The setting: suburban 1950s-style Berlin apartment. The main characters: Adolph Hitler and Eva Braun. The neighbors: Jews.
Hitler enters to applause, straightens his sleeve cuffs, sieg heils and says, “Heil honey, I’m home!”
“Don’t you ‘heil honey’ me!” says Eva Braun, storming into the room to applause of her own, holding cold schnitzel in a pan. Oops – Hitler forgot it was schnitzel night again!
If this strikes you as terribly offensive, (and maybe a tad hilarious) you’re not alone. The 1990 British sitcom Heil Honey I’m Home! aired only a single episode before swift and just cancellation. The farcical plot centers on Hitler’s difficult relationship with his neighbors, the Goldsteins, and is set in the style of 1950s and 60s American sitcoms. It is, as you can imagine, rife with irresistible cheesiness.
After the pilot aired, critics immediately panned it, claiming that it trivialized Nazism. Had the show been allowed to finish its run, we would have seen an eight-episode arc in which Hitler tries—and probably fails—to kill the poor Goldsteins.
Meanwhile, hidden somewhere in creator Geoff Atkinson’s attic, lie the remaining tapes, gathering dust and waiting for the day when they’ll be allowed to delightfully terrorize the viewing public. We’ll keep you posted.
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Watch the infamous pilot of Heil Honey, I’m Home!:
Check out Mel Brooks perfecting the “Holocaust flop” genre with Springtime for Hitler:
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