# Why not more remakes of BBC series? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 19, 2007, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-remakes-of-bbc-series/388524 "2007-01-19T00:01:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![According\_to\_Pliny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@According\_to\_Pliny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/According_to_Pliny)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-remakes-of-bbc-series/388524/1 "2007-01-19T00:01:04Z")
The American Benny Hill. Same shtick and same music. Would need clever casting to find someone with that impish grin. Fawlty Towers. No special casting needed. Any former sitcom stars could carry that show. Monty Python. If they could make The Monkeys as “an imitation British invasion band”, there should be a passable troupe to reprise that series. If only they can get Betty White to take the John Cleese part 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-remakes-of-bbc-series/388524/2 "2007-01-19T00:10:44Z")
Those are possibly the three worst ideas I’ve ever heard of in my life. You’d go far in Hollywood. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-remakes-of-bbc-series/388524/3 "2007-01-19T00:18:47Z")
_Payne_ (John Larroquette in the Basil role), _Amanda’s_ (Bea Arthur), and _Snavely_ (Harvey Korman) were all based on _Fawlty Towers_. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-remakes-of-bbc-series/388524/4 "2007-01-19T00:30:38Z")
And as for Benny Hill (who is surely to America as Jerry Lewis is to France, and fellow British comic Norman Wisdom is to Albania (it’s true) ), it’s a nitpick but his programme was not a BBC show, at least not the 70’s and 80’s stuff broadcast in the U.S. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-remakes-of-bbc-series/388524/5 "2007-01-19T00:33:11Z")
Congrats. I think you’ve picked three of the most British, most unduplicatable shows ever. IOW, what **Miller** said. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-remakes-of-bbc-series/388524/6 "2007-01-19T00:40:04Z")
From the same ‘ideas factory’: “The Madness of King George III - great! But what happened to parts I and II?” ---
**Author:** ![According\_to\_Pliny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@According\_to\_Pliny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/According_to_Pliny)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-remakes-of-bbc-series/388524/7 "2007-01-19T00:40:44Z")
Oh no need to stop there. Masterpiece Theatre with all American casts. And change the settings to the US as well. Dickens in New York. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-remakes-of-bbc-series/388524/8 "2007-01-19T00:51:43Z")
The strength of those shows was not merely finding a warm body to stand in front of the camera, that’s why. In today’s market, a troup-based show like Python or the Carol Burnett Show would be split up within a season, with each star offered his own hit sitcom and/or talk show that is doomed to failure, because Hollywood believes it _is_ all about putting cattle in front of the camera, about boiling down the formula until there’s nothing but easy-to-digest cliches left. Look at Wayne Brady, the improvisational singer from the American “Whose Line” cast, given his own very short-lived talk show. Nobody really asked themselves if the move made sense, or if Brady would carry a whole show by himself. Witness the frequent splintering of the Saturday Night Live crew, as they go off to ill-fated solo careers. Also note that the BBC series are 6 shows long, compared to the American season of, what is it now, 26 shows? A situation may be the perfect size for a British TV series, with enough good ideas to go around, and plenty of time to craft and rehearse each show. The same idea spreads really thin over 26 shows. Boiling “Fawlty Towers” down to “a guy runs a hotel” is really over-simplifying what made the show so successful. ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-remakes-of-bbc-series/388524/9 "2007-01-19T02:08:10Z")
They try every few years and they fail, so that scares them off for a while. Like they did “Coupling”, and it got nowhere. Not sure how “The Office” plays into this pattern. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-remakes-of-bbc-series/388524/10 "2007-01-19T10:29:54Z")
Here’s a list of American remakes of British TV shows: > **[List of American television series based on British television series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_TV_shows_remade_for_the_American_market)** > > Many successful British television shows (particularly sitcoms and reality shows) have been remade for the American market. The amount of reworking varies, with some shows (such as All in the Family) keeping the basic situation and then adding many original features, while others have taken complete scripts verbatim (such as Amanda's). > There are relatively few examples of American shows remade for the British market (the majority of these being game shows), and the British television audience a... Notice that you never heard of most of the American remakes. That’s because they last half a season and get cancelled. Sometimes they don’t even get beyond a pilot episode. In general, the remakes of ordinary fictional programs don’t work. The American networks think that if you just give the programs an American setting and throw in an American TV star the qualities of the program won’t change. This shows what idiots American TV networks are. Reality programs, quiz programs, and such work better in American versions, but they aren’t really remakes. Look through the list. I only count six of the fictional programs that lasted any reasonable length of time (_All in the Family_, _Three’s Company_, _Sanford and Son_, _Too Close for Comfort_, _Cosby_ (the 1990’s show, not the 1980’s one), _Queer as Folk_, and _The Office_). I think only _All in the Family_ is really a significant TV program that it was worth the bother to remake. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-remakes-of-bbc-series/388524/11 "2007-01-19T10:50:56Z")
