Factual error: In the rec hall where Klink is weightlifting, there is an advertisement poster for the Grindelwald region on the wall, which is in Switzerland. The German propaganda poured a lot of money into promoting the Reich's own recreational regions through the "Kraft durch Freude" program. With the war going badly, they especially wouldn't want a "Look how beautiful Switzerland is" poster in plain view of their troops every day.
Doc
16th Feb 2017
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
6th Feb 2017
Passengers (2016)
Factual error: The Avalon generates its gravity by rotating, which is made evident by the fact that the elevators connecting the three helical pods are without gravity. When the passengers go spacewalking, the instant they walk out the airlock, they have to be secured by magnetic boots. When they turn them off, they become weightless. Both assertions are wrong for the same reason: If the gravity is created by centrifugal force, that force is present on all points of the ship with the strength depending on the distance to the hub of the ship, no matter whether that point is inside or outside the ship's hull. That of course includes the ledge in front of the airlock. Any surface that is oriented towards the hub of the ship is felt as "floor", surfaces radially oriented to the hub would feel like "walls", surfaces oriented away from the hub would be "ceilings." So if you step off a ledge on the outside of the ship the way the actors do, you'd be drifting away from the ship on a tangent to the ledge you stepped off, and end up hanging by your tethers. You wouldn't accelerate away from the ship like you would in a real gravity field, but you would float away with a speed equal to the acceleration simulated by the artificial gravity. The only way to become weightless would be to cancel the sideways motion imparted by the rotation of the ship. At the rotation speeds depicted in the movie, that would take at least a motorbike to do.
31st Jan 2017
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Factual error: In this episode, the HofBrau (which should correctly be written "Hofbräu") is displaying a big red neon sign above its door. From 1939 on, air raid regulations throughout Germany strictly prohibited any unnecessary display of light at night. Any light visible from more than 500m away was considered a breach of air raid regulations.
31st Jan 2017
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
The Great Brinksmeyer Robbery - S2-E18
Factual error: In the restaurant in Hammelburg, where Schultz discovers Hogan and Newkirk, there's an advertisement for "Brauerei der Jager, Stadt Wien." (Wien = Vienna) Vienna and Hammelburg are more than 500km apart, and if Hammelburg were near Düsseldorf, where the series puts it, it would be more like 700km. That's a bit far away for a brewery to advertise in the pre-globalisation era.
31st Jan 2017
M*A*S*H (1972)
Factual error: Radar claims in his report that Father Mulchahy tried to calm the prisoner by saying "bang zhao", thinking it means "peace and friendship" when it really means "your daughter's pregnancy brings much joy to our village." There is, unsurprisingly, not even a remotely similar word in Chinese that means either of those things.
23rd Jan 2017
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Reservations Are Required - S1-E15
Continuity mistake: Hogan dumps a bucket of water on Barnes and Davis each, to make it look like they were the ones who hid in the tanker. They get big wet patches on their uniforms from it, but aren't completely wet through and through - which is to be expected, after all it's just a small bucket of water each. After the next cut however, they are completely soaked like they went swimming.
23rd Jan 2017
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Is There a Doctor in the House? - S3-E18
Revealing mistake: As Carter blows into the bottom of the oven, the suds that hit Newkirk in the face come out in a thin stream on top, not out of the whole stovepipe.
16th Jan 2017
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Plot hole: Hogan's men have that clever device in Klink's quarters, where they turn the oven from below to reveal the trap door. That however unplugs the oven from the chimney, you can even see the smoke pouring out of the oven in some shots. Often enough, they have the oven unplugged for half a minute or more. If an oven smoked into a room that long, the whole room would fill with smoke so badly it could actually lead to smoke poisoning. If nothing else, Klink would have the oven checked. Any device that can turn a heavy cast-iron stove flawlessly like that would by definition have to be quite massive and not disassemble easily. If Klink had the oven checked, that would certainly lead to the discovery of the turning mechanism.
16th Jan 2017
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Crittendon's Commandos - S5-E25
Character mistake: To have an excuse not to start up the truck motor, Schultz claims his driver's license has expired. German driver's licenses don't expire.
