American Sitcoms Remade in UK- Page 2

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 7/20/14 at 6:08am

I thought COUPLING UK was unfailingly brilliant. I hope HorseTears gives it another chance.

Updated On: 7/20/14 at 06:08 AM

[Scripps2]

Posted: 7/20/14 at 8:43am

British sitcoms tend to get screened in their entirety, regardless of whether they get good reviews and good ratings, due to there being relatively few episodes in a series.

Brighton Belles has the notoriety of being the only British sitcom to have been pulled off the air mid-series (I don't believe the link - I can remember it happening and the consequential headlines that doing so generated).

Regrettably, I can recall Nobody's Perfect being dire.



Updated On: 7/20/14 at 08:43 AM

[Gothampc]

Posted: 7/20/14 at 10:45am

"in "Gavin and Stacey" the distrust between people of different nationality within our own shores (English v.Welsh)."

I think Gavin & Stacey works because of the supporting cast. The leads were there just to set up situations for the supporting cast to be funny. Matthew Horne isn't all that interesting (I think he's only there because he's friends with James Corden) and Joanna Page is just so precious. But you get James Corden, Ruth Jones and Alison Steadman and they really make the show funny. You take Gavin & Stacey out of the show and it could still be a funny show.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 7/20/14 at 10:54am

"Regrettably, I can recall Nobody's Perfect being dire."

Maude was really the same way. Nobody wants to admit it but it's not that great of a show.

In it's time, people watched it because it was a new phenomenon, an outspoken woman in an age of feminism. But Maude is nasty, rude and spiteful. And she's one of the Norman Lear characters who is always pushing an agenda. It seems like all of the 1970s sitcoms were more about preaching than entertaining. And I can imagine that when the show transferred to the UK, they didn't want to see a pushy American woman insulting everyone she came into contact with.

It's hard for me to understand why the Golden Girls would be popular outside of the US. There are so many political references in the show and today it's difficult to watch because the references are so far in the past.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 7/20/14 at 5:33pm

" It seems like all of the 1970s sitcoms were more about preaching than entertaining."

That's convenient thinking. :P The Norman Lear style shows were, and then on the other extreme you had stuff like Happy Days and its endless spin offs (the MTM shows seemed to sorta fall in the middle.)

[Wildcard]

Posted: 7/22/14 at 3:06pm

What about American sitcoms remade in Iran?

Iranian Modern Family

[Scripps2]

Posted: 7/22/14 at 6:02pm

"But Maude is nasty, rude and spiteful."

That's how Elaine's character came across as well but it was all directed towards Richard Griffiths as her husband. He was portrayed as a serious couch potato and so you were left with the unanswered questions as to how this couple ever got together in the first place, why did they stick with each other and how did Elaine end up in middle-class British suburbia.

I recall it may have had a second series but I think it was shortly after this that she returned to New York for the Follies concert and the British filling in her Broadway sandwich was largely over.

[Scripps2]

Posted: 7/22/14 at 6:11pm

"It's hard for me to understand why the Golden Girls would be popular outside of the US."

Great performances and good bitching!

Also US politics gets disproportionately high coverage in the UK, particularly when compared to scant coverage given to the next door neighbours. I can't remember whether Gary Hart was Republican or Democrat but I knew his campaign wasn't going well and so understood the put-downs on Golden Girls.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 7/23/14 at 12:17pm

"That's how Elaine's character came across as well but it was all directed towards Richard Griffiths as her husband. He was portrayed as a serious couch potato and so you were left with the unanswered questions as to how this couple ever got together in the first place"

That was almost the same with Maude. Walter was her fourth husband and she was a real shrew. He owned a hardware store and Maude always seemed like she thought he should have done better in life. One of her regular catchphrases was "God's gonna get you for that, Walter."

Maude was a huge feminist liberal and the Conrad Bain character was an evil Republican who's only job was to be a friend to Walter and foil for Maude's feminism.

And in typical US tv style, every season the writers couldn't write 35 episodes, so Maude included one episode every season where the cast "put on a show." Basically, they took a break from the plot and everyone performed a song, dance or some type of act.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 7/23/14 at 12:26pm

"Great performances and good bitching!"

Did the British secretly enjoy that bitching?

And I'm wondering if Golden Girls was the first sitcom to make getting old funny? The British a few years later brought in "Waiting For God" which I've always enjoyed.

I'm just curious how non-US people form their opinions based on our culture. It surprised me that some people thought everyone in the US lived like an episode out of Dallas.

[Scripps2]

Posted: 7/24/14 at 5:26pm

There's no secret about it!

Last of the Summer Wine, which ran for 37 years from 1973 to 2010, was supposed to make getting old funny but I never found it so.

"I'm just curious how non-US people form their opinions based on our culture. It surprised me that some people thought everyone in the US lived like an episode out of Dallas."

I think I learnt far more about the US from Broadway musicals and plays than television. I never thought that everyone in the US lived like Dallas but I do remember, after the first episode of Knots Landing, everyone at school being gobsmacked that all Americans had swimming pools in their back gardens. I also remember being amazed that Valene had never seen the sea before. I'd seen Indian children living in Britain being astonished by snow but it was incomprehensible to me that anyone could live so far away from the coast that they hadn't seen the sea until they were well into adulthood.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 7/24/14 at 9:05pm

I'm currently watching Moone Boy. The kid on this show is a natural. He's an Irish Peter Billingsley. I'm surprised that the US hasn't latched onto a remake of this show. They would ruin it of course because the kid would be too precocious, but it would be a great vehicle for one of today's slacker actors in the Chris O'Dowd role. Maybe Shia LaBeouf when he's out of jail.

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 7/25/14 at 2:32pm

You have to remember that the US culture is felt here a lot, we dont think you all live like Dallas, we tend to know about all the states, politics, culture etc, we take an interest in it, sadly i dont really think thats the same vica versa (It seems most Americans i know and love dont really know anywhere outside London and what makes the other areas so unique).

Golden Girls was huge here, i used to watch it as a kid and im just actually re watching it, Brits love a good bitch.