Gonculator

A gonculator (sometimes spelled "gonkulator") is a fictional mysterious electronic device featured in the fourth season episode Klink vs. The Gonculator. The term has since appeared in online dictionaries and been used for a real electronic device, a heavy metal band, and even a holiday celebrated on the 5th of October, the date the episode originally aired.

Gonculator (episode use)
American prisoner Sgt. Andrew Carter improvises a live trap to catch rabbits. Meanwhile, Col. Hogan wants to get German electronics expert Major Lutz to Stalag 13 so the expert can defect and join the Allies. To do so, he has Carter add various useless attachments to the trap. The prisoners then convinces the German military establishment that it's a highly secret and extremely important electronic device called a gonculator.

Gonculator/Gonkulator (other uses)

 * Gonkuator and/or gonculator is defined on Dictionary.com, Webster-Dictionary.com, Urban Dictionary, and other sources. Definition from Dictionary.com:
 * Gonkulator /gon'kyoo-lay-tr/ (From "Hogan's Heroes", the TV series) A pretentious piece of equipment that actually serves no useful purpose. Usually used to describe one's least favorite piece of computer hardware.


 * Gonkulator is a heavy metal/grindcore band formed in 1993 in Massachusetts. The band, which signed with Fudgeworthy Records, has produced several tracks and the 1996 full-length CD Satan's Burial Ground.


 * The Gonkulator Ring Modulator was produced in the 1990s and had an updated version created in 2015. It has "clangy, robotic sounds" and can "go from slightly-skewed modulation to wildly, atonal chaos."


 * Gonkulator Day is listed on the 5th of October in several calendars, especially Discordian ones, and was declared a holiday by the Discordian Division of the Ek-sen-triks CluborGuild.


 * The book Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia: The Tales of Shamlicht lists Gonkulator Day aka Gonculator Day with a description of the Hogan's Heroes device and the holyday.

Gonculator Day
October 5, the anniversary of the show's original air date, was declared a holiday by the Discordian Division of the Ek-sen-triks CluborGuild. The holiday, which appears in many Discordian calendars, is described in Ek-sen-trik-kuh Discordia: The Tales of Shamlicht:


 * October 5 (59 Bureaucracy): Gonkulator Day (original spelling, Gonculator Day). A time to recognize impressive and sophisticated-seeming devices that are completely useless. See how many you can find in your home or office. See how many you can sell for a large profit to those who don’t know what day this is. Those who work for major computer corporations should find this an easy holiday to celebrate. (This holiday was inspired by an episode of Hogan’s Heroes that first aired on this date. The prisoners of war convinced members of the enemy’s Military Bureaucracy that a prisoner-made rabbit trap was actually some highly important device known as a “gonculator.” The scheme worked because no one in the military establishment was willing to admit they didn’t have the foggiest idea what the prisoners were talking about.)