Bad Art: “Heil Honey I’m Home!”

You know how sometimes, a really bad idea can be really, really good? I often think of this whenever I think of bacon-covered jelly donuts. And then there’s the idea of the Holocaust being funny, which at first I found hideous until I saw Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful.

And then there’s the idea of a sitcom starring Adolf Hitler.

In 1990, the British Satellite Broadcasting system had the bright idea to turn Hitler and Ava Braun into a 1950s-style tag-team comedy called Heil Honey I’m Home!. Ava sported a New Yorker accent and was constantly harping on Adolf not being home to have dinner in their stylish Berlin apartment because he’s too busy hobnobbing with members of the Gestapo and plotting to take over Czechoslovakia. Feeling neglected and wanting more time with Adolf, and possibly relishing being in the spotlight itself, this ill-fated comedy was clearly based on I Love Lucy and even had a pair of nosy neighbours-cum-best-friends to match. What’s that, you ask? Is it a good idea to make them Jewish and call them Arvy and Rosa Goldenstein? No, but the makers of this sitcom made them so, anyway. And they banter and kvetch and all of those good things with each other and even with the Hitlers, who aren’t portrayed as being anti-Semitic but as competitive neighbours. Will hilarity ensue?

Lasting but a single episode that aired on September 30, 1990, this forgotten comedy has a bit of life on YouTube as a testament to all things regrettable. The pilot focused on Ava flitting about in a dizzy with Rosa over a star coming to dinner. In this case, that would be Neville Chamberlain (what, was Wallis Simpson not available?). Ava, being a show-off, slips this secret dinner guest to Rosa just to show how high up in the world she’s climbed, and they proceed to do jumpy claps like teenage girls on opening night of the last Twilight movie. Rosa tries to set up her young niece with Neville, who is given to corny, hammy little quips.

The comedy is unfortunately forced as if to wring as much irony and comedy out of the film’s high concept. The acting across the board is so over-the-top, it’s no wonder the actors in it were never heard from again. Neil McCaul, as Hitler, sounds like he’s channeling Cliff Claven on Cheers (that better not be John Ratzenberger in disguise). Denica Fairman, as Ava, plays her like a bored 50s hausfrau (never thought I’d use that term literally) who wants to just throw good house parties, dammit! (Is she auditioning for a Real Housewives of Berlin series?)

Guilty Pleasure: “Zuiikin English”

I don’t know who exercises to those morning TV shows anymore. In the 80s they had those Jane Fonda videos. Local stations still put on those programs where you do simple things like do 45-minute runs to warm up, then a bunch of exercises. Fair enough. But who would have had the gumption to combine exercise with other forms of daily exercises, as in language exercises? The good folks at Fuji Television in Japan, that’s who.

But let us heed the words of Tina Fey, who gave us this bit of wisdom on the dangers of combining two good things at once. In her phenomenal autobiography Bossypants, she said:

“It’s the same reason I don’t get Hooters. Why do we need to enjoy chicken wings and boobies at the same time? Yes, they are a natural and beautiful part of the human experience. And so are boobies. But why at the same time?”

Created twenty years ago in 1992, Zuiikin English debuted to absolutely no fanfare on early morning TV. The purpose of the show was simple and twofold: get your morning exercise in, and learn English at the same time. The program consisted of three women in skimpy exercise wear performing stretching activities while reciting English sentences that have nothing to do with the activity in progress. In an effort to combine two activities, the purpose of both seems to have been defeated because the phrases are not often used in daily conversation, and no one explains how to perform the exercises. This is the danger of multi-tasking in TV: you can’t go about it half-assed, because you won’t succeed at it.

To give you an idea of the rather useless sentences that the women leading the exercises chant in a happy monotone (if such a thing exists), here are a few choice clips:

“I have a bad case of diarrhea.”

“How dare you say such a thing to me!”/ “I can’t stand the sight of you!”

“Take anything you want!” / “Spare me my life!”

“Lovely golf weather today!”

More clips after the jump.

Sarah Brightman Lost Her Heart to a Starship Trooper

Sometimes, the line between kitsch and camp is blurred.

In 1978, a very young Sarah Brightman, then still in her teens, was chosen to sing with the British dance troupe Hot Gossip. Together, they created a disco single intended to make the latter a legitimate musical act. Hot Gossip is known to nostalgic Brits as being one of the first successful ventures for late 80s pop sensation Sinetta, AKA Simon Cowell’s girlfriend before he became famous. The resulting single, light years (pun intended) away from Brightman’s future classical music output and stint as the original Christine in Phantom of the Opera, was “I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper”.

The single is a frothy disco track that opens with a rather cheeky sample of Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra. It then spins a tale of intergalactic love / booty call between a supple young woman and the unseen “Captain Strange”, presumably a cross between Captain Kirk, Han Solo and / or Luke Skywalker. Given that the single was released in 1978, it is no coincidence that this was thematically produced to cash in on the Star Wars craze. For the purposes of this article only, I will refer to the speaker as “Lana”.

Having been lustily rejected (in both senses of the word) by Darth Vader and Flash Gordon, Lana is for some reason aching for a moment of intense passion with the Captain before Starfleet Command finds out where they are and, one presumes, summons them back to work. This is all set to a series of danceable bleeps and bloops and then-fashionable “futuristic” laser keyboard emissions. “Starship Trooper” contains much innuendo, a sample of which is contained here:

Sound Advice: Adriano Celentano’s “Prisencolinensinainciusol”

Warning: This blog post may contain images and sounds that will cause you or parts of yourself to boogie at your desk. Please refrain from doing so, unless everyone else around you is free to join you in wild, abandoned glee.

Sometimes, pure genius doesn’t have to be deep or profound. Sometimes, genius can manifest itself in nothing more than words and sounds that mean nothing at all.

In the early 1970s, politically charged Italian singer-songwriter Adriano Celentano, having written some scathing and incendiary pop music, decided that he needed to loosen up, or at least for four minutes. The result is his hit single “Prisencolinensinainciusol”.

What does the title mean? Why, nothing, of course.

Celentano stated that after writing densely, thematically-packed music, he wanted to produce something playful. "Prisencolinensinainciusol" is his brainchid. The lyrics are an approximation of what English may sound like to non-Anglophone ears. When presenting the song on Italian national television, Celentano stated that he wrote the song to show how people in modern times cannot communicate effectively with one another. (He succeeds.) The above-noted clip is amalgamated and edited from two separate TV appearances of the song. Here they are:

What makes these four minutes such an absolute joy to behold is the audacious way in which Celentano delightfully, deliberately creates joyful nonsense for the sheer hell of it. His Wikipedia page indicates that two of his biggest influences are none other than Elvis Presley and Jerry Lewis. Given the way he contorts his face and swivels his hips in the clip, his performance has clearly been informed by both icons.

The performance itself is genius. It is choreographed nonsense combining a perfectly synched dance troupe strutting in supreme precision. There may only be a dozen dancers in the clip, but the use of the mirrors magnifies the experience and by extension the complete and total silliness of it all.