There was an interesting programme on the other night about how just about every top British comedy that has been bought and remade American style has failed.I think the one exception is Will and Grace which doesn't even bear a passing resemblance to the show (Gimme Gimme Gimme) it was based on.It would appear these shows are popular when shown in their original state, so they are bought and Americanized and then they fail.I guess there still is a big difference between British and American humour at least as far as the networks are concerned.What do you think?

I love English comedy.  I hate American comedy.  American comedy lacks subtlety.  It's never as funny and the characters are never cast as well as the English shows.  (IMO)
Don't ask about Aussie shows - they are 10 times worse than the American offerings!  The exception would  be "Frontline" which the Americans tried to claim as their own.  The Australian version was so much better.

I saw some of the show that Gis is talking about.

They also showed a version of One Foot in the Grave which was called Cosby although the main charcter was called some completely different in the show.  They used almost the same story line but changed endings quite frequently to give a more 'upbeat' feel to the show.  Totally not the point of the show IMO.

There was also a dreadful copy of Are You Being Served?  Can't remember what it was called.  It looked like a school review type thing where people were trying to look like the characters in the British show but not quite managing it.

I think the point they were making in this show was that some shows that are very successful here (running for 10+ years) only run for two or three series in the Americanised version.

I think I might be correct in assuming that Gis is talking about how most of the American comedies that were based on British originals failed in markets outside the US. Of course they may well have been very successful in America, because they were aimed at that market; transplant them to Australia for example, where the British versions are well-established and well-liked, and they simply don't work because it's basically watching the same show over again but with less of the subtlety of British humour and somewhat more of the brashness and crass that American humour has. Don't misunderstand this: American sitcoms do very well here when they are original creations, but American-style re-workings of British shows simply don't.

I will also agree with jaytee about Australian sitcoms. We simply can't make them. "Frontline" was brilliant, but that worked because it was satire, not straight comedy. It was played as if it was serious too, which also made it edgy and bleak.

Wasn't "Junkyard Wars" British too?  I really liked that show until they started replacing the two hosts with Americans. I lost interest after that.

Well, there are large differences between Brittish and American tastes.  I have seen this myself in the 1970's.

When Flying Circus first started on our PBS (back then it was still largely Government funded) I fell in love with it.  My dad never could get it though.  ANd years later when Benny Hill started running, I watched that too.  My dad never did understand why I found it so funny though.

Our ideas of humor do differ in a bit.  YOu have to remember, we suffer from being founded by a bunch of Puratins after all. :)

We can show things fairly explicit, like 2 people in bed, obviously AFTER they have done something.  But there was no nudity at all until fairly recently.  And out language suffers much the same way.  Thus, the American tradition of useing euphanisms over the years ("You bet your bippy" and "kiss my grits" being 2 famous ones).

Brittish (and Brittish derived) shows tend to have a much more dry sense of humor to Americans, but it can also be much more explicit.  While here "crap" is about as bad as you will hear on TV, you hear much worse on the BBC imports.  I even remember that it was only recently that you could see a showing of Planet Of The Apes and NOT have them bleep out the famous last line of the movie ("Damm them all to hell").

Plus there are a lot of cultural things that we just do not get here.  I am sure it works the same way over there also.  I often have to adjust my way of thinking when I watch Brittish made films and shows, because their use of language and institutions is so different from ours.  This becomes obvious when you watch a movie like "A Clockwork Orange" or "Pink Floyd: The Wall", or a TV show like "Are You Being Served?" or "Blake Seven".  THere are things that I just don't get until I do a little research on what they were talking about.

But I love the differences myself, and am glad that we finaly have BBC available on DirecTV over here.  Now if we can only get a station here to air a lot of the great old Brittish shows, I will be in heaven.  :)

What about Benny Hill? ;D


Howard

Well on BBC Canada they play many British shows that are quite humerous.
-Benny Hill
-Mr. Bean
-Lame Children's programming  ::) :P
-Plus many more

On BBC World they play News, "Talking Movies", and "What The World thinks of America".