That’s funny, I get Benny Hill just fine.
It’s also funny because while the Pythons took years to catch on in America, the Benny Hill show was an almost immediate success when introduced into American syndication in the early 80’s.
Or in other words, speak for yourself please.
Black Adder, 1-4 for me, too! Damn funny! I kinda like “British Men behaving badly”. Thats pretty funny also, but can’t you Brits get any moderatly attractive actresses?
Fagjunk Theology: Not just for sodomite propagandists anymore.
Because (and I’m not the only one who’s said this) the American TV networks have an unwritten rule that the lead character of sitcom cannot be an unlikeable jerk (i.e., the Dabney Coleman Rule). The humor in such British TV comedies like Absolutely Fabulous, Black Adder or Fawlty Towers stems from the fact that the leading characters are, basically, hateful and detestable people. American versions of such shows inevitably soften the nasty edges off these characters so they’ll be more “acceptable” to a mass audience. Unfortunately, much of the humor of the original is lost in the process so all that’s left is another mediocre and bland sitcom that nobody likes.
Marley23 already listed my favorite, As Time Goes By.
I’m surprised that no one here has mentioned Iron Chef, which at one time had quite a following on the SDMB, and is a foreign T.V. show to all but a handful of Dopers.
Yes, he’s well-known – but he’s well-known because of Bargain Hunt. His strange suits, orange tan and peculiar phrasology (“cheap as chips!”) have made him the subject of frequent parody, but he seems to be generally well-regarded.
everton: the other UK remake of a US show that springs to mind is Married For Life, a short-lived version of Married With Children that starred Russ Abbott. Horrifying.
OTOH, some shows made the leap so well no one noticed they were copies of foreign shows. It wasn’t until I moved to the UK that I discovered that both All In The Family and Sanford and Son were based on British shows (Till Death Us Do Part and Steptoe and Son respectively). Both US versions became classics in their own right due to excellent writing and casting.
Throw in Coupling and What Not To Wear from BBC and you’ve got about 60% of the TV I watch.
Whistlepig
The other 40% being The Daily Show, South Park, Insomniac and the Fox LA morning news.
Shut yo’ mouth. Aren’t there enough peroxided twiglets on TV without disparaging the few normal-looking women you see? Besides, Caroline Quentin’s kinda cute…
I’ve got a long list: Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, To The Manor Born, Blackadder (I love Rowan Atkinson!), Johnathan Creek, Father Ted, Ab Fab, Cracker, Yes, Minister, Yes, Prime Minister, Red Dwarf, Prime Suspect. That’s about all I can think of at the moment. Basically anything that’s witty and sarcastic will do it for me (that includes British men 
).
Why is everyone limited to just English-language programs? When I lived in Seoul, I enjoyed watching the historical dramas, especially shows like Chang Hee-Bin*, about Chosun dynasty court intrigue, and Yongui Nunmul (Tears of the Dragon), about the end of the Korean monarchy. There’s also a Taiwanese show I watched called Judge Pao, about a Tang dynasty magistrate who solved crimes.
Here in the US, I’ve started watching telenovelas on Univision and Telemundo, like Entre el Amor y el Odio.
Speaking of British shows, when I lived in Asia I also watched Star TV, which showed a lot of recycled British and Australian TV shows, like “The Bill” and “The Crystal Maze”.
I was just going to mention David Dickinson but I see in preview that jr8 has beaten me to it.
“The Duke” was completely unknown until they gave him that job. They expected it to be a very small show for daytime TV only and not to last long. But college students watching TV at lunchtime do sometimes generate a cult following for certain shows and they recognised him as a strong personality, so now he is very well-known, does plenty of talk shows and is milking his fifteen minutes for every drop.
I never saw that Russ Abott thing (or maybe I’ve suppressed it successfully). Sounds like I didn’t miss much.
