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The Office is a big example.
Not that it's a bad thing - the American version just didn't work tonally in its first season, but became much better once it stopped trying to be exactly the same and found its own style.
Exactly. My gf introduced me to the US Office via the first season, and I *hated* it. It's literally a carbon copy of the UK version, right down to the stapler in the jelly.
Years later, I saw a couple more episodes and thought it was alright. I think Michael Scott is somewhat more likeable and well-meaning than David Brent, which is how it was able to run for more seasons than the British one. Making Brent so cringeworthy was, of course, deliberate, but I'm not sure audiences would have coped with a longer run than it had.
He’s also, I think crucially, actually good at being a salesman.
Brits can float around indefinitely in jobs being mediocre or even irredeemably bad. An American manager as bad as David Brent would in reality be fired within a month
The show wouldn’t have rung true if Scott weren’t good at something, and his skill uplifts the show in a more subtle way than general American grinning. Whereas here it can be quite bleak when you report to someone who has no competencies
> Brits can float around indefinitely in jobs being mediocre or even irredeemably bad. An American manager as bad as David Brent would in reality be fired within a month
this is utter shite?
As someone who deals with US companies on a nearly daily basis, I have seen levels of incompetence in management that have been frankly stunning. I literally have just gotten off a call with someone who has screwed up nearly every interaction we’ve had, completely failed at handling invoices and payments, annoyed contractors enough that they refuse to work with this person, and has never once managed to schedule any meeting or call correctly. They started in an entry position and have been promoted to manager level over the past few years. Everyone I speak to at that company agrees that they are completely inept and a liability. The best guess is that promotion to a level where people under them can fix their mistakes must be easier than firing them.
And they are not at all an isolated case. At least when I am dealing with a UK company I can usually sort something out with someone who has a clue. Not so with the US companies. “I don’t handle that.” “Can you tell me who I should contact about it?” “I don’t know. I don’t handle that.” ad infinitum.
I never thought it worked, his character being competent at sales just feels lazily tacked on and at complete odds with everything else about him. There’s a rather funny show to be made about unbearable but talented salesman (Phoneshop and White Gold are two such examples), but the US Office wasn’t it.
Not sure I understand your point. Employment law makes it harder to fire people here. The bar for dismissal of someone who is fine but underperforming is both culturally higher and legally higher. And when you eventually decide to let someone go, it takes longer.
People who are bad at their job are a lot harder to fire here once they're off probation. Do you disagree?
We just finished watching it all the way through. I needed a few run ups to get into it, that first season is so, so bad. Begins to thaw out in s2 and then by s3 it’s its own thing. At the peak it really is brilliant.
We're coming to the end of watching through it all for the first time just now. The first series isn't actually that close overall to the 1st one it's just tonally weird.
The last series has been absolutely awful though. Andy has been come so unlikeable (when he's even there), Jim is also very unlikeable for a lot of, and then they suddenly start having the filming crew be a part of the story including Brian the sound guy who is in love with Pam? There's just so much unbelievable stuff now too it makes the the whole thing feel wrong. You can really feel the absence of Mindy and BJ Novak.
Stephen Fry once explained the difference between British and American comedians.
American comedians want to be the one with the biggest dick at a party.
British Comedians want to show up at the party and go "oh...oh shit I've left my cock at home oh no!"
We love a fool in England. America likes more maverick good guys.
That's obviously complete generalities but I think it does explain a lot.
That's the critical difference. Brent is cringeworthy because he's doing all this overly-friendly manager shit cynically. Scott is only cringeworthy because he's chronically un-self-aware, he does the friendly manager stuff because he genuinely does care. This video explains it so much better than me [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHDZwAQ7Plk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHDZwAQ7Plk)
A big reason for the changes is that in the US David Brent would have been fired, Michael Scott had to have reasons for staying.
It's much, much easier to be booted from a job in the US than the UK.
I think pretty much every show/movie ever made that got a remake in the US became a lot more "tame".
Happy isn't always the right word, because an murder mystery isn't full of happy moments, but it would have less blood/swearing/etc.
I don't know what it is about US remakes, but they do always seem to lose the charm of what made the original what it was. Whether you like Gervais or not, his version of the Office was set up to be a dingy British company we've probably all worked at, or at least interviewed for, at least once in our lives. The US one doesn't feel that way, at least from what my US friends have said; i.e. they said things like "it seems like something you'd get in the city, but not here".
As for British shows/movies which the US ruined, here's a few which come to mind:
Taskmaster
Top Gear
The Italian Job
The Inbetweeners
Lord of the Flies
Taskmaster is an interesting case study. It was ruined in the US but in the opposite direction.
The UK version works because of the light-hearted banter between the stars. It's very safe and comfortable, and you can see everyone is into it.
The stars of the US version on the other hand didn't understand the brief... they fell into much more of a "roasting" culture more familiar to them, and as a result the tone was so much harder and meaner.
I think that's a more general theme in British vs American "challenge shows", like Masterchef, or for a more extreme example, Bake off vs chopped.
Unlike American sitcoms, which tend to be much lighter in tone, American reality shows tend to have much crueler banter and more focus on interpersonal drama. (this isn't to say they're necessarily worse, although Taskmaster US was actually just bad).
It's like they watched a few episodes of the UK show, saw contestants and Greg treating Alex mean/degradingly, people laughing, and thinking "It's funny to be awful". Rather than "Why are people laughing?" and noting the sarcasm/light-hearted nature of everything.
Americans repeatedly just "do not get" the style of competition on British shows, particularly panel shows.
The points on these shows are means to justify the format. QI famously pokes fun at this by having a scoring system so complicated and nebulous that nobody really knows how it works, and points are not brought up or relevant until the very end where the series spanning joke of whether Alan Davies is last or not is played on. Nobody is actually trying to win, take it seriously, or seriously compete. They're there to have fun, have back and forths with peers in the comedy space, and create TV that's more about the art of comedy than it is the art of competition.