6th Jan 2017
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Factual error: Hogan mentions a store that offers "thirty percent off on T-shirts." T-shirts were mostly unknown in Germany during the 3rd Reich, and didn't see widespread use before the 1960s. Before that, the traditional Unterhemd, known in America as tank top or wife beater, was worn almost exclusively.
3rd Jan 2017
M*A*S*H (1972)
Stupidity: Radar takes his glasses off, takes a sip of coffee, then props his clipboard onto the typewriter and accidentally starts typing on the desk calculator. Even if he didn't know his desk well enough to wonder what he laid his clipboard upon AND was so blind he couldn't even orient himself by the desk lamp (which he isn't), he would have felt the difference the instant he touched the keys. Note that he puts his hands on the keys, squints at the clipboard (sic!), then starts typing, he doesn't hammer away right off, which would have added at least a little plausibility to the joke.
1st Jan 2017
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Revealing mistake: When Schultz checks the barbed wire to see if it is fixed now, he noticeably wiggles the vertical wire, but only barely touches the horizontal one - because it is rigged to come apart, and will again if he handles it too roughly.
30th Nov 2016
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Factual error: In this episode, the Royal Navy submarine that acts as a radio relay for Hogan's men is hunted by a destroyer. Like in most such Hollywood scenes, depth charges are seen exploding right next to the submarine, which just shrugs the blasts off. In reality, any depth charge that went off closer than 100 meters was instantly deadly to a submerged sub.
30th Nov 2016
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Factual error: In several episodes, Hogan's men communicate by radio with a British submarine, and the dialog hints that the sub is submerged at the time. During the WWII era, submarines could not communicate by radio without surfacing first. In most episodes one might argue that the sub could be running shallow with a mast up, which would perhaps be within the technical possibilities of the era, but in this episode, the sub is talking to Hogan's men while under attack by a destroyer. This pretty much rules out running at periscope depth, because ramming was regularly-used tactic for killing subs that were in the process of diving or surfacing. To avoid confusion: Nowadays, subs can communicate while running several hundred feet deep by using VLF and ELF. However, these are definitely not capable of transmitting voice, but are text-only.
18th Nov 2016
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Guess Who Came to Dinner? - S4-E9
Factual error: Schultz says, Von Grubner has "a castle right next to the Führer's in Berchtesgaden." Hitler's famous real estate in Obersalzberg wasn't a castle but a mountain chalet based on a former farm estate called the "Steinhaus".
18th Nov 2016
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Guess Who Came to Dinner? - S4-E9
Audio problem: When Hogan says "Why is it you can only trust short, dumpy spies?" the movement of his lips does not match the words.
18th Nov 2016
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Hogan's Trucking Service... We Deliver the Factory to You - S4-E4
Deliberate mistake: When Schultz drives off with the motorcycle leaving the sidecar behind, you can see that the sidecar has been propped up. It has to be, or it would fall over. Sidecars, bringing only one wheel to the party themselves, can't stand up on their own.
14th Nov 2016
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
16th Oct 2016
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Factual error: Erica says she has a plane to take Klink and her to Argentina. The only transatlantic airplane in Germany at that time was the FW-200 Condor, whose military value would have made it hard to requisition even for an SS Gruppenführer (which would be the real rank a "General" would hold in the SS, different mistake), let alone for his wife. Plus, even the FW-200 could not have made it even to the Brazilian coast without a refueling stop somewhere along the African west coast, which would have been a problem, because Germany had no possessions there. Klink, being a Luftwaffe (Air Force) officer, should have at least been suspicious of that plan, even if he didn't know all the details off the top of his head.
16th Oct 2016
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
Request Permission to Escape - S1-E32
Character mistake: When ordering Schultz to finish cleaning his car, Klink salutes Schultz, his returning the salute with the garden hose in his hand leads to Klink being soaked. A salute is, except in rare circumstances, always initiated by the lower-ranking individual and returned by his superior, not the other way round. This rule is broken especially by Klink in several other places as well.