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.

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.

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?!

OK, so I'm a curious person. I like digging into the rare and infamous stuff, stuff that sticks out, mainly with TV and movies. (For example, the biggest box office bomb, the biggest box office success, the worst TV show ever, yadda yadda yadda). And this show is right up my alley! A few days ago, I was on a Facebook page called "The Rise and Fall of Nickelodeon", which is dedicated to hating the aforementioned kids channel. One post was about Angelica and Susie's Preschool Daze, a Rugrats spin-off that didn't last very long, and focused on the two older kids, Angelica and Susie, in preschool. Now, in the comments section of this post, someone mentioned Australia's Funniest Home Videos. Being the curious person that I am, I looked it up, found out some things about it, and so forth. I also managed to see some suggested searches, one of them being "Heil Honey, I'm Home!". Seeing as how it had nothing to do with my search (or, at least I thought at the time), I decided to take a look. I found out that this show did the impossible, it took something like Hitler and the Third Reich, and turned it into a sitcom. I just had to see this, and I did.

Now, obviously, right from the start, this show is a straight-up parody. It's intention was to mock the old sitcoms of the '50s, '60s, and '70s, which had lots of stupid ideas, but lasted fairly anyway (hence the show's premise). So, I wouldn't be taking this show seriously. When I saw the one and only episode ever aired, I... didn't know what to think of it. I mean, it's kind of funny, but when you look at the historical side, it's just hard to look at. It's based off of an infamous person from history, but it's taken so lightly. I know, it's a parody. But when you base something off of something that actually happened, you just wonder where the history takes place.

I wasn't offended by this show, and I didn't want my time back after watching this show, I just felt pretty blank about it. It has some fairly decent comedy to it, but that's all I can say about it. It just left me with nothing. But it didn't leave the world with nothing. This is known as the most tasteless sitcom of all time. And I get where they're coming from with that. There were other episodes that were shot, but never aired (for obvious reasons.) So, that's Heil Honey, I'm Home! It's something that you truly have to see to believe.

It's a spoof of 1950's sitcoms starring Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun and their wacky interactions with their Jewish neighbors. Yes, that's the plot. Are you laughing yet?

This was a show that was cancelled after just one showing. It was something that for the longest time existed only as legend and some thought it was never real but some wacky late night sketch show that people had mistaken for an actual sit com. But no, it was real and it was incredibly unfunny.

I'm not the type that says that there are certain subjects you can't make fun of but there is this thing called "tone" and how it's used. The tone for this show is all wrong. I get what it was they were going for. It's a spoof. They use all those tropes from the 1950's with catchphrases, wacky situations and colorful characters but it's just not done properly. This could have worked had they just added a little more subtlety.

But no, it was a failed experiment and it's remembered strictly for the fact it was cancelled after one episode. There are copies floating around out there if you care to see it out of curiosity but don't expect to laugh.