I think Fibber McGee and NDP nailed the reasons why adaptations are more common west of the Atlantic. I also think that All In The Family and Sanford and Son were successful partly because they bucked the usual trends and partly because the producers trusted the American writers to adapt the original shows rather than pull the guts out of them.
No. Nobody here is even remotely attractive :rolleyes:
The PBS station in Boston has run an Australian series called “The Games” that’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. It’s a satire of the organizing of the 2000 Sydney Olympics. It’s fictional (at least I really hope it is), but it’s done in a cinema verite, documentary style. It turns out to be sort of a combination of “Sports Night” and “Cops”.
There’s a priceless scene where beauracrats John and Bryan are explaining to the head of a construction firm that “about 100 meters” isn’t quite what they had in mind for the running track. (Rather ungrateful, really. After a night of boozing and playing with a stopwatch, Bryan now holds the Australian record in the 100.)
It’s completely deadpan, and it takes a while to get into it, but it really is brilliant.
I think NDP is largely correct about the recasting of American remakes of British shows. I’ve been catching some episodes of “One Foot in the Grave” recently. The main character, Victor Meldrew, is completely ill-tempered. (To be fair, I might be ill-tempered too if I superglued a glass full of beer to my forehead.) The show was remade here with Bill Cosby in the lead role, and it became just another sitcom.
And you’re all aware that there’s an American version of “Coupling” coming this fall, right? I cringe at how tame it will probably be. I don’t know if Americans are ready for “Mr. Pole-vaulter Donkey Man.”
My favourite foreign show is The Simpsons. 
The BBC have recently begun showing Curb Your Enthusiasm on one of their digital channels. I don’t have digital, but they’ve also shown a couple of ‘tempter’ episodes on a regular channel. I thought Larry David’s character has some elements of Victor Meldrew and was very funny.
There was also a poll taken amongst British TV comedians recently, including the question What’s your golden great sitcom? Here are some of their answers…
Dawn French (Vicar of Dibley etc.): “The Larry Sanders Show is my all time favourite, and I loved the pathos of Hancock…”; David Renwick (creator, One Foot in the Grave): “From a short list of Bilko, Fawlty Towers and Seinfeld I’d have to go for Seinfeld…”; Ricky Tomlinson (The Royle Family): “Definitely Steptoe and Son…”; Rick Gervais (The Office): “The greatest is The Simpsons, by a mile…” he also loved Seinfeld, but for some reason the BBC put it on at a shifting graveyard slot so it never got a big audience in spite of critical acclaim.
There may have been some diplomacy at work in their choosing American comedies more than home-grown ones, but it shows that some humour travels easily enough in our direction too.
Well, since we seem to be allowed to name shows that have ended, I adored Forever Knight. But I was so ignorant when I first started watching it that it literally took me three episodes before I realized they were in Canada. Then I smacked myself on the head for not recognizing the CN tower and so on.
Since gobear has broken the ice and mentioned some non-UK shows, I’m going to go ahead with my choice:
Czterej Pancerni i Pies (Four Tankmen and a Dog) was a Polish show about WWII. While it is a wee bit propagandaish in its portrayal of friendship and comeradary among soldiers from different nations, the story’s great, the acting’s impressive, and the whole thing looks pretty believable. I have the whole series on DVD, subtitled in English so I can shackle my friends to the couch and make them watch it too! Now I have no friends. But at least I still have my sweet, sweet, SWEET Polish war DVDs!
Oh, speaking of Korean shows, I like the one where they take celebrities and send them to the middle of nowhere to live among a tribal peoples. I can’t remember the name of it.
The one in which Miss Korea was sent to the Amazon was awesome. She painted her face and had to wrestle some tiny, nude Amazonian women in some sort of ritual. She lost, by the way.
Blackadder.
Oh, and from Canada: Due South.
If we’re talking non-English shows, Channel 4 has been reshowing Monkey late at night. Brilliantly silly stuff.
Another vote for Cowboy Bebop - although over this side of the pond you have to have satellite and be prepared to stay up to 4am to watch it.