Heil Honey I'm Home!

First broadcast on UK Satellite TV in 1990, 'Heil Honey…' is a parody of 1950's sitcoms similar to 'I Love Lucy'. Watching the pilot episode 18 years after it was pulled off television, it's hard not to draw comparisons to the 'adult-comedy' shows of recent times. Compared with the newer animated shows like 'Family Guy', 'South Park','Drawn Together' - even a sitcom making the most evil man of the 20th century look like Jackie Gleason, seems tame by today's standards. In fact, it could have easily passed as a quick 60 second cut-away on 'Family Guy'.

One show that springs to mind is the short-lived sitcom parody: "That's My Bush!" (2001). Both embrace the formulas of their target genres, while using the absurdity of having these historic figures as the protagonists in such a trivial medium.

It's hard to rate the series as only the pilot episode was broadcast (a copy, which was taped on a home viewers VCR, can be found on YouTube). So it's not fair to judge whether or not the one-note joke would have gotten old or if the show would have taken a different direction.

It's rumoured that eight episodes of the series were filmed. With the master tapes being wiped, after the flood of complaints from that initial screening (although there have been reports of the show screening outside the UK). If the master tapes are still out there in some warehouse, we may yet see a DVD release of this lost example of proto-South Park humour.

Well, what can be said about "Heil, Honey I'm Home"? Basically, any sitcom about Adolf Hitler living next door to a Jewish couple is destined for disaster from day one. The fact that there were only eight episodes filmed but only one was ever shown says it all. This was made by the old BSB satellite company back in the days when satellite TV was something of a joke in the UK. Looking back at this programme makes it easy to understand why this was the common presumption.

The content of the programme was shocking, especially when it is from the so-called "more understanding" 90's rather than the politically-incorrect 70's. An example of the crass, offensive content is a scene in which Adolf is almost suffering a nervous breakdown. His wife Eva tells him to "think happy thoughts". "Poland!" shouts Hitler, with a devilish grin. And this is funny?!

As a Jewish person of course I find anything related to the nazi's and late 1930's - 1945 events very insulting. But somehow this was pretty funny . Not that much and there where a few part that where unfunny or corny but I thought it was a okay premise.

Presented as a lost American sitcom that was never heard from again until lost tapes were found and shown again, this sitcom is an "I Love Lucy" style sitcom which features Hitler and Eva Braun living in an apartment block and dealing with all the comic confusions and communication breakdowns that all sitcom couples seem to have. Of course the irony of the fictional "rediscovered" framing of the show is that the actual show itself was binned after one episode and never seen again apart from some bad copies floating around on the internet.

The reason for this was supposedly on the grounds of bad taste to have a show featuring Hitler as a comedy figure – thus making light of history. Of course this is a fair accusation to level at the show, but also not a totally straight one since other shows such as Allo, Allo, films such as The Producers and others have used WWII and the Nazis as comedy figures and have been successful. No, while the accusations of poor taste may have come, I'd guess what sank the show was that frankly the first episode is not at all funny. Instead of spoofing Hitler it appears to be more about aping the conventions of the American sitcom while using these characters. I was surprised to see Geoff Atkinson as one of the writers – I know him from very sharp work with Bremner, Bird & Fortune, so it was disappointing to see nothing really clever or challenging about the content beyond the shock value of the characters.

The performances are pitched well to play into the sitcom style but the material they have is weak and soon I got tired of their big delivery and the laugh track doing all the work. Pop-culture History will recall that this was the show that got removed for being in bad taste, however the evidence we are left with that, while some in the papers may have kicked up the usual hand-wringing as they do with many shows, what probably saw this show pulled was that nobody had any interesting in fighting for a show that didn't appear to be any good.

Living in a small Berlin apartment with a Jewish couple for neighbours, the Hitlers (Der Führer Adolf Hitler und Frau Eva Braun-Hitler) bicker and squabble in the years leading up WW2. The single broadcast episode (of 8 made) of the tactless Brit-com is remarkedly unfunny, considering that it is a parody of the easily parodied American sitcoms of the '50s and '60s (especially the shows with a 'gimmick': witches, genies, talking cars, etc.). 'Heil Honey' does a good job of replicating the look and sound of its targets (the predicable jokes, the intrusive laugh track, the canned applause when characters enter the scene, etc.) and with a bit more cleverness might have made for a memorable 15-minute skit on Monty Python or SNL, but as a 30 minute episode of a proposed TV series, it wore itself out by the end of the first act. Needless to say, the show was vilified for making light of Hitler, of antisemitism, and of the events leading up to the war, but, while it no doubt offended many people, 'Heil Honey, I'm Home' was clearly intended as an over-the-top parody not to be taken seriously whatsoever (in the same vein as 'Hogans Heroes', 'The Producers', or any of the multitude of satirical cartoons, songs, movies, etc that came out when the war was still being fought). The only parts I found amusing was the image (referred to but not shown) of Herr Joseph Goebbels at the Berlin airport holding up a cardboard sign reading "Neville Chamberlain" while awaiting the arrival of the British Prime Minister and the show's alternate 'animated opening'. Of interest only of you want to prove to yourself that the show actually existed or to see what 'all the fuss was about' (I first heard of it when surfing 'worst' lists).