''Heil Honey I'm Home!'' is a British sitcom, written by

Geoff Atkinson Geoff Atkinson is a British comedy writer and producer. He has written and produced shows featuring Rory Bremner. He is managing director of ''Vera Productions'', an Independent production company he established with Bremner. Beginning his ca ...

and produced in 1990, which was cancelled after one episode. It centres on Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, who live next door to a Jewish couple, Arny and Rosa Goldenstein. The show spoofs elements of mid-20th century American sitcoms and is driven by Hitler's inability to get along with his neighbours. It caused controversy when broadcast and has been called "perhaps the world's most tasteless situation comedy".

Premise

The first episode opens with a caption card explaining ''Heil Honey''s fictional back-story, which supposes the rediscovered "lost tapes" of an abandoned, never-aired American sitcom created by "Brandon Thalburg Jnr". In 1938, Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun live in Berlin, next door to a Jewish couple, Arny and Rosa Goldenstein. Hitler and Braun have little in common with their historical counterparts, acting more like a stock sitcom husband and wife. Hitler, for example, appears in a golfing sweater and cravat as well as military garb. The Goldensteins are similarly hackneyed characters, with Arny making frequent disparaging comments about his mother-in-law and mockingly performing a Roman salute at one point. The show is a spoof — not of the Third Reich, but of the sort of sitcoms produced in the United States between the 1950s and 1970s "that would embrace any idea, no matter how stupid". In this spirit the title, plot and dialogue are deliberately vapid and corny and characters are applauded whenever they arrive on set. Patterned after ''

I Love Lucy ''I Love Lucy'' is an American television sitcom that originally aired on CBS from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, with a total of 180 half-hour episodes, spanning six seasons. The show starred Lucille Ball, her husband, Desi Arnaz, along with ...

'', the actors have New York accents.

Plot of the first episode

The plot of the first episode centres on the British Prime Minister,

Neville Chamberlain Arthur Neville Chamberlain (; 18 March 18699 November 1940) was a British politician of the Conservative Party who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. He is best known for his foreign policy of appeasemen ...

, coming to the Hitler house. Not wanting the Goldensteins to interrupt the visit, Hitler instructs Braun to keep the news from Rosa, which she fails to do. Rosa duly invites herself over with hopes of matching Chamberlain with her dull niece Ruth. Hitler gets the Goldensteins drunk in an attempt to make them leave before Chamberlain arrives, but they stay. Arny and Eva end up leading the visiting Prime Minister in a conga line around the living room while Hitler hides the "

peace for our time "Peace for our time" was a declaration made by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in his 30 September 1938 remarks in London concerning the Munich Agreement and the subsequent Anglo-German Declaration. The phrase echoed Benjamin Disr ...

" agreement in the icebox. Only the pilot was ever screened, although eleven episodes were planned and eight were recorded in which a story arc involved Hitler's secretive attempts to kill the Goldensteins. Unlike the pilot episode, the other episodes had animated opening titles, similar in nature to those of ''

Bewitched ''Bewitched'' is an American fantasy sitcom television series that originally aired for eight seasons on ABC from September 17, 1964, to March 25, 1972. It is about a witch who marries an ordinary mortal man and vows to lead the life of a typic ...

''.

Cast

* Neil McCaul as Adolf Hitler * DeNica Fairman as Eva Braun (replaced by Maria Friedman in unaired episodes) * Gareth Marks as Arny Goldenstein * Lewis Barratt as Joseph Stalin (character only appeared in unaired episodes) * Caspar Wallace as Background Narrator (exclusive to episode 4) * Caroline Gruber as Rosa Goldenstein * Laura Brattan as Ruth * Thomas Lord as Hermann Göring (only in unaired 1990 Christmas special) * Ben Boardman as Reinhard Heydrich (character removed from show after episode 6) * Patrick Cargill as

Production, controversy and cancellation

The programme was written by

and commissioned by the satellite television channel

Galaxy A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System. ...

, part of British Satellite Broadcasting (which later became part of

BSkyB Sky UK Limited is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television and broadband Internet services, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of ...

). It was shown at 9.30pm on a Sunday, after an episode of '' Dad's Army''. During the credits of ''Dad's Army'', Galaxy's announcer said "And unless

Arthur Lowe Arthur Lowe (22 September 1915 – 15 April 1982) was an English actor. His acting career spanned 36 years, including starring roles in numerous theatre and television productions. He played Captain Mainwaring in the British sitcom ''Dad' ...

defeats him, it's the man himself in a few moments in ''Heil Honey, I'm Home!'', as the ''Galaxy Comedy Weekend'' continues."''Heil Honey I'm Home'' Full Uncut Episode
YouTube, 8 May 2012 The programme proved controversial, with Hayim Pinner, secretary general of the

Board of Deputies of British Jews The Board of Deputies of British Jews, commonly referred to as the Board of Deputies, is the largest and second oldest Jewish communal organisation in the United Kingdom, after only the Initiation Society which was founded in 1745. Established ...

describing the pilot as "in very bad taste", adding that: "We are against any trivialisation of the Second World War, Hitler or the Holocaust, and this certainly trivialises those things. It's very distasteful and even offensive."The Fuehrer in Britain : New Satellite Service Pins Its Hopes on 'Dangerous' Hitler Sitcom
Jeff Kaye, '' Los Angeles Times'', 23 October 1990 Television historian

Marian Calabro Marian Calabro is an author and publisher of history books and the founder and president of CorporateHistory.net, which produces corporate histories. Author Calabro began her career at Dell Publishing and the film company Learning Corporation of ...

described it as "perhaps the world's most tasteless situation comedy".
Zap! A Brief History of Television
', Marian Calabro, Four Winds Press, 1992, (p. 150). However, some commentators also point out the crassness was intentional, and an element of the parody – among these is David Hawkes, professor of English, who cites ''Heil Honey, I'm Home!'' as a "heavy-handed concept", and argues that the show was a failure as a comedy because it "disastrously exceeded" the limits of

irony Irony (), in its broadest sense, is the juxtaposition of what on the surface appears to be the case and what is actually the case or to be expected; it is an important rhetorical device and literary technique. Irony can be categorized into ...

. Even so, the show has reached a level of infamy in which it still gets discussed in incredulous terms on retrospective programmes. A video from GarethMarks.com, entitled "Comedy Showreel", contains clips from the pilot and unseen episodes. Arthur Mathews has said that the production company sent him a copy of the entire series. The filming of the series was cancelled immediately by Sky (BSkyB) on its acquisition of British Satellite Broadcasting. The show is one of the most controversial programmes ever to have been screened in the UK; it was listed at number 61 on Channel 4's ''100 Greatest TV Moments from Hell''. Atkinson maintains that the aim of the show was not to shock but to examine the

appeasement Appeasement in an international context is a diplomatic policy of making political, material, or territorial concessions to an aggressive power in order to avoid conflict. The term is most often applied to the foreign policy of the UK governm ...

surrounding Hitler in 1938. He said that the satire of this appeasement did not translate as well as he intended. Discussing the furore around the show, Atkinson has also stated that three quarters of the cast were Jewish and did not consider the concept controversial.

References

External links