The Unholy American Remake of The Vicar of Dibley | Cinewhirl
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- Опубліковано 24 лип 2024
- It's time for another US Remake of a British Sitcom! This time, we are going to review The Minister of Divine, a 2007 pilot which would have been a remake of The Vicar of Dibley, enjoy!
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A US version of the IT Crowd ? Surely Not . How dreadful!😮
You went in deeeep, thx;o) Kirstie looked more like her role in Veronica's closet (fab) and it seems decent but doesn't compare to Dawn French's (AbFab, Let them eat Cake), especially if one already liked Father Ted.
IT-Crowd I wanted to suggest for future projects, Joel McHale has some range but a typical nerdy techbro? And the whole self deprecation won't fly...
I think Cybill was US Abfab, as well as Will & Grace was their Gimme gimme gimme, but they work being more reimaginations than adaptations. Worked for Heathers, too. Totally different, so it doesn't compare to the movie.
Call me Kat is nice for what it is, but while I love the cast (Blossom and Beverly Leslie Jordan, may he also rest in power) it just doesn't come close to Miranda and it probably doesn't have to.
Taskmaster US was dreadful (again, not the cast), Skins, Coupling (already the better Friends, which was then also succeded by Happy Endings imo), Being Human, QaF and I still hold Shameless UK over US, but there I might be in the minority (which doesn't prove me wrong;o) ).
Ghosts UK and US are both funny, I'd prefer the UK version.
And Episodes played off of the whole schtick.
AU Adatations could be interesting to compare as well, Rake, No Offense and Wilfred spring to (my) mind.
And lastly, Prof(essor) T is an odd one. Loved the belgian and (for once) our german version, but the (still running) UK one is stiff and stresses unnecessary changes... not my cup of tea.
Also the Cleaner retells Tatortreiniger, still fun! Cheers!
There was a US pilot of the IT Crowd made. It was awful.
I am an American and love British humor. I have never once thought "boy I wish we could remake this with Americans".
Speaking as another America, preach.
I guess it's for the Americans that don't get nuance 😂
Same. The two times I'm aware of in which it was actually done well was when the UK series creator was in charge of the US remake.
@@jase_allen I can think of the office what was the second one?
@@RenegadeContext I thought Russell T Davies produced the US version of Queer as Folk. But looking it up, I was mistaken.
Here in the UK, people liked shows like Friends (about New York life), The Big Bang Theory, Cheers, Frazer and so on. In the UK we accept them for what they are who they are about and part of that was where they came from/live now. We have no need to rewrite them and make them about British people. Sadly in the USA there is a sense that unless everyone is an American then it cannot be understood by the viewing public. The results are bad. Yet Fawlty Towers and other British classics have cult status so there is a case for just leaving shows alone.
That’s because most Americans can’t understand an accent that isn’t American.
Fawlty Towers was also remade in America with Bea Arthur (Golden Girls ) It was called Amanda.
@@alimantado373 Wasn’t it Betty White?
bullcrap. YOU ENGLISH will lap up any old pish out of USA, whereas in the REST OF Britain, we're a little more discerning, and cant STAND cheers and friends, and find ''Fashzier'' .. incredibly obtuse as well as totally mispronounced nominally.
@@HarryFrost-qu8th No, it was Bea Arthur in Amanda's. I remember seeing it a couple of times after school.
UK sitcoms had so much charm and lived in looks. It was real, snuggly, there were houses and churches and halls and meeting rooms,
Americas always look like a group of actors on a set.
It's the excessive make-up and hair-spray. And lack of acting ability. And in this case, the highly unrealistic set.
@@KrisHughes the way every one liner sounds like it’s being read straight off the page, American sitcoms are just awful
UK sitcoms are character focused, while US sitcoms seemed to focus on the gags. This is why many remakes don't work. It's the characters, with their typically British eccentricities that are funny. Americans have their own eccentricities which better American sitcoms demonstrate very well.
Watch Mojo did an entire videdo on Bad US remakes.
Yes, for instance the best US sitcoms do have characters and character development, such as Friends.
I did read once that "UK comedy is about funny things happening to ordinary people, and US comedy is about funny people doing ordinary things", which I think is at least partly true...
@@tonybarruk2 That's a really good assessment. There are exceptions to both, of course, but it definitely rings true.
No no no, yes.
It can work though. For instance, "Sandford and Son" was a remake of "Steptoe and Son"
Most of the humour found in British humour is nuance. Americans cannot replicate English sensibility, which is key to finding The Vicar of Dibley so funny.
They probably can, but aren't allowed to use nuanced sensibility.
It isn't fecking funny. Shite Britain.
Dawn French staring at the camera with "that" expression on her face when she's "done a funny" is hardly nuance. I suppose when the target demographic can barely see the glowing box on the wall in the tv room - it's helpful.
Indeed. Unfunny shite.@@wulfgold
Could be worse. it could have been an Australian remake. Every fourth word would be F .
Not as bad as some remakes but Dawn is leagues ahead of Kirsty bless her. It seems to be written more brassy and sexual where as Dawn was much deeper and subtle.
Dawn is a real top draws comedian. She was always going to be a tough act to follow. And that's without the writing.
I don't know if it was the writing, how Kirsty delivered the lines, or a combination, but the character seemed flat and almost unlikable. I've enjoyed Kirsty's work on other sitcoms, but she was a very bad choice to be Dawn's US counterpart.
I think they could have saved a lot of time and effort by just broadcasting 'The Vicar Of Dibley' and calling it a job well done. Remaking highly successful tv programs and films is much less than pointless, it's lazy, unimaginative and predictably disappointing. Imagine a rehash of 'Happy Days' set in 1950s Bulgaria and you have an idea of how futile it is to attempt a transposition of culturally (and temporally) specific comedy.
Vicar and many British sitcoms are frequently broadcast on PBS (public television)). This was a remake for a commercial station. this is also not unique to the U.S. many countries do remakes to try to create a show that's more approachable to the audience be that accents, recorded in the native language, etc. They can be atrocious (ABC's version of "Coupling"), mediocre (this), or quite good (the British remake of Germany's "The Cleaner")
Lots of great stories and tv/film are reworkings of old ideas. Theres no harm in it. The failure rate of any new show is extremely high, we just notice more when the original was popular.
No, we notice when the remake is so dreadfully inferior. If your intention is to try and improve, or even match a great film or series, by all means do your thing. But if your aim is simply to cash-in on someone else's success without ever understanding why it is successful, you will inevitably produce a steaming pile of shite. There are such things as classics, and it is monumentally stupid and shockingly conceited to attempt to emulate any of them without the talent or commitment necessary.
@@schell0118 Welcome to capitalism.
@@schell0118 thata what im saying. The number of shitty remakes is no higher than the number of shitty origionals. A small fraction of both are great, when real effort has been brought to the table
I think the British actors are more at ease with the characters they are playing and so their comic timing and inter play is better. The US actors look confused.
If they'd properly adapted this, a version of Dibley with Kirstie Alley as the lead could've been fantastic. It's a shame they didn't give it the treatment it deserved.
Vicar of Dibley is actually a bit of a forgotten gem, don't often hear it brought up nowadays but was really solid sitcom.
No no no no no no no no no, yes.
Nah, we reference it all the time. Never forgotten. Especially at Christmas when we’re dishing up the sprouts.
@@dees3179 hopefuilly you don't get invited to 12 Christmas dinners where the parisioner doesn't eat a thing but expects the Vicar to eat everything.
@@andrewmurray1550 I'm safe, I don't even know twelve people!
But my belly did hurt watching that episode. Crikey that was a lot of food.
forgotten? I don't think so. It's one of the UK's most beloved sitcoms.
The Vicar of Dibley was one of my favourites. Have to say, this isn’t the worst attempt of remaking one of our comedies.
And that could almost be typical British understatement!
Yes and the humour focuses on certain British idiosyncrasies surrounding village parish life. I dont think that can translate to America where they dont have an official national church but lots of thriving denominations ... and a 'sterotipical' church community is probably very different and not inextricably linked to a rural location.
The problem with a lot of American humour is that executives are too afraid to be genuine about things like that for fear of excluding potential audience members.
I'm Australian, so the idiosyncrasies of village life mean nothing to me personally, but VoD is still hilarious to me because the representation is genuine.
If you don't know anything about life in an English Village, this show gives you a little peak into it. Usually when Americans make jokes that are too specific, they get cut for not being accessible.
Humour is universal, and we don't have to be "in" on a joke to understand a joke. The UK comedies understand that by making niche jokes honestly, they eventually draw the audience into those worlds.
Real life American culture is quite distinct from the image that Hollywood cultivates and exports. Even in Hollywood I met people far more diverse and interesting than any characters who are made for comedies.
That's started to change in a big way because of streaming services. It's not longer of utmost importance to maximise accessibility or worry about losing a few viewers to a niche joke when there's less direct competition for ad viewers between networks.
I just hope we can change the trend of trying to remake old IP instead of just taking a gamble on a new one.
It doesn't seem to matter how many times it fails, the money people are always looking for a "proven formula" they can exploit.
Writers and actors want to be more creative with their jokes and when their given the chance to be creative and take chances American shows end up being just as funny as anybody else's.
I'm sure that if UK comedies had as much money being poured into them as US ones did in the height of TV's popularity that corporate interference would spoil a lot of good shows.
It feels like a very American approach to just try to cram more into a shorter runtime in an effort to crowbar more value in to it. But as you say - the plot does need time to breathe and to be appreciated.
Also - it's a little bit unfair for anyone to be compared to our version of Alice. You can't mimic that.
Still, nice effort.
Yeah definitely, plot needed more time to breathe, would have needed a fair amount of rework to work as a full series.
Well, they gave it a shot, with some okay performances, but considering the great source material they had to work with, I can't believe it's not better.
Yeah, I know what you mean
@@cinewhirl there was a remake of the thick of it
Want me to take a look at that?
Like butter; I can't believe it's not I can't believe it's not butter.
@@cinewhirl you should do a video about the American dad's army. Remake. The show was called the The rear guard
It's weird to see English actor Kevin McNally playing an American version of an English character from a British sitcom. I could understand if he was in the original, as American remakes like to make a cute connection to the originals like that, but casting a British actor and not having him play a British character is odd.
Oh man, how did I miss that!
@@cinewhirl I was certain when I played the video. But had to look it up to be sure! It's odd as going by his career he seems to be UK based, and hasn't made any inroads to L.A. apart from the Pirates Of The Caribbean movies, which have largely British casts. I could understand to some extent if he was L.A. based and he just auditioned but his casting seems deliberate. Not sure why. BTW congrats on the channel, its a great idea, and I've really enjoyed your first two videos and shorts.
Ah cheers thanks for watching. I'm hoping to get some people to sign up to my Patreon too so I can keep growing
Did a sitcom called "Still Standing" air in the UK? It was a US show from 2002 to 2006 starring Mark Addy from the UK show starring Rowan Atkinson called, "The Thin Blue Line" set in a British police station, for any Americans reading this. In "Still Standing", Mark Addy played a stereotypical father in, I think, a suburb in the midwestern part of the US. You'd never have known he was a Brit if you were like most Americans who haven't had the opportunity to watch any British sitcoms. His accent was basically perfect.
@@jwb52z9 The name rings a bell, but I'm not sure if it aired in the UK. Mark Addy rode the American promotional tour of The Full Monty very well and went from UK sitcom actor to American Movies and TV. He even replaced John Goodman as Fred Flintstone!
I think one of the reasons that British sitcoms are rarely remade successfully in the US is actually the same reason that there are so few 'classic' ITV comedies compared with BBC ones - lack of time. Jokes and plots don't get room to breathe and there is little room for quieter character moments. Pacing a sitcom script on a commercial channel is such an entirely different craft that to my mind only Chesney & Wolfe, Mortimer & Cooke and Eric Chappell truly mastered it in the UK.
I mean I get what you're saying but there's a bunch of great channel 4 comedies, I dont think ads are necessarily a comedy killer
Vicar of dibley was one of the first british series i watched entirely in english back when i was learning the language. Its such a lovely little show, that has become a bit of a comfort show for me. Its no surprise to me that it doesnt translate to america, its so quintessentially english in many ways😆
I loved Kirstie. She was lovely.
This wasn't too bad tbh. The office and Inbetweeners were ghastly.
It shows the UK has better comedy that is real, rather than just laughs.
Dawn was made for her role. And Alice was the bomb.
Her jokes at the end with Dawn were epic !!
RIP "Alice", you were the best.......💔
Emma Chambers was a fantastic actress, loved her as Alice, she portrayed her so well that it was strange to witness her true personality off screen.
The office is a fantastic show. It's a bad version of the office, but it is a great sitcom in its own right.
