# "Dubbing" children's television with British accents **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 20, 2006, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dubbing-childrens-television-with-british-accents/340804 "2006-01-20T09:48:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![snorlax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@snorlax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snorlax)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dubbing-childrens-television-with-british-accents/340804/1 "2006-01-20T09:48:16Z")
I live in the UK and have noticed that a number of the programs that my children watch (“Clifford” and “Little Einsteins” being two that spring to mind) have been “dubbed” with British accents. I have seen the same shows in the US and the voices there have American accents. Assuming the shows originated in the US, what would be the rationale for the dubbing? I can’t imagine that the producers of the show would consider it necessary as American English is completely understandable here, and they’d have to pay for this. It seems the most likely reason would therefore be regulations or standards to ensure that small children hear British accents on TV. But then again, not all programs are dubbed. Anyone know what’s going on? ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dubbing-childrens-television-with-british-accents/340804/2 "2006-01-20T10:26:45Z")
Maybe worries about the little tykes picking up the “wrong” accent during their formative years? ---
**Author:** ![snorlax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@snorlax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snorlax)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dubbing-childrens-television-with-british-accents/340804/3 "2006-01-20T10:43:08Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > Maybe worries about the little tykes picking up the “wrong” accent during their formative years? Very possibly, but who’s doing the worrying? The makers of the series? Capitalism being what it is, I doubt that an entertainment producer would be willing to shell out in order to preserve the accents of one of their markets. I suppose that would leave the networks, or the government. ---
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dubbing-childrens-television-with-british-accents/340804/4 "2006-01-20T10:51:05Z")
I would imagine it’s just a matter of making it familar for little kids (who like familar things). I have a hard time imagining there are regulations. They do it for adults too, for commercials. I particualrly remember the “bilingual” talking toilet. (And as an aside…I just heard that while they didn’t dub Wallace and Gromit for America {perish the thought!!!} they did change the marrow into a melon, so not to confuse the vegetatively deprived Americans.) ---
**Author:** ![Martha\_Medea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@Martha\_Medea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martha_Medea)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dubbing-childrens-television-with-british-accents/340804/5 "2006-01-20T10:53:27Z")
We’ve had a couple of mentions of this in threads in the last few weeks. It happens in the US as wel with **Bob the Builder** and **Thomas the Tank Engine** , both of which are British, being dubbed with American accents. Then you have the Hollywood practice of different versions for the US and British market. Not the accents but details like vocabulary, dollars/pounds, and more. The **Harry Potter** films and **Charlie and the Chocolate Factory** are two examples, and the **Narnia** one as well, apparently. It makes me wonder about the thinking behind this. These three movies are set in Britain, or at least a place based on Britain. It’s underestimating children’s intelligence and depriving them of a chance to glean snippets of knowledge about the world when you do this. People use pounds in Britain, is that so confusing? Same with dubbing the accents. Everything about **Clifford** is American, except for the accents, and everything about **Bob** and **Thomas** is quintessentially British (although sweetly anachronistic) - so why not leave them that way and give children, even if they are toddlers, if not a more complete picture, at least a _less contradictory_ picture of US or British life? It would be interesting to have the official line on this from the BBC and others. I might investigate and see if I can find any replies. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Escorpio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@El\_Escorpio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Escorpio)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dubbing-childrens-television-with-british-accents/340804/6 "2006-01-20T14:14:42Z")
My best guess is that it saves parents from the all-too-obvious signifier that their children are raised by TV. A child who not only talks incessantly about Clifford, but does so with an American accent, is bound to raise some eyebrows. ---
**Author:** ![Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dubbing-childrens-television-with-british-accents/340804/7 "2006-01-20T15:48:54Z")
> [@Martha](#): > > … > > It makes me wonder about the thinking behind this. These three movies are set in Britain, or at least a place based on Britain. > > It’s underestimating children’s intelligence and depriving them of a chance to glean snippets of knowledge about the world when you do this. People use pounds in Britain, is that so confusing? > > Same with dubbing the accents. Everything about **Clifford** is American, except for the accents, and everything about **Bob** and **Thomas** is quintessentially British (although sweetly anachronistic) - so why not leave them that way and give children, even if they are toddlers, if not a more complete picture, at least a _less contradictory_ picture of US or British life? > > It would be interesting to have the official line on this from the BBC and others. I might investigate and see if I can find any replies. I agree. I remember being quite young when I realized Britain had some similarities to the US but was clearly a different place with regard to accents, vocabulary, money and units of measurement among other things. Most of this was figured out from movies, books and TV shows. (Could you imagine, say, A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh stories being Americanized with respect to vocabulary? Or the Paddington the Bear series? The horror!) ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dubbing-childrens-television-with-british-accents/340804/8 "2006-01-20T21:36:55Z")
In the case of Harry Potter, I think it was mostly the corporate folks trying to ensure the maximum marketability of the books and just a bit of putting their own stamp on them. Having read the British edition of the first book, I’m at a loss to see why they bothered. In the following cases I’m sure it’s mostly the cable channels trying to hide the British origin of the shows and hoping people will give them all the credit. There are a number of Discover Channel programs that were produced for the British show “Horizon” and were redubbed with American narrators. There were also shows/series about WWII that were narrated by Peter Ustinov in their earliest airings on cable but were later redubbed. I like his voice in any context, and I really miss it. IIRC the last showings of “Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World” also had the British narrator redubbed. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dubbing-childrens-television-with-british-accents/340804/9 "2006-01-20T22:40:38Z")
Having British channels, and public-service ones at that, broadcast endless ‘American import’ childrens’ programmes would be a PR disaster. It would give the impression that they’re just buying in loads of stuff. Which of course is exactly what’s going on, both in the BBC and elsewhere. But the minimal effort of dubbing ensures it’s not obvious. And it’s effective - until the thread here a few weeks ago, it never occured to me that Bob the Builder was anything other than a home-grown creation. The one that really pisses me off is adverts, obviously American, that get dubbed into English accents. There’s one that springs to mind, I can’t remember what for, but it has an American cop speaking with a badly lip-synched Home Counties accent. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dubbing-childrens-television-with-british-accents/340804/10 "2006-01-20T22:53:10Z")
Hmm, just googled a little on this, and found a thread on BBC America’s forum, complaining about the redubbing of Faking It with an American narrator. Now I come to think of it (and it’s funny how you don’t notice this at the time), I don’t think the American version of the programme had an American narrator here. Mind you, this is the type of programme where the opportunity could be taken to add or remove content, depending on the target audience. A British reference to a family living ‘on Teesside’, to make up a random example, would be meaningless to most Americans, and there will be equivalent examples the other way. ---
**Author:** ![snorlax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@snorlax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snorlax)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2006, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dubbing-childrens-television-with-british-accents/340804/11 "2006-01-20T23:12:27Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > Having British channels, and public-service ones at that, broadcast endless ‘American import’ childrens’ programmes would be a PR disaster. This makes sense. It’s perfectly reasonable that the BBC is welcoming the opportunity to keep the \*Daily Mail \* (to choose a newspaper completely at random) off its back. [hijack]Re Faking It, I once saw the American version of _Wife Swap_ (with American families, not the British version redubbed in the US) and noted a substantial difference in tone than the UK version. It was quite heavy-handed by comparison; for example, one ex-beauty queen wife was introduced with corny music and a shot of her smiling was accentuated with a “gleam” on her teeth (complete with the “ding!” noise) in an obvious attempt to ridicule her. I prefer the British version, which passes judgement more subtly.[/hijack]