NEW YORK, NY — History, formerly known as The History Channel, announced today that it will be known as The Hitler Channel starting in 2010.
The American television channel had previously changed its name from The History Channel to just simply History on April 20 of 2008, coincidentally also Hitler’s birthday. Again in celebration of Hitler’s birth, executives announced that on April 20 of 2010 the channel will be renamed to The Hitler Channel.
Harvis Tolmes, the fake Executive Vice President for History’s parent network A&E, said that the move pays tribute to the man who is mostly responsible for the channel’s success. “Without Hitler, I don’t even know if there would still be a channel on TV about history today, let alone two. We owe him a great deal.”
The network had tried to tone down the channel’s image of only broadcasting Hitler related content in the past. “A&E at first thought this was a bad image for the History Channel,” explained Tolmes. A&E created the Military History Channel to partially take the Hitler programming load away from History, “but it hasn’t really worked,” said Tolmes. “Now we’re embracing it, and we think the market will respond positively.”
Tolmes still expects there to be plenty of Hitler to go around for both channels in the future. “The Military History Channel will still be focused on the primarily historical aspects of Hitler, mostly just the factual stuff. But the Hitler Channel will follow in the path of History and focus primarily on made up stuff,” Tolmes said.
The Hitler Channel is expected to continue its frequent broadcasts on Nostradamus and speculative theories about the end of the world featuring quack specialists. “We’ll still have [those kinds of shows],” Tolmes stated, “but just expect there to be a Hitler twist in there somewhere. Did aliens help the ancient Egyptians build pyramids? Maybe, but if they did, did Hitler know about it? And did he have scientists working on unlocking the secrets of the pyramids so he could unleash superior alien technology on the Allies?”
Viewers could also look forward to even more straightforwardly fictional accounts of Hitler. “We’ll have shows about things like, what if Hitler lived in the age of dinosaurs? and stuff like that,” said Tolmes. “Or maybe a sitcom where Hitler accidentally got a girl pregnant in college, and the mother tragically dies so now Hitler, who had no idea about it and now works in a law firm, has to take care of this four-year old that came out of nowhere. Talk about hilarious!”
Tolmes figures the channel to be successful, despite a number of critics and deriders. “When Cartoon Network launched, people said ‘Oh you could never have a channel that shows only cartoons 24 hours a day.’ Same thing with ESPN and sports, only they’re even more successful. Now people want to say ‘You can’t have a channel only about Hitler.’ Not only do we think that’s untrue, we’re planning ahead for possibly other channels based on the success of this one. Maybe a Genghis Khan Channel, or a Napoleon Channel. Heck, we might even have a Mayan Calendar Channel, though it’s hard to see that one working past 2012.”
A&E announced that it had secured the rights to Hitler’s name and likeness, giving them mostly exclusive broadcasting rights. A&E has also purchased the rights to the film The Boys From Brazil from Twentieth Century Fox, which will be played all day on January First as a New Year’s Day marathon, and and 8-10 times a day everyday thereafter.
Potvin Newsly 