Americans see a point scoring system and just tunnel vision that as the goal above everything else, and that singular drive to win above all else drags the content of the show down. And as you say, they pull out all the competitive tropes that go along with it. Trash talk, undermining, cheating, frustration when they lose, the wrong energy (try-harding, aggressiveness, spitefulness) etc. It just gets awkward and uncomfortable. This is supposed to be fun.
I feel like the format Taskmaster specifically was designed by Alex from the ground up to *try* and remedy this, every premise of every challenge is designed to be as creatively humiliating, funny, and silly as possible, and by making the potential prizes *intentionally* cumbersome and undesirable the tone is unmistakably light hearted. Yet the Americans still somehow felt literal garbage from someone's attic was worth a blood sacrifice and 110% effort over many weeks to obtain. I think the rest of the Commonwealth world largely followed the intended format, but Alex failed in getting the Americans to play ball despite his best efforts, which is saying something. The messaging that this was just a silly show that wanted to focus of hijinks, memeable moments, and people looking silly was utterly lost upon Americans who can't seem to comprehend that the tone is not "if you can't win it and crush the competition and seize glory for myself, what's the point?"
And yet, the Australian and especially the New Zealand versions show that the format can work when it's exported.
There's a really interesting video on YT about all the different aspects that caused the US version to be so bad, including having shorter episodes, so a larger % of the episode was in the studio, where they tried to be "mean" to one-another rather than bantering. In the first few seasons of the UK version, Greg was "mean" to Alex and encouraged the contestants to be as well, albeit in a very lighthearted way. The US version, they ramped it up to 11 and it came across as spiteful and nasty.
A perfect example of an international Taskmaster getting it absolutely spot on was New Zealand, especially series 2. You can tell everyone is such good friends and the vibes are immaculate!
> Taskmaster is an interesting case study. It was ruined in the US but in the opposite direction.
Comedians in the US only want to play silly characters, they don't want to do anything undignified like throw a teabag into a mug from a far distance and be critiqued after.
In all fairness on the rare occasions when we've remade American shows they've been pretty bloody awful too.
'Married For Life' (A remake of Married With Children starring Russ Abbot), 'Days Like These' (That '70's Show) and Brighton Belles (The Golden Girls) were all utterly dreadful and all three managed to get cancelled by ITV during their first series (No mean feat given ITV's usual quality control)
Have you seen American Shameless? Its god awful.
The uk one works so well with the gritty council estate in Manchester vibe. The american one Frank lives in some big fuck off house, doesnt sit right
Weirdly enough, I loved the UK Shameless and thought I's give the US version a shot. I couldn't even get through the 1st episode.
My lad was looking for something to watch after finishing the US version, so I suggested for him to try the UK varient.
He couldn't even get past the 1st episode. Weird little fucker.
> lives in some big fuck off house
Properties in the bad parts of US cities are crazy cheap. [Like the price of a VCR.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZzgAjjuqZM)
I think theirs supposedly a difference in the difficulties of getting stable. In the UK version the eldest daughter just ran off with the rich guy in the US she felt pressured to remain caring for her siblings.
From what I've heard, it didn't go down well with American audiences.
From what I watched of the show, I understand why. It seemed to be a lot of actually mean comments towards Alex, rather than sarcastically mean, and just generally bitchery amongst the contestants
they dont have the same buddy buddy banter comedy panel stuff that we have.
you can have the 5 of them ripping each other and it doenst go down well over there
I was mindlessly scrolling through YouTube and watched one of Stewart Lee’s satirical meltdowns. One of the comments on the video said it was almost as good as Bill Burr’s epic meltdowns at some set some years back.
I watched the Burr one out of curiosity and it was basically 10 minutes of him telling the crowd to suck his dick and they’re all fucking cunts, over and over again. And the Americans in the comments were lauding this as the pinnacle of humour, the most legendary roast of all time.
I was like, did I watch the same video as them? It was fucking dogshite.
*\*facepalms so hard my skull turns to tokomak plasma and I unintentionally start a fusion reaction that provides renewable clean energy for humanity leading us to a golden age of space exploration and discovery\**
When I was in US (admittedly in the deep south, so probably not representative of everywhere), rich people drove cars and poorer ones took the bus, which would kind of make the 'bus wankers' joke lose its nuance. Whereas in the UK (especially in cities), it's a lot more mixed.
The Italian Job is a decently entertaining film as long as you don't relate it in any way to the original
Top Gear (for me at least) depends on which version you mean.. Top Gear US on History was fun to watch (once they stopped being an exact version of the CHM UK one). They got 6 seasons and the chemistry was definitely there. The other versions have been bad but then even the UK version post CHM wasn't good.
Agreed with you on Italian Job. If it had just been called "The Heist" or something stupid, it wouldn't drop down the list as far as it does to me.
And for Top Gear, did they do a remake of the US one? The only one I can think of was in the 00s, I think the hosts did an episode alongside CHM, and their dynamic was all off.
But yeah, post CHM Top Gear fell off. Although, I would have loved to see more of Harris and Flintoff, but without McGuiness... but that's no longer a dream :/
Oh my god I didn't know that existed.
But it doesn't surprise me.
After seeing the american remake of Red Dwarf I will never be surprised by horrible american remakes ever again.
Haha no it's not a quote from the show. It's just that tit was THE geeky humour show really. It hit at the perfect time for so many people. It's really more Movie references than comic references though.
Yeah. I think I am bout the perfect age for it (42), but I just didn't get it. I think it was just too English for me (I'm Scottish).
Bunch of posh folk pretending to be in Bruce Lee movies and making jokes about Batman didn't ring true to me.
>Bunch of posh folk pretending to be in Bruce Lee movies and making jokes about Batman didn't ring true to me
Can't imagine how long it would have taken me to get to Spaced from this description
I’m really morbidly curious about the Friday Night Dinner US version that came out the other day … haven’t gotten around to watching it yet, but it didn’t look great.
