Heil Honey I'm Home! is a controversial British television sitcom, produced in 1990, which was cancelled after one episode aired.
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.
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.
The programme proved controversial when first aired. 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!
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. 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.
Geoff Atkinson maintains that the aim of the show was not to shock, but to examine the appeasement surrounding Hitler in 1938. He concedes that the satire of this appeasement did not translate as well as he intended. Discussing the furore around the show, Atkinson has also advised that three quarters of the cast were Jewish and did not consider the concept controversial.
The first episode is available on Youtube. So what did the public think of it? The Youtube video has 554,478 views with 2,600 likes and only 195 dislikes.
Heil Honey, I'm Home - part one of three