Could Firefly be said to be closer to Blake’s 7 than any other TV SF to date? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-remakes-of-bbc-series/388524/12 "2007-01-19T11:22:24Z")
Fish writes: \> Witness the frequent splintering of the Saturday Night Live crew, as they go off \> to ill-fated solo careers. This isn’t a parallel example of what you were talking about at all. It may be true that often actors leave hit shows too early, only to find that they have no success in other TV shows or in movies, and the TV show that they left is worse for their absence. That’s not what happens when a regular cast member leaves _Saturday Night Live_. It was designed to be a show where the cast changes every few years. _Saturday Night Live_ may or may not be any good at the moment, but it wouldn’t be a better show if it had kept the same cast for the past 32 years. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-remakes-of-bbc-series/388524/13 "2007-01-19T14:38:48Z")
[QUOTE=Usram] _Payne_ (John Larroquette in the Basil role), _Amanda’s_ (Bea Arthur), and _Snavely_ (Harvey Korman) were all based on _Fawlty Towers_. [/QUOTE] - Amanda’s\* (I had blocked out the name) was one of the worst shows I have ever seen. IIRC they used some of the exact plots from Fawlty Towers episodes and made them completely unfunny. I suppose we are going with British shows and not just BBC. Cybil Shepard’s show (was it _Cybil_?) may not have been a remake but it was a ripoff of _Absolutely Fabulous_. A ripoff that missed the entire point of the show. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-remakes-of-bbc-series/388524/14 "2007-01-19T21:45:08Z")
Although the responses have been good, I’ll simply note that the main reason that there are not more “remakes” of famous British sitcoms is that most such shows are funny precisely because of their Britishness. They often fail to translate well. One show I thought could have translated was _Butterflies_. Yes, we wouldn’t have two teenage sons on the “dole,” but there are translations that are almost as funny. And even an American housewife should be able to do better than to produce custard that still thinks it is milk. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2007, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-remakes-of-bbc-series/388524/15 "2007-01-19T22:49:15Z")
[QUOTE=SmackFu] They try every few years and they fail, so that scares them off for a while. Like they did “Coupling”, and it got nowhere. [/QUOTE] And was a mix of “Friends” and “Seinfeld”, so bringing it over here didn’t really make sense in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2007, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-remakes-of-bbc-series/388524/16 "2007-01-20T00:13:19Z")
Don’t forget the remake of _Absolutely Fabulous_ called _High Society_ that bombed horribly because theydidn’t want to remake with the booze and drugs. That would be like trying to make 24 without the interrogation and explosions. ---
**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2007, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-remakes-of-bbc-series/388524/17 "2007-01-20T23:54:46Z")
ABC tried to do Red Dwarf. > **[Red Dwarf | U.S. version](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dwarf#U.S._version)** > > Despite the original version having been broadcast on PBS, a pilot episode for an American version (known as Red Dwarf USA) was produced through Universal Studios with the intention of broadcasting on NBC in 1992. The show essentially followed the same story as the first episode of the original series, using American actors for most of the main roles: Craig Bierko as Lister, Chris Eigeman as Rimmer, and Hinton Battle as Cat. Exceptions to this were Llewellyn, who reprised his role as Kr The studi... I think us “yanks” are too smegheaded to appreciate those shows. 🙂 Seriously, I don’t think it ‘sticks’ with most americans. BBC offerings tend to need intelligence. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-remakes-of-bbc-series/388524/18 "2007-01-21T00:36:13Z")
It seems to me like Americans try to remake virtually any show which is successful elsewhere. Sometimes the results are okay – “The Office” is watchable, “Ugly Betty” is almost as good as the Colombian “Yo Soy Betty La Fea”. But the results are more often crap, and an American version of Monty Python or Benny Hill is nearly unthinkable. Similarly, I can’t foresee an American version of “Sin Tetas No Hay Paraiso”, another Colombian show. ---
**Author:** ![According\_to\_Pliny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@According\_to\_Pliny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/According_to_Pliny)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2007, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-remakes-of-bbc-series/388524/19 "2007-01-22T17:22:26Z")
[QUOTE=Wendell Wagner] Here’s a list of American remakes of British TV shows: > **[List of American television series based on British television series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_TV_shows_remade_for_the_American_market)** > > Many successful British television shows (particularly sitcoms and reality shows) have been remade for the American market. The amount of reworking varies, with some shows (such as All in the Family) keeping the basic situation and then adding many original features, while others have taken complete scripts verbatim (such as Amanda's). There are relatively few examples of American shows remade for the British market (the majority of these being game shows), and the British television audience ar... I only count six of the fictional programs that lasted any reasonable length of time. [/QUOTE] You’re forgetting the show that Letterman credits for his long-running Will It Float segment, the British hit “Is It Buoyant” ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2007, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-remakes-of-bbc-series/388524/20 "2007-01-22T19:37:31Z")
On the other hand, All in the Family, Sanford and Son, Dear John, and Three’s Company were all successful American translations of Britcoms. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-more-remakes-of-bbc-series/388524.md?page=2)