Dan Liebke’s Astonishing Tales

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How Gabe Kaplan Saved South Africa

In 1974, 12 years after Nelson Mandela had been imprisoned by the South African government, a team of elite troops concocted a plan that would ultimately lead to the overthrow of the apartheid regime.

Using advanced espionage strategies garnered from watching old episodes of Hogan’s Heroes, the elite troops led by Carl Douglas (the tortured poet who had earlier the same year given the world the unique musical composition that was Kung Fu Fighting) smuggled Mandela out of his Robben Island Prison base, replacing him with a stuffed hippo named ‘Roger’.

This masterstroke was hailed by both The Captain and Tenille as ’sublime’. But even better was to come.

Taking their cue from Poe’s The Purloined Letter, the elite troops hid Mandela in full view of his enemies - as Freddy ‘Boom-Boom’ Washington on a new sitcom called Welcome Back Kotter.

This scenario was ideal for Mandela, his poise and quiet dignity in the Sweathog role ensuring the demise of apartheid in his home country.

Smuggled back into his cell just prior to his release in 1990, Mandela emerged triumphant, eventually becoming leader of his country - as South Africans everywhere were heard to yell ‘Up your nose with a rubber hose’ (the slogan of the ANC) while waving enormous placards covered with the likeness of Gabe Kaplan.

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