Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Hi Honey, I'm Home: Logo

Hi Honey, I'm Home aired from 1991 until 1992 on ABC and Nickelodeon.

Ever wondered what really happened to those wholesome, various sitcom families of the 1950's, the ones where mom stayed in the kitchen, the kids did what they were told, and to whom nothing worse ever happened than a stuck garage door? This oddball series suggested that they were in hiding, scattered around the country in ordinary communities waiting for their chance to return to the air-all part of the " Sitcom Relocation Program."

One such family was The Nielsens of the fictional 1950's series Hi Honey I'm Home who, in 1991, were secretly living in a New Jersey suburb. Honey ( Charlotte Booker), was the unbelievable cheerful wife ( she served everyone fudge and exclaimed, " Oh Pooh" if anything was amiss), Lloyd ( Stephen Bradbury), her bland, white-collar husband , demure teenager Babs( Julie Benz), and chubby Chucky ( David Gura), the obedient kids.

Living next door were the decidedly contemporary Duffs: Sarcastic Elaine ( Susan Cella), a divorced mom, and her sons, horny teenager Mike ( Pete Benson), and punkish youngster Skunk ( Eric Kushnick). It was Mike who discovered that his favorite sitcom family ( from reruns), were living next door; he promised to keep their secret, while his puzzled mom and kid brother helped educate the out -of-touch Nielsen's to such 90's facts as credit cards, microwave ovens, and homeless persons. When things got to much for the Nielsens to bear, they sometimes snapped back into their black-and-white world right before Mike's eyes.

Every episode featured an appearance by at least one famous actor of bygone tv times, in character to meet the Nielsens. Among them were Gale Gordon ( Mr. Mooney from The Lucy Show), Barbara Billingsley ( June from Leave It To Beaver), Audrey Meadows and Joyce Randolph ( Alice and Trixie from The Honeymooners), Jim Nabors ( Gomer Pyle), Al Lewis ( Grandpa from The Munsters), and Ann B. Davis ( Alice from The Brady Bunch).

A more contemporary first for this series was it's unique scheduling. The program was produced by the Nickelodeon Cable Channel, aired first on ABC each week and then repeated 2 nights later on Nickelodeon's Nick At Night. It was the first such cooperative venture ever between network and cable, which are traditional rivals, but it was not likely to be the last.

Additional original episodes aired on Nick during the summer of 1992.

An Article from The New York Times

THE MEDIA BUSINESS; ABC Agrees To Broadcast Cable Show

By BILL CARTER
Published: May 30, 1991

ABC and the cable network Nick at Nite have agreed to run a new situation comedy on each network on separate nights. It is the first time that a program produced by a cable network will be carried by a broadcast network.

ABC has bought the rights to the first six episodes of the series, a comedy called "Hi, Honey, I'm Home," and will begin running them in July. ABC is expected to announce a date for the series today.

Each episode of the show will run on ABC once during the week and will be rerun on Nick at Nite later the same week.

The process, which Nick at Nite is calling an "instant rerun," is a precursor of a new cooperation between broadcast and cable networks in an effort to share program costs and expand their audience reach, Geraldine B. Laybourne, the president of Nick at Nite, said yesterday.

"This is a sign of the kind of alliances we are going to see in the 90's," Ms. Laybourne said.

The deal rose from a previous agreement between ABC and Nick at Nite's sister network, MTV, to develop a weekly series for the network. ABC did not pick up the first series pilot produced by MTV, but the cooperation between the companies led Nick at Nite to offer the comedy series to ABC.

As soon as ABC executives saw the pilot episode for "Hi, Honey, I'm Home," they wanted to put it on the broadcast network first, Ms. Laybourne said.

Executives at ABC's programming department had the day off yesterday and could not be reached for comment.

The series will have a special television angle as well. It deals with a television situation-comedy family from the 1950's whose series is put on hiatus by a network. It is a "Donna Reed"-type family, Ms. Laybourne said.

While waiting to see if they can get back on the air, the television family members are "relocated" to a suburb next to a "real" family of the 90's, led by a single mother. The two families have a culture clash, which Ms. Laybourne said subtly and humorously pointed out the conflicts faced by women torn betwen careers and traditional concepts of motherhood.

The show features a mostly new group of writers, producers and actors and will be taped at the Nick at Nite studios in Orlando, Fla. 'Vested Interest'

Ms. Laybourne said Nick at Nite, which depends heavily on old network reruns for its regular programming fare, had a "vested interest" in the broadcast networks. "I guess you could say if network TV is not so strong as it might be, we're threatened too," she said.

Nick at Nite and ABC have also agreed to cross-promote the series on the two networks. Ms. Laybourne said clips from the first episode would also run on Nick at Nite's sister cable networks -- MTV, VH-1 and Comedy Central -- just before the first episode is broadcast on ABC. The four cable networks are owned by Viacom Inc.

Nick at Nite will produce at least 13 episodes of the series. "It's a great deal for ABC," Ms. Laybourne said. "They didn't have to pay for a pilot out of their development budget." She would not disclose the program's costs.

The broadcast networks have been looking for ways to offer more original programs during the summer months, when millions of viewers abandon network television during its regular diet of reruns. But escalating program costs have become a problem for the broadcast networks, even during the regular television season. The networks have increasingly looked to special or unusual program deals to get different shows on during the summer.

An Article from The New York Times

By JOHN J. O'CONNOR
Published: July 19, 1991

As an unusual network-cable venture, a new sitcom continues television's current obsession with time-warp gimmicks. Living in suburban New Jersey, the Duffs are supposed to be a very 1990's family: Dad has run off and Mom is circulating a petition supporting a woman's right to choose. Their new neighbors, though, are the Nielsens, characters from a 1950's television series who are now part of a Sitcom Relocation Program. Mrs. Nielsen is the kind of woman who, when faced with a burned-roast crisis as her husband's boss (who turns out to be Gale Gordon) is coming to dinner, says "Oh, poo." Will the Nielsens be able to adjust to microwaves and "taking plastic"? Will the Duffs come to understand that there was something basically decent about the old days? The idea is promising. The first episode merely puts everything on hold.

For a website dedicated to Hi Honey I'm Home with a lot of addition pictures go to http://tvmegasite.net/prime/shows/hihoney/

For more on Hi Honey I'm Home go to http://poobala.com/hihoney.html

For A Website dedicated to Julie Benz go to http://julie-benz.info/