American Sit-coms that never took place in America.

Cafe Society
#1

I was watching a rerun on METV (well of course it was a rerun, that’s all METV airs! :smack: ) of Hogan’s Heroes and I don’t know why I thought this, but every episode of Hogan’s Heroes, a sit-com made in America, takes place outside of America. There’s not one second of any of the 168 episodes that took place in the USA. There was an episode or two that had a scene in London, but the rest took place in Germany.

I wondered, how unique was this? Were there any other American Sit-coms (not dramas, just sit-coms) that did the same? The only shows that came to mind were
MAS*H - All 256 episodes took place in Korea
McHale’s Navy - All 138 episodes took place in the South Pacific or Italy
Roll Out - (I’m guessing that this short lived WW2 show only took place in Europe)

Can anyone think of any others? I know this is an obscure subject, but it got me wondering just how rare a TV comedy that’s made in a country never has an episode take place in that country.

#2

Gilligan’s Island? Except in the TV movies made 15+ years later, none of the action took place in the USA.

It’s telling that all the ones you mentioned were service comedies. The only ones I can think of that were set Stateside were You’ll Never Get Rich and Gomer Pyle, USMC.

There was another service comedy called Broadside, set in the South Pacific. It was like*** McHale’s Navy***, but with WAVES.

#3

The Flintstones.

#4

There was also*** Mister Roberts*** and The Wackiest Ship in the Army, both set in the South Pacific.

Hennessy and*** McKeever and the Colonel*** were set in the USA.

#5

Wasn’t there a short-lived Anna and the King, set in Siam, back in the '70s?

Was it a dramedy?

#6

Outsourced was a sitcom on NBC a couple of years ago about an American guy managing a call center in India. The first episode might have started in the US; I can’t remember. But the majority of the episodes were set in India.

#7

Also, When Things Were Rotten was set in England.

#8

In a similar vein, but still ongoing, “Galavant!” takes place in some anonymous European middle-ages location.

#9

I think there was also an Operation Petticoat sitcom, set in the South Pacific, for a time back in the '60s.

The South Pacific, with its vast spaces, tropical enticements, and wacky islanders and Japanese would seem to be a prime setting for service comedies—as opposed to cold, wet, crowded, Nazi-infested Europe.

On the other hand, anybody remember Six O’Clock Follies, a service comedy set in Saigon during the Vietnam War? Had a very short run in the 1979–1980 season, IIRC.

#10

Quark was set in space.

#11

Quark.

glares

#12

Zorro And Son was, IIRC, technically set in Spanish California.

#13

Very slight nitpick: there were occasional brief passages taking place back in the States.

In the episode where an underground telephone trunk cable washed ashore (and the professor rigged up a device to tap into the lines), callers (in the U.S. and elsewhere) whom the castaways spoke with briefly were shown.

Another time they carried on a correspondence via homing pigeon with an imprisoned bird keeper, who was shown answering their messages from his cell.

#14

The UK comedy Allo Allo (85 episodes) was set entirely in WWII-era France.

#15

Fun Fact: *** McHale’s Navy*** started as a one-off dramedy titled Seven against the Sea that was presented on one of the anthology series popular in the early '60s. The conflict was between doing your duty as a serviceman or sitting out the war in comfort on your own island.

#16

Some other possibilities: It’s About Time (unless there were cavemen in America that I’ve forgotten about), The Flying Nun (Puerto Rico, America with an Asterisk), and The Red Ball, which is so obscure that IMDB and Wiki don’t mention it; it was a service comedy set in WWII Europe with a mostly black cast. I don’t think it lasted more than 3 or 4 episodes. Circa 1976.

#17

Yes… And when the US space capsule was lost, we saw a general and a NASA scientist debating whether to destroy it by remote control.

Except for the scenes set in Hawaii immediately before they left on the “three-hour tour,” however, the castaways themselves were never shown back in the States during the original run, were they?

#18

I think that was Roll Out, wasn’t it? IIRC, Ed Begley, Jr, was the white officer in command of the Red Ball Express?

#19

The format was changed halfway through the first (and only) season: Mac and Hec brought Imogene Coca, Joe E Ross, et al., back to the future (i.e., the USA) with them.

#20

Wasn’t the second Gladys Kravitz (of Bewitched fame) one of the people who hung up on them? * “Why do I get all the kooks?!?”* :mad: