuring buffoonish Nazis like the monocled Colonel Klink and the clueless Sergeant Schultz:
“Hogan’s Heroes” was a hit right out of the box, and its star, Bob Crane, was nominated for the “Best Actor in a Comedy Series” Emmy in each of the show’s first two seasons.
But when the show’s six-year run ended in 1971, Crane had a hard time finding roles.
* * * * *
While “Hogan’s Heroes” was still on the air, cast member Richard Dawson had introduced Crane to a Sony Electronics sales manager named John Henry Carpenter. (Dawson, who later became famous as the host of “Family Feud,” was Crane’s best man when he married “Hogan’s Heroes” co-star Sigrid Valdis – whose real name was Patricia Olson.)
Crane and Carpenter became friendly and started going to singles bars together. Crane was a big TV star, which made it easier for the pair to attract women.
The two men met several years before VCRs became generally available to consumers. But as a Sony sales manager, Carpenter had access to professional videotape equipment, which he and Crane used to videotape themselves when they were tremperant le biscuit.
* * * * *
Frustrated by the entertainment industry’s lack of interest in him after “Hogan’s Heroes” went off the air, Crane decided to take his career into his own hands. He purchased the rights to a play called “Beginner’s Luck” and hit the dinner-theater circuit.
Crane was in Scottsdale, Arizona to perform in “Beginner’s Luck” at the Windmill Dinner Theatre when he was found dead in his apartment on June 29, 1978. He had been bludgeoned to death.
Carpenter was also in Scottsdale that day. He had begun to schedule his sales trips to coincide with Crane’s dinner-theatre tours so they could continue to videotape their amorous liaisons.
* * * * *
After investigators found Crane’s naughty videotape collection, they were quickly able to identify Carpenter – who had flown to Arizona to hang with Crane a few days before his murder.
Carpenter became the prime suspect in the case in part because blood matching Crane’s blood type was found in Carpenter’s rental car. But this was before DNA testing, so prosecutors couldn’t prove that the blood in the rental car was Crane’s.
Over a decade later, the evidence in the case was re-examined and a photo showing what appeared to be brain tissue on one of the car’s seat was found. Carpenter was arrested and tried for Crane’s murder in 1994, but the jury acquitted him. (He continued to maintain his innocence until his death four years later.)
Crane had a son and two daughters by his first wife, Anne Terzian. The son, Robert Crane, speculated that Crane’s second wife – the sole beneficiary under his will – had had good reason to kill him. Perhaps that’s why the tombstone that Mrs. Crane purchased for Crane’s final resting place included only the names of the two daughters from his first marriage and ignored his son.
* * * * *
Crane and his second wife, Patricia Olson Crane, also had a son named Robert. (It seems very odd to me that a father would give his first name to not just one, but two of his sons, but that’s what Crane did.) The second Robert’s middle name was Scott, and he went by “Scotty.”
After the Carpenter acquittal, Scotty Crane and his mother shopped a script about Bob Crane’s sexcapades and murder titled Take Off Your Clothes and Smile.
But before they could strike a deal with a producer, it was announced that a movie about Crane titled Auto Focus would be directed by Paul Schrader. Best known as the screenwriter for Taxi Driver and three other Martin Scorsese movies, Schrader was once described as “a poet of male sexual pathology,” so he seemed like the perfect choice for a movie about Bob Crane.
Auto Focus is a compelling movie – also a very, very creepy one, thanks in no small part to the casting of Willem Dafoe as John Henry Carpenter. (Crane is portrayed by Greg Kinnear, of all people.)
A. O. Scott of the New York Times said that the movie “gets to you like a low-grade fever, a malaise with no known antidote. When it was over, I wasn't sure if I needed a drink, a shower or a lifelong vow of chastity.”
That pretty much sums it up.
* * * * *
Maybe it was just sour grapes, but Scotty Crane claimed that not only did the producers of Auto Focus steal the idea for the movie from Scotty and his mom, but also that they got a lot of the facts wrong.