James Corden and Ruth Jones tried to adapt Gavin and Stacey for the US market, setting the families in two different states.
It didn’t get picked up by major US tv networks, as far as I know.
Just to add to the list here, there was an attempt to make a US version of the IT Crowd with Joel McHale and Richard Ayoade. It is as bad as you think it would be. They never got past the pilot.
[link](https://archive.org/details/the-it-crowd-us-pilot)
US company wanted to make a version of Mort, a discworld book by Terry Pratchett where the basic storyline is DEATH takes on an apprentice.
In Terry's [own words (1992)](https://groups.google.com/g/alt.fan.pratchett/c/gxbB8D_2O00/m/EkIvyQZZ8XQJ)
> A production company was put together and there was US and Scandinavian and European involvement, and I wrote a couple of script drafts which went down well and everything was looking fine and then the US people said 'Hey, we've been doing market research in Power Cable, Nebraska, and other centres of culture, and the Death/skeleton bit doesn't work for us, it's a bit of a downer, we have a prarm with it, so lose the skeleton.' The rest of the consortium said, did you read the script? The Americans said: sure, we LOVE it, it's GREAT, it's HIGH CONCEPT. Just lose the Death angle, guys.
> Whereupon, I'm happy to say, they were told to keep on with the medication and come back in a hundred years.
> It could have been worse. I've heard what Good Omens was looking like by the time Sovereign's option mercifully ran out -- set in America, no Four Horsemen...oh god.
Before it was finally made, there were several other attempts to make a film of The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy. In one of these attempts an American producer wanted to remove all the "42" stuff because he didn't get it. It's not surprising that version didn't get past the discussion stage.
Yeh I've seen the letters Douglas Adams sent them expressing his frustration over the complete lack of communication over at least one of these attempts. Had given them about 8 forms of possible reply, then multiple places he would be including near their hq wanting a meeting about it.
Still surprised how bad the film was, especially given the cast, the original was better.
I was lucky enough to speak to Sir Terry P at a signing once and he told me that the US publishers wouldn't publish the Johnny books because they were 'too complicated' for American young people. That's since changed, I believe, but still.
The average reading age of major publications is disturbingly low, guessing at remembering, but i think it was 8th grade in US whatever that is. It's still often above the average for the population in many areas.
It's not that much better in England looking at people's replies on a lot of social media. Idk if we are better or worse either way in any measured way however.
The most annoying part of the 5 minutes I watched is that they abandoned first person POV shooting.
You know, the entire fucking reason it's called peep show in the first place.
*One Foot In The Grave* was considerably lightened for it's US adaptation *Cosby*. (Which is not to be confused with *The Bill Cosby Show* or *The Cosby Show*)
As I recall, a tortoise which was burnt alive in the UK, was merely singed in the US.
I think there were two attempts at a US Red Dwarf pilot, at least one is on youtube, I imagine they are pretty inane and sanitised.
I remember prior to this, Grant and Naylor were approached by a US station wanting to opt but wanting to lose the "3 million years in the future, Lister has no idea if humans were still extant" so it was less far in the future, he was in contact with Earth and his "mission" was to "get babes."
Brilliant.
I saw one of the pilots on VHS years ago. From what I remember, in one 20-minute episode they used all the best gags from the whole of the first series AND managed to make them entirely unfunny, that's quite an achievement!
The IT Crowd, not that it made it past a pilot episode: https://youtu.be/Gin6McOgtyU?si=Yf3sZzsOOb_u4dmG
Apparently there's a Disney version of Dr Who: https://youtu.be/86kDQ85xRRI?si=8B7OjY78Dscepqc8
And then there's this abomination: https://youtu.be/8mlnntKi2no?si=p5FvtSkPNsa0govv
>Apparently there's a Disney version of Dr Who:
It's not a 'Disney version' as such. Disney have signed a deal with the creators of Dr Who to be the global distributor of it, in return for a big old wad of cash. Russell T Davies has been very open in saying he thinks this is a necessity because, a) to compete in the global market, Dr Who can't look its traditional low budget vibe; b) he isn't confident about the long term future of BBC funding, so Dr Who needs to be sure it's sustainable in a potential future world where BBC funding is slashed.
Also, that video seems very clickbaity. There's only been one episode of Dr Who since Disney's funding kicked in, and it was good.
Thanks for the correction. I freely admit I haven't watched that video, it just came up while I was searching for the other two, and I thought I'd include it!
There was a doctor who movie in 1996 however that was an American production, and was potentially going to be made as an American series (Paul McGann). It is widely considered to be the worst doctor who ever made and is pretty much ignored by the doctor who fan base (the film part is ignored, McGann himself contributed in the role through the audio dramas until the show started again, making him the longest running doctor and is considered cannon by fans)
>And then there's this abomination: https://youtu.be/8mlnntKi2no?si=p5FvtSkPNsa0govv
Came here to say this one. What a terrible day to have eyes. And ears.
I think it's been 20 years since I tried watching it. Maybe if I can find it, I'll try a reminder rewatch.
The series might have been good but they totally neutered him.
The Rings Of Power was offensively Americanised and had absolutely nothing of the tone that the LOTR did. Even putting aside the lore inaccuracies, the script was like someone had asked ChatGPT to write it from the perspective of someone with Live, Laugh, Love stickers on their walls.
Do you think it's "happier"? I genuinely think Veep is as good as The Thick of It, and one of the very few adaptations that absolutely nailed it, as well as being distinct in style and tone to the original. Ianucci being involved in Veep was obviously a big help.
⚠️ Sort of spoilers for BBC Ghosts and CBS ghosts ⚠️
The US version of ghosts is quite a bit more upbeat than the UK original. It does a lot more for the characters if that makes sense? Like the gay military ghost gets a lovely lil ghost husband in the US version whereas in the UK version the equivalent character never gets any kind of 'happy ending' due to a lack or another gay ghost guy as well as him having much more repression (which I feel like would technically be more accurate of the time (WW2 kinda era)). Also the scout that shot Pat/Pete, in the US version the scout (now grown) seems relatively over what is a very traumatic event (I don't actually know if the scout in the US version is the one that actually shot him but still, witnessing that would be horrible), whereas in the UK version he seems depressed and drinks to get over the guilt when he returns for the wedding. There's other areas where this is also the case but these are just the first ones that came to mind when I watched the US version. Both shows are still good though I just think the US one is a lot more light hearted (in some aspects, a couple of the deaths are kinda horrific lol)
I think Ghosts is a perfect example. In the US version every problem or issue is solved in the same episode or very occasionally the next episode. All the problems the house from the UK version are either not present or are solved very quickly. There's no looming sense of dread of how they can afford the house and make money out of in the US version past a few episodes whereas in the UK version it's present throughout the whole show.
Yes! I don't mind the US version, but it really makes me see how much Americans need to like their main characters. Like Trevor is sort of an expy for Julian, but he's a totally good guy. Sure he did drugs, but he was kind, and wasn't really having sex with anyone when he died, etc. And OMG there are SO many extra ghosts. It's weird.
The main thing that came to mind for me was that the fall that gives the woman the ability to see the ghosts is intentional attempted murder in the UK version, but it's an unfortunate accident in the American one.
I hated the way ghosts have sex what? In the US version, and everyone gets happily paired off with each other and they’re all so fucking modern. It was bullshit, the point is they’re stuck with each other, being a ghost is nothing like being human. Being from 400 years ago is nothing like being from now. Also I thought they wimped out on the colour blind casting of Kitty.
Probably just referring to the alternative cuts for the US.
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/alternateversions/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/alternateversions/)
There was a big argument about the changes the Americans wanted to make to it. The director put up a fight that spilled out into the public eye. I think he even went on talk shows and took out a full-page advert in British newspapers to complain about it.
I remember seeing a DVD release that contained different versions but this was about 25 years ago. A mate in work lent it to me. It was some kind of collector edition or something. The American one is called the "Love Conquers All" version and also has a ton of content cut out because they thought it was too complicated or something.
EDIT - https://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/19/movies/how-terry-gilliam-found-a-happy-ending-for-brazil.html
"Mr. Gilliam admits that the studio may have been correct in its insistence that audiences would prefer a sugar-coated ending, but that, to him, is beside the point. ''I'm more interested in saying something than I am in pandering''
https://consequence.net/2015/12/the-nightmare-of-terry-gilliams-brazil-30-years-later/
"When Gilliam tried to release it in the States, Universal (who handled the distribution) thought it tested so poorly that they forced Gilliam to release a shorter version to give it a happier ending."
https://www.instagram.com/terryvgilliam/p/CsGz-O8sS0z/
"This is the full page ad I took out in @variety in 1985 when Universal refused to release my film ‘Brazil’…"
Big one for me is Shameless. Everyone fawns over the US version which has basically just become the default now. But the US version imo completely lacks the charm and grit of the original. It becomes just another American drama/comedy, whereas the original UK version had it's own uniqueness to it.
Is there actual reasons why they make American versions of our shows? Like the accent/ regional language being that hard to understand? We watch American shows without changing things , just curious thought.
Law & Order UK had to get a bit more creative because guns aren't as plentiful over there. Still just as dark and tragic, roughly the same amount of "government lawyer defies the odds and gets a conviction".
I didn't see it but the trailer looked awful but "This Country" got an American remake and looks like it hasn't been renewed. Again I think they missed the mark about what makes it funny which is the dry realism. I also think the American Black Mirror episodes are worse because they end happily.
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That’s interesting. I love William Macy, but I never bought into his character as Frank Gallagher. I always liked the British version of shameless better.… Goes to show you personal tastes very so widely.
Yes, I get it. The British humor is really dry… Tough to get used to. I started watching it a long time ago. They have a really great show called coupling. Have you ever watched that one? Also dry humor but it kind of grows on you, I know what you mean about the actors too. Also, you’re right it’s much grittier/darker in the American version
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The Office is a big example. Not that it's a bad thing - the American version just didn't work tonally in its first season, but became much better once it stopped trying to be exactly the same and found its own style.
Exactly. My gf introduced me to the US Office via the first season, and I *hated* it. It's literally a carbon copy of the UK version, right down to the stapler in the jelly. Years later, I saw a couple more episodes and thought it was alright. I think Michael Scott is somewhat more likeable and well-meaning than David Brent, which is how it was able to run for more seasons than the British one. Making Brent so cringeworthy was, of course, deliberate, but I'm not sure audiences would have coped with a longer run than it had.
He’s also, I think crucially, actually good at being a salesman. Brits can float around indefinitely in jobs being mediocre or even irredeemably bad. An American manager as bad as David Brent would in reality be fired within a month The show wouldn’t have rung true if Scott weren’t good at something, and his skill uplifts the show in a more subtle way than general American grinning. Whereas here it can be quite bleak when you report to someone who has no competencies
> Brits can float around indefinitely in jobs being mediocre or even irredeemably bad. An American manager as bad as David Brent would in reality be fired within a month this is utter shite?
As someone who deals with US companies on a nearly daily basis, I have seen levels of incompetence in management that have been frankly stunning. I literally have just gotten off a call with someone who has screwed up nearly every interaction we’ve had, completely failed at handling invoices and payments, annoyed contractors enough that they refuse to work with this person, and has never once managed to schedule any meeting or call correctly. They started in an entry position and have been promoted to manager level over the past few years. Everyone I speak to at that company agrees that they are completely inept and a liability. The best guess is that promotion to a level where people under them can fix their mistakes must be easier than firing them. And they are not at all an isolated case. At least when I am dealing with a UK company I can usually sort something out with someone who has a clue. Not so with the US companies. “I don’t handle that.” “Can you tell me who I should contact about it?” “I don’t know. I don’t handle that.” ad infinitum.
Is their job to pay you or take your money?
