"MAD MEN" & "HOGAN'S HEROES"

The fourth season finale for 'Mad Men' gave us two more Zonks to hopefully disable. First up....
While out in California to help her boss Don Draper with his children during his "business trip", Megan Calvet (not sure on the spelling of her last name; IMDb doesn't have it listed) reunited with her college roommate, Camille. Camille had become an actress and apparently had appeared in two episodes of 'Hogan's Heroes'.

First off, there's a timeline issue here. If I'm not mistaken, the episode "Tomorrowland" takes place around the Labor Day weekend in 1965. But 'Hogan's Heroes' debuted in September of that year. So either Megan was talking about episodes that Camille filmed and had not aired yet, or it's further proof that Toobworld isn't the same as the real world - as if android and aliens and talking horses living among us wasn't enough proof.

Any other TV character might have then asked, "What's 'Hogan's Heroes'?", but Don Draper is in the ad biz, so knowledge of the upcoming show must have crossed his desk at some point. (Even though Harry Crane as Head of Media for SCDP would be more involved, Don would have had to okay any advertising campaigns for the show, being head of Creative and a partner in the firm.) Thanks to that, I don't think we have to jump through hoops saying that it debuted the year before, creating that difference between Toobworld and the Trueniverse.

By the way, we can't just say it was a movie based on the "real-life" exploits of the prisoners in Stalag 13, because Megan did say Camille was in two episodes. (And it was real life as far as Toobworld goes, because it was treated as such in episodes of 'Green Acres' and 'Batman'.)

Besides, TV characters were actually watching it in episodes of 'Roseanne', 'Big Wolf On Campus', and 'NewsRadio'. (The TV shows 'NCIS', 'Numb3rs', 'Just Shoot Me', 'Gilmore Girls', 'Farscape', 'The Nanny', 'Full House', 'The A-Team', and 'Action' all make references to the TV show, mostly in calling people "Colonel Klink" or "Sgt. Schultz". All of those took place long after the series concluded. The 'Mad Men' reference took place before it aired.)

But we can still consider the Toobworld version of 'Hogan's Heroes' to be different than the one in the real world because of the participation of Camille. A quick check of the cast list at IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058812/epcast) doesn't reveal anyone named Camille. That could also mean that she was uncredited in a non-speaking role, however... perhaps someone in the neighboring town, in the background at the local restaurant or beer hall.

No matter how that plays out, it still means that her two episodes are different from those seen in the real world. And why stop there? Maybe whole storylines were different from the originals. Maybe it was even an action/adventure series rather than a sitcom.

In the end, the televersion of 'Hogan's Heroes' was based on real-life events and would never be considered a Zonk when mentioned in other TV shows.

BCnU!