From a 2002 article:
Scotty Crane, the son of the late “Hogan's Heroes” actor Bob Crane, has been making the talk show rounds. It seems that he's really upset about the upcoming movie, Auto Focus, about his father. It's not that the film is nearly X-rated, it's that they got the facts wrong. . . .
Scotty documents dozens of inaccuracies in the upcoming film, such as [its claiming that Crane] photographed women without their knowledge [and that] he was into S&M and had dungeons all around the country.
And the one that seems to bug him the most: that Bob Crane had a penile implant. “First off, they didn't even have penile implants in the sixties and seventies. In fact, silicone penile implants were not used before 1982 – four years after Bob's death. And fat injection penile implants weren't used until the early nineties. Secondly, if he had had penile implants or injections, this would have been noted in his autopsy report, which you can view on www.bobcrane.com.”
Scotty knew that the bobcrane.com website (which no longer exists) included Crane’s autopsy report, because Scotty himself created the website and put that report on it.
 |
| Scotty Crane |
Here’s more from that 2002 article:
Scotty has no problem with the things his father did do, just the things his father didn't do. And if you doubt this for one minute you can visit his web site where all the lurid details are documented. If you feel like spending as little as $3.95, you can get a three-day trial pass to the X-rated portion of the bobcrane.com web site that includes clips from the stag films which star Bob Crane. Even without paying Scotty offers photographic proof that his father had no need for a penile implant.
Let that last sentence sink in for a moment . . . and then we’ll continue:
[According to Scotty,] Bob Crane was really open about what he was doing sexually. He lived next door to “All in the Family” star Carroll O'Connor and invited him over to watch his homemade porn. “Can you imagine Archie Bunker and Colonel Hogan in your basement watching stag films?” Scotty asked with pride. “My father showed his pornographic photos and videos to everyone, including the press.”
Some people think Scotty’s a Hollywood whore for trying to capitalize on his father’s name with a smutty web site. “This is my father; this is what he did. I’ve been seeing these photographs since I was about two years old.”
(WHOA, NELLY!)
But wait . . . there’s more:
[T]he site isn’t all about just the sex. Scotty’s offering a set of collectible “Hogan’s Heroes” action figures that are quite remarkable in their detail and resemblance to Hogan, Colonel Klink, and Sergeant Shultz. But then they should be good – the trio costs $150.
* * * * *
A few days ago, I was driving in my car and minding my own business when “Girl Watcher” – a song I vaguely remembered from the sixties – came on the radio.
“Girl Watcher” seemed harmless enough when it was released by the O’Kaysions in 1968. But the world is a very different place in 2020 than it was back then. Today, a lot of people – especially people with an XX chromosome – would take exception to this little ditty, which is sung by an idle lout who spends his spare time leering at the hotties who pass by.
The song is chock full of lyrics guaranteed to raise the hackles of any believer in the “Me Too” movement.
For example, there’s this verse:
Hello there, female
My, my, but you do look swell
Could you please walk a little slower?
Which is followed by this equally creepy one:
I wonder if you know
That you’re putting on a show
Could you please walk a little closer?
But the creepiest part of “Girl Watcher” is the “Mmm, mmm, mmm!” that comes about 35 seconds into the song.
* * * * *
When I was researching “Girl Watcher,” I learned that it was prominently featured in Auto Focus, the movie about Bob Crane that’s discussed above.
Which explains how 2 or 3 lines was inspired to delve into and write about the sordid details of Bob Crane’s life and death. (And now you know the rest . . . of the story.)
Click here to watch a video of a bunch of pervy guys checking out passers-by of the female persuasion that uses “Girl Watcher” as its soundtrack.
The video was apparently made to be shown on the Australian Broadcasting Company, a government-funded broadcast service modeled on the BBC. (What were they thinking?)
Click below to buy the song from Amazon:
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