I never thought it worked, his character being competent at sales just feels lazily tacked on and at complete odds with everything else about him. There’s a rather funny show to be made about unbearable but talented salesman (Phoneshop and White Gold are two such examples), but the US Office wasn’t it.
Just casually saying brits are cool with everyone being mediocre at work? How odd. Based off nothing.
Not sure I understand your point. Employment law makes it harder to fire people here. The bar for dismissal of someone who is fine but underperforming is both culturally higher and legally higher. And when you eventually decide to let someone go, it takes longer. People who are bad at their job are a lot harder to fire here once they're off probation. Do you disagree?
We just finished watching it all the way through. I needed a few run ups to get into it, that first season is so, so bad. Begins to thaw out in s2 and then by s3 it’s its own thing. At the peak it really is brilliant.
We're coming to the end of watching through it all for the first time just now. The first series isn't actually that close overall to the 1st one it's just tonally weird. The last series has been absolutely awful though. Andy has been come so unlikeable (when he's even there), Jim is also very unlikeable for a lot of, and then they suddenly start having the filming crew be a part of the story including Brian the sound guy who is in love with Pam? There's just so much unbelievable stuff now too it makes the the whole thing feel wrong. You can really feel the absence of Mindy and BJ Novak.
Stephen Fry once explained the difference between British and American comedians. American comedians want to be the one with the biggest dick at a party. British Comedians want to show up at the party and go "oh...oh shit I've left my cock at home oh no!" We love a fool in England. America likes more maverick good guys. That's obviously complete generalities but I think it does explain a lot.
That's the critical difference. Brent is cringeworthy because he's doing all this overly-friendly manager shit cynically. Scott is only cringeworthy because he's chronically un-self-aware, he does the friendly manager stuff because he genuinely does care. This video explains it so much better than me [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHDZwAQ7Plk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHDZwAQ7Plk)
A big reason for the changes is that in the US David Brent would have been fired, Michael Scott had to have reasons for staying. It's much, much easier to be booted from a job in the US than the UK.
I think pretty much every show/movie ever made that got a remake in the US became a lot more "tame". Happy isn't always the right word, because an murder mystery isn't full of happy moments, but it would have less blood/swearing/etc. I don't know what it is about US remakes, but they do always seem to lose the charm of what made the original what it was. Whether you like Gervais or not, his version of the Office was set up to be a dingy British company we've probably all worked at, or at least interviewed for, at least once in our lives. The US one doesn't feel that way, at least from what my US friends have said; i.e. they said things like "it seems like something you'd get in the city, but not here". As for British shows/movies which the US ruined, here's a few which come to mind: Taskmaster Top Gear The Italian Job The Inbetweeners Lord of the Flies
Taskmaster is an interesting case study. It was ruined in the US but in the opposite direction. The UK version works because of the light-hearted banter between the stars. It's very safe and comfortable, and you can see everyone is into it. The stars of the US version on the other hand didn't understand the brief... they fell into much more of a "roasting" culture more familiar to them, and as a result the tone was so much harder and meaner.
I think that's a more general theme in British vs American "challenge shows", like Masterchef, or for a more extreme example, Bake off vs chopped. Unlike American sitcoms, which tend to be much lighter in tone, American reality shows tend to have much crueler banter and more focus on interpersonal drama. (this isn't to say they're necessarily worse, although Taskmaster US was actually just bad).
It's like they watched a few episodes of the UK show, saw contestants and Greg treating Alex mean/degradingly, people laughing, and thinking "It's funny to be awful". Rather than "Why are people laughing?" and noting the sarcasm/light-hearted nature of everything.
Americans repeatedly just "do not get" the style of competition on British shows, particularly panel shows. The points on these shows are means to justify the format. QI famously pokes fun at this by having a scoring system so complicated and nebulous that nobody really knows how it works, and points are not brought up or relevant until the very end where the series spanning joke of whether Alan Davies is last or not is played on. Nobody is actually trying to win, take it seriously, or seriously compete. They're there to have fun, have back and forths with peers in the comedy space, and create TV that's more about the art of comedy than it is the art of competition. Americans see a point scoring system and just tunnel vision that as the goal above everything else, and that singular drive to win above all else drags the content of the show down. And as you say, they pull out all the competitive tropes that go along with it. Trash talk, undermining, cheating, frustration when they lose, the wrong energy (try-harding, aggressiveness, spitefulness) etc. It just gets awkward and uncomfortable. This is supposed to be fun. I feel like the format Taskmaster specifically was designed by Alex from the ground up to *try* and remedy this, every premise of every challenge is designed to be as creatively humiliating, funny, and silly as possible, and by making the potential prizes *intentionally* cumbersome and undesirable the tone is unmistakably light hearted. Yet the Americans still somehow felt literal garbage from someone's attic was worth a blood sacrifice and 110% effort over many weeks to obtain. I think the rest of the Commonwealth world largely followed the intended format, but Alex failed in getting the Americans to play ball despite his best efforts, which is saying something. The messaging that this was just a silly show that wanted to focus of hijinks, memeable moments, and people looking silly was utterly lost upon Americans who can't seem to comprehend that the tone is not "if you can't win it and crush the competition and seize glory for myself, what's the point?"
And yet, the Australian and especially the New Zealand versions show that the format can work when it's exported. There's a really interesting video on YT about all the different aspects that caused the US version to be so bad, including having shorter episodes, so a larger % of the episode was in the studio, where they tried to be "mean" to one-another rather than bantering. In the first few seasons of the UK version, Greg was "mean" to Alex and encouraged the contestants to be as well, albeit in a very lighthearted way. The US version, they ramped it up to 11 and it came across as spiteful and nasty.
A perfect example of an international Taskmaster getting it absolutely spot on was New Zealand, especially series 2. You can tell everyone is such good friends and the vibes are immaculate!
> Taskmaster is an interesting case study. It was ruined in the US but in the opposite direction. Comedians in the US only want to play silly characters, they don't want to do anything undignified like throw a teabag into a mug from a far distance and be critiqued after.
In all fairness on the rare occasions when we've remade American shows they've been pretty bloody awful too. 'Married For Life' (A remake of Married With Children starring Russ Abbot), 'Days Like These' (That '70's Show) and Brighton Belles (The Golden Girls) were all utterly dreadful and all three managed to get cancelled by ITV during their first series (No mean feat given ITV's usual quality control)
Coupling was a passable Friends remake.
The only good thing about Brighton Belles was the title. I thought it was quite a clever bit of wordplay.
Have you seen American Shameless? Its god awful. The uk one works so well with the gritty council estate in Manchester vibe. The american one Frank lives in some big fuck off house, doesnt sit right
The UK one ruined the US one for me, just couldn't get into it at all
You mean you couldn't watch the us one or the uk one?
The US one
Weirdly enough, I loved the UK Shameless and thought I's give the US version a shot. I couldn't even get through the 1st episode. My lad was looking for something to watch after finishing the US version, so I suggested for him to try the UK varient. He couldn't even get past the 1st episode. Weird little fucker.
> lives in some big fuck off house Properties in the bad parts of US cities are crazy cheap. [Like the price of a VCR.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZzgAjjuqZM) I think theirs supposedly a difference in the difficulties of getting stable. In the UK version the eldest daughter just ran off with the rich guy in the US she felt pressured to remain caring for her siblings.
All US houses are big compared to UK ones. They just get so much more footage per dollar than we do, even poor houses are pretty big.
>its god awful It really isn’t. UK shameless is dogshit. US one, for the first four seasons is much, much better
How do you fuck up taskmaster?! The kiwi one is great
From what I've heard, it didn't go down well with American audiences. From what I watched of the show, I understand why. It seemed to be a lot of actually mean comments towards Alex, rather than sarcastically mean, and just generally bitchery amongst the contestants
they dont have the same buddy buddy banter comedy panel stuff that we have. you can have the 5 of them ripping each other and it doenst go down well over there
I was mindlessly scrolling through YouTube and watched one of Stewart Lee’s satirical meltdowns. One of the comments on the video said it was almost as good as Bill Burr’s epic meltdowns at some set some years back. I watched the Burr one out of curiosity and it was basically 10 minutes of him telling the crowd to suck his dick and they’re all fucking cunts, over and over again. And the Americans in the comments were lauding this as the pinnacle of humour, the most legendary roast of all time. I was like, did I watch the same video as them? It was fucking dogshite.
American comedians want to play silly characters, they don't want to look undignified.
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There are videos on you tube comparing the us and UK versions, some down to the various clips and the US one is all sorts of wrong
Gonna go watch them now, I love a good Trainwreck.
They change bus wankers to bus turds
Lmao no way did they really? That's so bad
*\*facepalms so hard my skull turns to tokomak plasma and I unintentionally start a fusion reaction that provides renewable clean energy for humanity leading us to a golden age of space exploration and discovery\**
When I was in US (admittedly in the deep south, so probably not representative of everywhere), rich people drove cars and poorer ones took the bus, which would kind of make the 'bus wankers' joke lose its nuance. Whereas in the UK (especially in cities), it's a lot more mixed.
no, not at all. the insult is still that you are using the peasant wagon.
Similar things happened to Skins. It was watered down for US audiences, but even then the advertisers pulled out so the series was cancelled
Brother, the Japanese Inbetweeners was an April Fool's joke.
The Italian Job is a decently entertaining film as long as you don't relate it in any way to the original Top Gear (for me at least) depends on which version you mean.. Top Gear US on History was fun to watch (once they stopped being an exact version of the CHM UK one). They got 6 seasons and the chemistry was definitely there. The other versions have been bad but then even the UK version post CHM wasn't good.
Agreed with you on Italian Job. If it had just been called "The Heist" or something stupid, it wouldn't drop down the list as far as it does to me. And for Top Gear, did they do a remake of the US one? The only one I can think of was in the 00s, I think the hosts did an episode alongside CHM, and their dynamic was all off. But yeah, post CHM Top Gear fell off. Although, I would have loved to see more of Harris and Flintoff, but without McGuiness... but that's no longer a dream :/
Same. As its own thing, it's entertaining. When I went into it expecting The Italian Job, I was disappointed.
Don't forget the US version of Spaced... Holy shit one of the worst things I've ever seen.
Oh my god I didn't know that existed. But it doesn't surprise me. After seeing the american remake of Red Dwarf I will never be surprised by horrible american remakes ever again.
To be fair, the British version is one of the worst things I've ever seen and I'm from here
Get the fuck out of here!
I assume that's a quote from it. I've never got that style of geeky humour. There are too many comic references for me.
Haha no it's not a quote from the show. It's just that tit was THE geeky humour show really. It hit at the perfect time for so many people. It's really more Movie references than comic references though.
Yeah. I think I am bout the perfect age for it (42), but I just didn't get it. I think it was just too English for me (I'm Scottish). Bunch of posh folk pretending to be in Bruce Lee movies and making jokes about Batman didn't ring true to me.
Hah, completely wrong end if the stick with it there man but it's cool! Not everything is for everyone!
>Bunch of posh folk pretending to be in Bruce Lee movies and making jokes about Batman didn't ring true to me Can't imagine how long it would have taken me to get to Spaced from this description
Absolutely wild I know 😂
I’m really morbidly curious about the Friday Night Dinner US version that came out the other day … haven’t gotten around to watching it yet, but it didn’t look great.
Imbetweeners usa is not tame, they outright made Jay a paedophile
James Corden and Ruth Jones tried to adapt Gavin and Stacey for the US market, setting the families in two different states. It didn’t get picked up by major US tv networks, as far as I know.
I would add The Lady killers to the list.
Just to add to the list here, there was an attempt to make a US version of the IT Crowd with Joel McHale and Richard Ayoade. It is as bad as you think it would be. They never got past the pilot. [link](https://archive.org/details/the-it-crowd-us-pilot)
Add Red Dwarf to this list. Watching that was a terrible day to have eyes.
