Cancelled too soon”, you say? These are words often applied to certain TV shows – what is by now an ossified canon of one-season wonders, from Freaks and Geeks to Firefly. But what about a TV show that never made it past episode one? When it comes to premature cancellations, one scandalising British sitcom from 1990 surely stands unbeaten.
Next week marks the 35th anniversary of the only episode of Heil Honey I’m Home! that ever made it to air. Produced for the short-lived TV channel Galaxy, the series was a high-concept parody of classic American sitcoms (I Love Lucy for one), following the domestic life of Adolf Hitler and Ava Braun, who live next door to a Jewish family, the Goldensteins. The premise, as you might assume, proved controversial even before it ever made it to air: the secretary general of the Board of Deputies of British Jews told the LA Times around its premiere the series was “distasteful and even offence” in its “trivialisation” of its subject matter. “I imagine very few intelligent people will watch it once they see a few seconds of it,” he added.
