Inspired by this.. I was trying to think of American remakes where they are better than the originals.
I will accept all criticism, as humour seems to be quite different.
Red Dwarf
Just kidding. I prefer the American versions of Whose Line is it Anyway? and The Office, the latter most probably because I dislike Ricky Gervais.
The Ring
The Seven Samurai was a great movie, but I probably enjoyed The Magnificent Seven even more.
The Office.
All in the family was pretty good. I can’t speak to whether it was better than the original, since I never saw that one, but I figure at worst it was equally as good.
No it wasn’t. I am an Aussie not a Brit but no US attempt at any British humour is as good as the original. Comparing All In the Family to Till Death Us Do Part without bothering to see the original kind of proves the point. You guys just have no idea.
Three’s Company!
Ugly Betty.
Do any examples exist of the reverse - successful American comedy shows that someone tried to adapt to the U.K. (or other nonAmerican) market?
Roger Ebert gave the French comedy ‘Little Indian, Big City’ zero stars and the American remake ‘Jungle 2 Jungle’ half a star, so the US version was apparently a marginally better grade of crappy.
Who said anything about British humor. The question was about how good the show was, and it was a damn good show. British humor is not the be all and end all of entertainment
The Office, definitely. The UK original is fantastic, but the US version has surpassed it in nearly every way.
Plus, David Brent was completely obnoxious by the Special and I wanted to shut it off everytime he was on screen. No one on the US version makes me want to do that.
Actually, he gave Jungle 2 Jungle one star, rather than a half. He explained that the film “is too mediocre to deserve zero stars. It doesn’t achieve truly awful badness, but is sort of a black hole for the attention span, sending us spiraling down into nothingness.”
It’s not that hard to check the original post, here it is:
Here’s your first answer:
Your answer just doesn’t make any sense.
Several. Most were awful and quickly failed. The most successful was probably “The Upper Hand” which ran for six years and was based on "Who’s the Boss’.
Queer as Folk.
I’ve seen a few of the American Office and I’ve found myself sighing and rolling my eyes a bit.
What I saw isn’t a patch on the UK Office.
Here’s the Wikipedia lists for the US & Britain, which probably have the most:
List of US series remade for Britain
and the reverse: British shows remade for the US
I didn’t know that apparently American Gladiators went there and then came back in some sense. I doubt any other show has done that, has it?
“All in the Family” was based on a fairly unfunny Britcom “Till Death Us Do Part”. “All in the Family” was a great show that was often extremely funny and had more social commentary and great dramatic moments than any of the weak US dramas of the 70s. Now I only saw about a dozen episodes of “Till Death Us Do Part” but that was no where near as well done or well acted.
Actually I disagree on this one, the British show was not as dumb though John Ritter was the most talented slapstick actor of the two shows. The Britcom was “Man About the House” and it also spun off to Robin’s Nest.
I agree, but I think we are in the minority.