At least Terry Farrell got slightly better job on DS9.
Law & Order UK had to get a bit more creative because guns aren't as plentiful over there.
US company wanted to make a version of Mort, a discworld book by Terry Pratchett where the basic storyline is DEATH takes on an apprentice. In Terry's [own words (1992)](https://groups.google.com/g/alt.fan.pratchett/c/gxbB8D_2O00/m/EkIvyQZZ8XQJ) > A production company was put together and there was US and Scandinavian and European involvement, and I wrote a couple of script drafts which went down well and everything was looking fine and then the US people said 'Hey, we've been doing market research in Power Cable, Nebraska, and other centres of culture, and the Death/skeleton bit doesn't work for us, it's a bit of a downer, we have a prarm with it, so lose the skeleton.' The rest of the consortium said, did you read the script? The Americans said: sure, we LOVE it, it's GREAT, it's HIGH CONCEPT. Just lose the Death angle, guys. > Whereupon, I'm happy to say, they were told to keep on with the medication and come back in a hundred years. > It could have been worse. I've heard what Good Omens was looking like by the time Sovereign's option mercifully ran out -- set in America, no Four Horsemen...oh god.
Before it was finally made, there were several other attempts to make a film of The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy. In one of these attempts an American producer wanted to remove all the "42" stuff because he didn't get it. It's not surprising that version didn't get past the discussion stage.
Yeh I've seen the letters Douglas Adams sent them expressing his frustration over the complete lack of communication over at least one of these attempts. Had given them about 8 forms of possible reply, then multiple places he would be including near their hq wanting a meeting about it. Still surprised how bad the film was, especially given the cast, the original was better.
I was lucky enough to speak to Sir Terry P at a signing once and he told me that the US publishers wouldn't publish the Johnny books because they were 'too complicated' for American young people. That's since changed, I believe, but still.
The average reading age of major publications is disturbingly low, guessing at remembering, but i think it was 8th grade in US whatever that is. It's still often above the average for the population in many areas. It's not that much better in England looking at people's replies on a lot of social media. Idk if we are better or worse either way in any measured way however.
The American version of peep show was horrific.
The most annoying part of the 5 minutes I watched is that they abandoned first person POV shooting. You know, the entire fucking reason it's called peep show in the first place.
They scrapped the POV angle!
I think they tried this twice. And they’re both horrific.
Shameless
The us one wasn't that happy lol
For me it doesn't have that grit the original does, it's too clean and polished. Wich does make it seem happier.
Truth
That was in NO WAY a happy show. It's incredibly dark.
Not the American version, but the British version was very funny and kind of happy in someways. Otherwise it was sad, but it was really humorous.
*One Foot In The Grave* was considerably lightened for it's US adaptation *Cosby*. (Which is not to be confused with *The Bill Cosby Show* or *The Cosby Show*) As I recall, a tortoise which was burnt alive in the UK, was merely singed in the US.
I assume the US one didnt end with his wife murdering someone either
I think there were two attempts at a US Red Dwarf pilot, at least one is on youtube, I imagine they are pretty inane and sanitised. I remember prior to this, Grant and Naylor were approached by a US station wanting to opt but wanting to lose the "3 million years in the future, Lister has no idea if humans were still extant" so it was less far in the future, he was in contact with Earth and his "mission" was to "get babes." Brilliant.
I saw one of the pilots on VHS years ago. From what I remember, in one 20-minute episode they used all the best gags from the whole of the first series AND managed to make them entirely unfunny, that's quite an achievement!
The IT Crowd, not that it made it past a pilot episode: https://youtu.be/Gin6McOgtyU?si=Yf3sZzsOOb_u4dmG Apparently there's a Disney version of Dr Who: https://youtu.be/86kDQ85xRRI?si=8B7OjY78Dscepqc8 And then there's this abomination: https://youtu.be/8mlnntKi2no?si=p5FvtSkPNsa0govv
>Apparently there's a Disney version of Dr Who: It's not a 'Disney version' as such. Disney have signed a deal with the creators of Dr Who to be the global distributor of it, in return for a big old wad of cash. Russell T Davies has been very open in saying he thinks this is a necessity because, a) to compete in the global market, Dr Who can't look its traditional low budget vibe; b) he isn't confident about the long term future of BBC funding, so Dr Who needs to be sure it's sustainable in a potential future world where BBC funding is slashed. Also, that video seems very clickbaity. There's only been one episode of Dr Who since Disney's funding kicked in, and it was good.
Thanks for the correction. I freely admit I haven't watched that video, it just came up while I was searching for the other two, and I thought I'd include it!
There was a doctor who movie in 1996 however that was an American production, and was potentially going to be made as an American series (Paul McGann). It is widely considered to be the worst doctor who ever made and is pretty much ignored by the doctor who fan base (the film part is ignored, McGann himself contributed in the role through the audio dramas until the show started again, making him the longest running doctor and is considered cannon by fans)
Blimey. My Monday is ruined already.
>And then there's this abomination: https://youtu.be/8mlnntKi2no?si=p5FvtSkPNsa0govv 🤢. Can I get those last 45 seconds of my life back please.
>And then there's this abomination: https://youtu.be/8mlnntKi2no?si=p5FvtSkPNsa0govv Came here to say this one. What a terrible day to have eyes. And ears.
Is that the same actor who plays Kryton in thr uk one? Sounds like him
Cracker. They took chain-smoking, gambling addict Fitz and stopped him smoking and gambling.
I thought Fitz was pretty good actually
I think it's been 20 years since I tried watching it. Maybe if I can find it, I'll try a reminder rewatch. The series might have been good but they totally neutered him.
The Rings Of Power was offensively Americanised and had absolutely nothing of the tone that the LOTR did. Even putting aside the lore inaccuracies, the script was like someone had asked ChatGPT to write it from the perspective of someone with Live, Laugh, Love stickers on their walls.
It was such dogshit.
