Heil Honey I'm Home!

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Heil Honey I'm Home!
Heil Honey I'm Home! titles.jpg
Title card
Genre Sitcom
Starring Neil McCaul
Denica Fairman
Maria Friedman
Gareth Marks
Caroline Gruber
Country of origin United Kingdom
Original language(s) English
No. of seasons 1
No. of episodes 1 (7 unaired)
Broadcast
Original channel Galaxy
Original airing 30 September 1990 (1990-09-30)

Heil Honey I'm Home! is a controversial British television sitcom, produced in 1990, which was cancelled after one episode aired.

Contents

Synopsis [edit]

The show centres on fictionalised versions of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, who live next door to a Jewish couple, Arny and Rosa Goldenstein. The show's plot is centred on Hitler's inability to get along with his neighbours. A caption at the beginning of the episode presented the series as a 'lost' sitcom from the '50s, recently re-discovered. The show spoofed elements of 1950s and 1960s American sitcoms such as Leave It to Beaver and I Love Lucy, as well as other elements including a corny title, vacuous plots and dialogue, and unwarranted applause whenever a character appeared on-screen.

Cast [edit]

Production notes and broadcast history [edit]

The programme was written by Geoff Atkinson and commissioned by satellite television channel Galaxy, part of British Satellite Broadcasting (which later became part of BSkyB).

It was shown at 9.30pm on a Monday night, after an episode of Dad's Army. During the credits of Dad's Army, Galaxy's announcer said "And unless Arthur Lowe defeats him, it's the man himself in a few moments in Heil Honey, I'm Home!, as the Galaxy Comedy Weekend continues."

Ticket to screening of later episode (presumably cancelled) showing production details.

Controversy and cancellation [edit]

The programme proved controversial when first aired. Television historian Marian Calabro described Heil Honey, I'm Home! as "perhaps the world's most tasteless situation comedy".[2] It was accused of crassly trivialising Nazism, although others have defended it as being in the same tradition of Third Reich parodies such as 'Allo 'Allo! and Hogan's Heroes, or along similar lines to the portrayal of Hitler as a domestic fool in The Producers. They also point out the crassness was intentional, and part of the parody anyway.[3] One comedy historian cites Heil Honey, I'm Home! as a "heavy-handed concept", and argues the show was a failure as a comedy because it "disastrously exceeded" the limits of irony.[4]

Only the pilot was ever screened, although eight episodes were planned and a number were recorded in which a story arc was about Adolf and Eva's attempt to kill the Goldensteins without the Goldensteins knowing it's Adolf and Eva. A video with clips from at least one unaired episode has appeared on YouTube.[5] The filming of the series was cancelled immediately by Sky (BSkyB) on its acquisition of British Satellite Broadcasting. This was probably due in part to the ire that accompanied the first episode. Neither the pilot nor other episodes have ever been aired since; however, many copies of the pilot exist and have been shown on YouTube and other video-sharing sites. The show has since become renowned as one of the most controversial programmes ever to have been screened in the UK; it listed at #61 on Channel 4's 100 Greatest TV Moments from Hell.[6][7]

See also [edit]

References [edit]

  1. ^ Hitler: The Comedy Years by Jacques Perreti (Channel 4, 2007)
  2. ^ Marian Calabro, Zap! A Brief History of Television,Four Winds Press, 1992, (p. 150). ISBN 0027162427
  3. ^ "SOTCAA: The 100 Greatest Moments From TV Hell". SOTCAA. 2000. Archived from the original on 2001-01-28. 
  4. ^ David Hawkes, "British Contemporary Comedy", in Comedy: A Geographic and Historical Guide, edited by Maurice Charney. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005 (p. 197). ISBN 0-313-32714-9
  5. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb7ISG8VKgY
  6. ^ "British Sitcom Guide - Heil Honey I'm Home". The British Sitcom Guide. 2007. 
  7. ^ "Charts, News and Reviews of Blu-rays, DVDs, Games, CDs, Hardware, Laserdiscs, Cinema Films & more". DVDfever.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-05-24. 

External links [edit]

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