We got Threes Company over in Australia around 1980. I remember watching it as a kid, because I enjoyed the earlier UK Man about the House and Robins Nest.
Has US TV comedy been stuck in that domestic, living room setting ever since?
I just found this link to a List of British TV shows remade for the American market. Wow, they remade Fawlty Towers!!
Yep Black Books. That was good. We have a shop nearby just like the TV version. I keep expecting to see Manny appear from the back room.
Does Newark smell alternatively of Chocolate some days and Poo on other days? Does it have the biggest industrial park in Europe? and is it named after the word for a bog or marsh?
I think not…
Wow from Slough to CA. So a person form Slough is a Sluff?
… or shed skin. I suppose you exfoliated to CA. 
I don’t know about the rest of it, but much of northern New Jersey *is * one giant industrial park. And the Meadowlands is not far from Newark, which is or was a big swamp. Close enough to a bog or marsh.
hmmm…check out Malcom in the Middle. I can’t think of anyone I know who hasn’t laughed at that show at least once. A person need only watch it for about 2-3 minutes before deciding wether or not they like it.
I lasted about 4 minutes. I am very patient.
Did The League of Gentlemen ever make it to overseas TV? I suppose it could be seen as too weird to be popular, though.
At least there’s one aspect of “Office” that’s impossible for NBC NOT to improve on: the attractiveness of the cast. And in the end, isn’t that the most important thing over here? This “Office” is going to be a hit.
Selecting somewhere in New Jersey always seemed to me the obvious solution to the Slough problem.
I suspect the bigger problem might be the documentary style. Has there been a US equivalent of that late-90s UK spate of fly-on-the-wall shows that The Office mimics so deadpan?
Just to answer the slight hijack, yes ‘Sluff’ is the name people from Slough call themselves. (Though most who have moved away from Slough just call themselves lucky 
)
I thought I heard (possibly in a previous thread here on the SDMB) that Steven Colbert of The Daily Show was going to play the David Brent character.
It was played here in Australia and was a very popular. Yet another great UK comedy.
I wonder where the US equivalent of Royston Vasey would be. Up in the South Carolina boondocks? This is a local shop for local people- there’s nothing for you here."
Steve Carrell, not Steven Colbert. I’ll watch just because I like him.
I saw it in the US, i believe on BBCA but it may have been Comedy Central.
I could see a US equivalent set in Arkansas or Alabama, or maybe Tennesee or West Virginia.
Arrested Development is more or less a one-camera, faux-documentary show (albeit with flashbacks and creative use of inserts). It’s a critical but not neccesarily commerical hit though it has been renewed.
The problem is that most American sitcom producers insist that their characters be likable. This greatly limits the comedic potential. Two shows that have defied this principle successfully have been Married … With Children and Seinfeld.
I thought of another, The Chris Elliot Show, which wasn’t as successful as the other two I mentioned but did last a few seasons.
There was a funny US comedy on here a few years ago. Only saw one or two episodes. It was a pisstake on Soap/Benson type sitcom, but set in the Whitehouse with George Bush senior?? Maybe. What was that?
That was likelyThat’s My Bush