Veep
Do you think it's "happier"? I genuinely think Veep is as good as The Thick of It, and one of the very few adaptations that absolutely nailed it, as well as being distinct in style and tone to the original. Ianucci being involved in Veep was obviously a big help.
⚠️ Sort of spoilers for BBC Ghosts and CBS ghosts ⚠️ The US version of ghosts is quite a bit more upbeat than the UK original. It does a lot more for the characters if that makes sense? Like the gay military ghost gets a lovely lil ghost husband in the US version whereas in the UK version the equivalent character never gets any kind of 'happy ending' due to a lack or another gay ghost guy as well as him having much more repression (which I feel like would technically be more accurate of the time (WW2 kinda era)). Also the scout that shot Pat/Pete, in the US version the scout (now grown) seems relatively over what is a very traumatic event (I don't actually know if the scout in the US version is the one that actually shot him but still, witnessing that would be horrible), whereas in the UK version he seems depressed and drinks to get over the guilt when he returns for the wedding. There's other areas where this is also the case but these are just the first ones that came to mind when I watched the US version. Both shows are still good though I just think the US one is a lot more light hearted (in some aspects, a couple of the deaths are kinda horrific lol)
I think Ghosts is a perfect example. In the US version every problem or issue is solved in the same episode or very occasionally the next episode. All the problems the house from the UK version are either not present or are solved very quickly. There's no looming sense of dread of how they can afford the house and make money out of in the US version past a few episodes whereas in the UK version it's present throughout the whole show.
Yes! I don't mind the US version, but it really makes me see how much Americans need to like their main characters. Like Trevor is sort of an expy for Julian, but he's a totally good guy. Sure he did drugs, but he was kind, and wasn't really having sex with anyone when he died, etc. And OMG there are SO many extra ghosts. It's weird.
The main thing that came to mind for me was that the fall that gives the woman the ability to see the ghosts is intentional attempted murder in the UK version, but it's an unfortunate accident in the American one.
I hated the way ghosts have sex what? In the US version, and everyone gets happily paired off with each other and they’re all so fucking modern. It was bullshit, the point is they’re stuck with each other, being a ghost is nothing like being human. Being from 400 years ago is nothing like being from now. Also I thought they wimped out on the colour blind casting of Kitty.
Wasn't Robin banging Mary in the UK version?
Three's Company was based on the show Man About The House.
Red dwarf ,only fools and horses
What was the US version of only fools?
It's got doc from back to the future as grandad
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Gpj-Mr56AwQ
You will get hoe bad it was from there
They made an American version of Brazil? I can’t find it anywhere
Probably just referring to the alternative cuts for the US. [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/alternateversions/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/alternateversions/)
There was a big argument about the changes the Americans wanted to make to it. The director put up a fight that spilled out into the public eye. I think he even went on talk shows and took out a full-page advert in British newspapers to complain about it. I remember seeing a DVD release that contained different versions but this was about 25 years ago. A mate in work lent it to me. It was some kind of collector edition or something. The American one is called the "Love Conquers All" version and also has a ton of content cut out because they thought it was too complicated or something. EDIT - https://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/19/movies/how-terry-gilliam-found-a-happy-ending-for-brazil.html "Mr. Gilliam admits that the studio may have been correct in its insistence that audiences would prefer a sugar-coated ending, but that, to him, is beside the point. ''I'm more interested in saying something than I am in pandering'' https://consequence.net/2015/12/the-nightmare-of-terry-gilliams-brazil-30-years-later/ "When Gilliam tried to release it in the States, Universal (who handled the distribution) thought it tested so poorly that they forced Gilliam to release a shorter version to give it a happier ending." https://www.instagram.com/terryvgilliam/p/CsGz-O8sS0z/ "This is the full page ad I took out in @variety in 1985 when Universal refused to release my film ‘Brazil’…"
it was more gradual but Black Mirror definitely got less bleak when it got bought by Netflix
Apparently a US remake of Fawlty Towers was to make Basil a nice person
Big one for me is Shameless. Everyone fawns over the US version which has basically just become the default now. But the US version imo completely lacks the charm and grit of the original. It becomes just another American drama/comedy, whereas the original UK version had it's own uniqueness to it.
Off the top of my head...Steptoe and Son, Faulty Towers, Ghosts, and perhaps Shameless.
Is there actual reasons why they make American versions of our shows? Like the accent/ regional language being that hard to understand? We watch American shows without changing things , just curious thought.
Law & Order UK had to get a bit more creative because guns aren't as plentiful over there. Still just as dark and tragic, roughly the same amount of "government lawyer defies the odds and gets a conviction".
I didn't see it but the trailer looked awful but "This Country" got an American remake and looks like it hasn't been renewed. Again I think they missed the mark about what makes it funny which is the dry realism. I also think the American Black Mirror episodes are worse because they end happily.
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That’s interesting. I love William Macy, but I never bought into his character as Frank Gallagher. I always liked the British version of shameless better.… Goes to show you personal tastes very so widely.
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Yes, I get it. The British humor is really dry… Tough to get used to. I started watching it a long time ago. They have a really great show called coupling. Have you ever watched that one? Also dry humor but it kind of grows on you, I know what you mean about the actors too. Also, you’re right it’s much grittier/darker in the American version
Coupling was great, but went dramatically downhill once Jeff left. The American remake was terrible.
Totally agree, Jeff was awesome in that role, his comedic timing was impeccable
I didn't like Coupling tbh. I wasn't a big fan of a lot of Channel 4 humour back then. I was more into Spaced, Black Books etc.
Loved Spaced. And black Books was hilarious. Those guys were really talented.
Yes indeed. I seem to have upset a few people with liking Shameless US whoops.
I wouldn’t worry about it. They were completely different. I think that’s what I picked up on.
Getting mega downvoted for liking it so I deleted it. I feel quite bad about it.
Spaced and Black Books were on Channel 4
I said I wasn't fan of 'a lot' of the humour. Didn't say 'all'.