Hank - Der (un)heimliche Student

I have fond memories of "Hank" and remember watching it religiously on Friday nights. I was in the seventh grade when the show was on. I thought it was extremely clever, and it contributed to a fascination with college that I already had. (I ended up spending 13 years in college and graduate school--but I took all my classes legally!) As I remember, the college president's major crusade was trying to catch students who audited classes. A few years later, he would have been happy if the biggest problem on campus was unregistered students sitting in on classes. I also remember that the president's daughter was Hank's girlfriend and that she knew all about Hank's illegal activities. In retrospect, however, I have to wonder why Hank could not have gotten an athletic scholarship since he was such a fabulous athlete. I don't remember seeing the last episode that wrapped up the show. It is too bad the network did not renew it.

I was a fan too. The main thing I would add to the other comments is that Hank was a terrific athlete. Dabbs Greer, who seems to coach all of the college's teams, always had a practice or a game or a meet in the way of Hank's next class. So when he'd cut across the field Greer would always wonder who that wonderful, sprinter, kicker, halfback was. I haven't seen anything resembling a tape of this but perhaps one will surface on TVLand or at the Museum of Television and Radio. Maybe they'll do a Title IX remake of it. An athlete dropping into class has more of a farcical element than in 1965.

Wow! I finally managed to stumble onto the name of this show and found a web site with clips. I recalled this show years later when at college, mentioning that it was the first time I had heard of the term "auditing a course". No one recalled it, and some implied I imagined the whole thing. A couple of times in the 80's, I wrote TV newspaper columnists about the show and had my article printed saying they could be no help. I was starting to think the show was a dream!

Anyway, I enjoyed the short run of "Hank". It was somewhat like the more popular "Dobie Gillis", but with more positive role models.

I remember this show from watching the original broadcasts when I was pretty young, only I did not correctly remember the title. I recall the sub-theme that Hank could run so fast that the athletic coach wanted to know who he was, there was a certain implied irony (he was a natural athlete and could probably have attended college on a scholarship if he wasn't so preoccupied with auditing for free and running away). Long ago I tried to remember what the show was called and I confused the title with another show of the era so I probably doubly confused folks when I was reminiscing.

Anyhow, the show made a positive impression on me and I too had the problem of no one else having seen or remembered it until I did a Google search and stumbled upon it here.

to all "Hank" fans, I seem to recall the theme song going something like this:

He's up with the sun, And he's got the college singing, As he goes off on another swinging day.

There're jobs to be done, Or errands to run, He's A - Number One - OK!

He'll drive, clean your clothes, Be a butler or a porter, If it means another quarter in the bank.

He'll get his degree, His Phi Beta key, And get 'em both for free, That's Hank.