It’s something a man or woman says when returning to their perfect 1950s era sitcom house.
What was the first novel or show or movie to use this line in this context?
No research or anything just throwing out the oldest TV show I can think of where this was said is I Love Lucy. But now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t remember a specific instance where it was said.
I think he specifically said “Lucy, I’m home”.
and somewhat famously never actually said “Lucy, you’ve got some 'splainin to do!”
By “this context”, are you specifically referring to the 1950s and to sitcoms? If so, then this line was probably never uttered in a movie, since movies aren’t generally sitcoms. (Though maybe I’m wrong and there were some series of pre-feature comedy shorts that featured the same cast of characters in the same setting. But even if so, I doubt they would have survived to the 1950s.) Novels also aren’t sitcoms, except if you really stretch the definition. Offhand I can’t think of any novel series that uses anything like the sitcom format.
If you really want the earliest sitcom occurrence, you might want to look instead to radio series. I bet there were still radio sitcoms in the 1950s, and so the first “Honey, I’m home!” might have been uttered on one of them rather than on TV.
I love Lucy, The Munsters, Dick Van Dyke Show.
Batman Returns, Selina Kyle said it every time she returned to her apartment.
Honey I’m home, oh I forgot I’m not married.
After reading this, I realized radio would be the way to go. The story needs to advance and hearing “Honey, I’m home!” would introduce the character the fastest. Television is more visual so Dick Van Dyke (for example) just had to open the front door.
“Father Knows Best” (NBC Radio, 1949) definitely used the expression. Anything earlier?
The phrase is so tied to old-fashioned sitcoms, that it was the title of a 90s sitcom that featured a 50s television family supposedly transported into the real world, to try to riff on old sitcom tropes.
I vaguely remember watching it and somewhat liking it. Julie Benz (of later Buffy/Angel/Dexter fame) was the 50s teenage daughter. Apparently, they had also cast future Backstreet Boy AJ McLean as a neighbor, but he was recast after they shot the original pilot and wasn’t on the show.
But that just goes to show you how classic the phrase is, that it can be used as a show title to automatically associate it with old sitcoms.
ETA: Apparently there was a British sitcom called “Heil Honey I’m Home!” which starred Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun living next door to a Jewish couple, and was so controversial it was canceled after one episode. It was also a spoof on 50s sitcoms.
It’s also the title of a book about sitcoms.
I wonder if Blondie (1938–1950) was the first filmed series to approximate the later TV sitcom focused on a typical American family?
I can imagine Arthur Lake walking through the front door and saying “Honey, I’m home!”
Did the old radio shows include the phrase?
Dunno, I’ve never heard them. I did see a lot of the movies, though. They were shown on TV every Saturday or Sunday afternoon back in the early '60s, just like the Bowery Boys.
I just don’t remember if Dagwood ever used the phrase. It was almost 60 years ago
Here’s an instance from 1938
Hmmm. I think a bit more context would help here. 
That’s frequently true of Google Books snippets.
And here’s a possibility from 1916. Text this garbled is usually in two columns, and it’s reading across the rows. Hard to separate one column from the other here.
Just out of curiosity, has anyone at this site ever called out “Honey, I’m home!” as they walked through the front door after coming home from work? Or heard someone else do it?
In real life, I mean.
Jokingly? Sure, all the time.
This is circa 1998, so probably not the earliest:
I’ve done it too.
“I’m home,” yes, but not “Honey, I’m home.” I’m more apt to call my kids honey than my spouse.