The Warner Bros cartoons and Tom and Jerry were staples in the 1970s. Now they seem to have disappeared.
Odd, I remember it as popular and I’m sure that several series were shown. It had the same Saturday night slot as Starsky and Hutch and that one with Telly Savalas.
SkyTV ran this live-action Simpsons intro as a promo for the series.
As was noted above, the original cite coming from the BBC was for the period 1968–72. From what others have said, it apparently found an audience in Britain, but not until the mid-to-late '70s.
I mentioned The Oprah Winfrey Show specifically because I had assumed that Banksiaman in post #42 was referring to a specific show, the episode when Oprah “gave” all the members of her audience a new car (and shouted about it on the show). On that fairly well known episode, there were 276 people in the audience. As has been pointed out, first, there are game shows in which one person in many episodes was “given” a car. Second, I’ve put quotation marks around “give” and its variants because in each case where the person was “given” a car, they immediately had to pay federal and state income taxes on the additional income for the year. Third, as I understand it, it’s more like the car’s manufacturer was giving the contestant the car rather than the game show, since (as I understand it) the car manufacturer gives the car to the show to advertise their product and then the show “gives” it to the winner (yes, even in the case of Oprah’s famous show). In any case, my point is that the prizes on American TV game shows don’t really cost the show that all-fired much more than the prizes given on British TV game shows. American TV shows are just better at making the prizes sound expensive.
O.K., in post #47, Dave.B lists many American TV shows that did well in the U.K. These were all shows that did well in the U.S. Are there any examples of American TV shows that are regular scripted shows (not game shows, talk shows, news shows, etc.) which did well in the U.S. and did so poorly in the U.K. that they were quickly cancelled (other than Hawaii Five-O, assuming that that’s really true)? Are there any examples of regular scripted American TV shows which did poorly in the U.S. but did well in the U.K.? There’s one famous example of an American TV show which did poorly at first in the U.S. but very well outside the U.S. - Baywatch. This was dropped by the network after the first season. It did O.K. in syndication in the U.S. afterwards, but it was an enormous hit in many other countries.
You are however completely overlooking the crucial reason for the disparity. British TV game shows historically were prevented from offering large prizes because their regulators didn’t allow it. What’s more, those regulations were specifically intended to stop British broadcasters aping US game shows. In the case of the BBC, this has always been reinforced by the sense that they would be giving away taxpayers’ money (i.e. revenues from the licence fee). Nor does the BBC allow product placement. ITV, which until 1982 was the BBC’s only rival, was always keener to copy American game shows, but that just confirmed the regulators in their determination to limit the prizes. An additional factor was that the US quiz show scandals broke only a few years after ITV began broadcasting.
However, once ITV’s regulators finally relaxed the rules in the early 1980s, some game shows did start offering cars etc. Bullseye, the very definition of a cheap, downmarket ITV quiz of that period, regularly offered cars or speedboats. Not that many contestants ever won them.
It was therefore somewhat ironic that the breakthrough to the really big-money prizes in the UK and the US was the original British version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? The single biggest reason why it was such a sensation in the UK from the outset was that the prize of £1,000,000 seemed so completely unprecedented. (Actually it wasn’t, as that amount had been given away on a radio quiz.) And although the $1,000,000 prize was won on the US version before anyone won the £1,000,000 prize on the UK version, the latter when it was finally won was the world record for a game show prize by a single individual. That became the new benchmark and big money prizes are now relatively common on UK game shows.
But the idea that this is all somehow un-British persists. The best British TV quizzes and game shows make a point of giving deliberately rubbish prizes or none at all. At the present time, the most sought-after prize on British TV is a Pointless trophy. Most viewers would probably be surprised that they actually aren’t just plastic. OK, there is a money jackpot as well, but it is all part of the Pointless ritual that winners will invariably say that it’s only the trophy that matters.
I grew up with the BBC but no ITV for many years, so I can’t say what was shown there. I recall numerous Western series on TV, not to mention a lot of US shows of various kinds. Nobody mentioned Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, but that was big.
I would guess that talk shows are less interesting outside the country of origin.
In recent years cable and satellite have changed viewing patterns in the UK, since there are now dozens of channels, some of them dedicated to US films, US shows, US comedy. They will show just about anything to fill the slots. In the same way, a lot of old British comedy gets recycled - if the tapes had not been wiped, and many a classic show now exists only because a tape was found in Algeria, or somewhere equally unlikely.
Turning the question round, how many British shows were successful in the USA?
Not all that many outside of PBS. The ones shown on that network (e.g., Doc Martin, Poldark, Vera, Endeavour, Downton Abbey, Danger: UXB) generally have small but very devoted followings, compared to the American TV audience in general.
Back in the '60s, I watched ***The Avengers ***and Tom Jones on ABC on Friday evenings. Saturday mornings and weekdays after school, they showed lots of Gerry Anderson series (e.g., Supercar, Stingray, Thunderbirds) on non-PBS channels, local and network.
The only other British series I recall watching when I was growing up are Strange Report, Danger Man (known in the US as Secret Agent), and The Prisoner (which later gained a cult following on PBS).
I became hooked on the PBS British series watching Monty Python and The Ascent of Man when I was 20 (1975). ***Upstairs, Downstairs ***apparently had a big following in the '60s and early '70s, but I think it was around this time that such programming really took off.
Series like Civilisation, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, and Elizabeth R, however good they might have been, were far too highbrow for most American viewers, and so were generally confined to PBS as well, though the second one was aired on CBS as a summer replacement in the early '70s.
PBS used to be the only outlet for UK programs in the US, but no longer. Some air on BBC America. Some air (perhaps as a co-production) with a channel like HBO or a streaming service like Netflix.
ABC, NBC, and CBS all aired UK series in the 1960s and early '70s. Not sure if FOX, which began in the '80s, ever has.
Seems to me Robin Hood and Ivanhoe were aired even earlier on US commercial television.
As an aside, TVO, Ontario’s equivalent of PBS, runs a lot of British shows.
In general British shows, if they were to make it in America, had to be remade with an all-American cast. Til Death Us Do Part was remade as All In The Family. Admittedly many countries remade this show in a local format, with varying degrees of success. Steptoe and Son was remade as Sanford and Son.
Tales of the Unexpected has been shown in syndication in the US. I think I watched every episode of it in the late '70s and early '80s.
Sometimes American shows can be transformed into British series, instead of the other way around. F’rinstance, Good Times became The Fosters, set in Brixton instead of Chicago (IIRC).
When I was a teenager, I watched shows like The Saint, The Persuaders, The Protectors, The Champions, and UFO, usually in syndication and late at night, though I believe the first two were on one of the major networks for a time.
The BBC did take a number of US hit shows and bury them at varying timeslots late into the night. Thus Seinfeld, Mad Men and Arrested development often broadcast a full season with people in the UK being unaware of their existence…
The Simpsons showed on a pay channel, Sky One for years. It was cult but largely little watched during that period. Around syndication, the BBC got a hold of them and broadcast them at 6pm of BBC2. They were a massive hit. If the BBC gave it a decent timeslot, it would succeed, but I think the darker stuff couldn’t be shown early enough.
I would certainly say Cheers was successful in the UK, and to a lesser extent Frasier. Friends thrived, How I met your mother and Big Bang Theory are all/were all popular. For comedy shows there usually really was only room for one big US series at a time, but we had Soap, Taxi, MASH, Cheers and Friends all get their audience. Drama wise the CSIs, Law and Order, ER were all popular, but the BBC had Chicago Hope and buried that in a bad timeslot too.
Some are found on niche channels or not at all. Community is no surprise to be unknown here, I don’t think anyone bought it. 30 Rock too. Some find their position when syndicated, some just skip on past without being seen.
Some just never made it historically. I know of Who’s the boss, but never seen an episode and don’t know what its about.
Also apparently it’s a really dumb California law where if you win a car in some contest, you have to be able to pay off the taxes immediately or else you don’t get the car. Other states will allow you to either go to your bank to get a loan to pay off the taxes (using the car as collateral of course) or just sell the car to pay back the taxes but California wants the money right then and there or else you have to refuse it.
I thought most contests with large non-cash prizes had an option of taking the equivalent in cash (with the appropriate taxes withheld. My understanding was that no one who won the HGTV dream house actually kept it.
Regarding British shows popular in the US: besides Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Fawlty Towers, I remember frequently being able to see The Benny Hill Show and Are You Being Served. Probably all on PBS, I can’t remember…
Unless the winning contestant is from California, isn’t there a way around this? For example, if the contestant is from Indiana goes on a game show in California and wins an automobile, I’m assuming that automobile shown on the program is just a demonstrative model and that the contestant doesn’t really drive that car out of the studio and back to Indiana. Instead, the contestant will be given the equivalent of an IOU from the auto company and fly back to Indiana where the contestant will acquire possession of the car at a local dealership according to Indiana’s tax laws.
Benny Hill was in syndication. So was Dave Allen. I watched them in the '80s.