What a travesty, this show of all shows could never be re-made, even in the UK, let alone America. The original cast and characterisation were perfect and irreplaceable.
They've just done this in Australia - taken an absolute classic called Mother and Son (1980's) and done a completely new version, albeit with different stories. It's trash. They'd have done better just re-airing the original because it's just as funny, even 40 years on.
Kirsty alley died? Totally missed that
I only realised that when I stumbled on this video. Very sad. She was great in "Cheers".
Some American remakes of British shows went on to be successful. Sanford and Son, All in the Family, Three's Company. Life On Mars, The Office, Queer as Folk, Shameless, House of Cards.
2:30 “this may be a room in the church or separate village hall, but that isn’t clear.”
To an American audience, there would be no confusion on this point. Rural American towns don’t typically have a “village hall”, but when they do, it doesn’t look like that. While this type of interior is found all over the UK in the form of municipal spaces and private homes, in the US you only find this type of interior in a church. Furthermore, the constitutional separation of church and state would preempt any notion that this meeting was taking place anywhere else but the church.
Stephen Fry once said that the difference between American comedy and British comedy lies in the characterisation. In a movie John Belushi smashed a guitar over a homeless man's head and a comic piece. In America they want to be John Belushi in Britain they would want to be the homeless guy.
It's very true, Americans want to be the object and not the subject of the joke whereas British characters very much get shat on repeatedly and it's hilarious
No way the U S version can come even close to ours. Not a chance!
I never thought either one was funny.
I originally read that as "chancel".
As an American who watches and adores English/British/UK TV almost exclusively, for me the absence of the accents and phrases unique to all those cultures presages failures in attempting to remake them as US shows. The Vicar, Hyacinth Bucket, Mr Bean, even the Beatles bring a fresh take to humor which Americans may appreciated but cannot duplicate, as most 'remakes' are actually revisions and remodels.
"its Bouquet dear!"
(sorry, couldnt resist it)
Never seen this before but it reminds me a lot of the US Red Dwarf pilot.
Yeah that's one I will take a look at on my Patreon I think
What a disaster that was.
I really enjoyed your breakdown the the Only Fools and Horses / Kings of Van Nuys. This has been just as good. Although I didn't follow Vicar I know enough about it to appreciate the tone. Although unsure if the support later in the episode for Minister was a timing issue to a tonal issue, I think both could were equally valid in terms of writing. Like Van Neys, this would have worked if more had been tweaked for the American audience. Ally has a different dynamic to French which I don't think was fully capitalised on. The sheer heavy-handedness with the number of storylines, I think that more US pilots are only for test audiences and have material redistributed when scripts are rewritten. As far as I know it is more common for UK pilots to almost be 'Origin Stories' that can stand alone or that they actually have a tight 6 episode pilot season. UK and US TV culture is quite different but it's interesting to show where they overlap too. Nicely made.
Yeah I agree, I think a lot of the problems are probably due to the pilot format like you say. Thanks for watching too, glad you liked it!
I never knew this happened, and part of me would prefer I still never knew this happened! However, thanks for the fantastic upload
Loved The vicar of dibley 🎉
Same!
Another fabulous video from you! 🤩
My thoughts: Even if the circumstances to inspire the show were similar it still wouldn’t have worked because the US’s religious and political cultures are just too different. I’m not sure but I think churches in the US are generally private due to the separation from government and that alone would completely shift the landscape of VOD’s narrative storytelling.
There was a remake being planned for Father Ted a few years ago called Father Hank and I think that would have failed for similar reasons if it ever came to be.
Thank you! And I agree, they needed to do more to localise it
Thank god that father Ted remake never came to fruition...not that I would have watched it unless I heard it was amazing. I never watched the second part of Coming to America either, don't wan a spoil the great memories!
That's the problem with most US remakes - they get ruined by too many changes to the format!
@@dontknowdocare Down with this sort of thing. Careful now.
But the Catholic church is separate from the government but they still are institutionally governed by the Vatican. Every individual parish isn't self governing.
Great video. Had a look at some other pilots on that channel, what a goldmine. Union Jackass with Al Murray and a remake of Spaced caught my eye
Cheers! It certainly is, lots of great stuff on there.
Could have been a great show for the Americans to reboot especially with Kirsty ally
Perfect. A Scientologist pretending to be a Christian out of the will of God because there is no such thing as a female pastor.
Quite often, for me, a great script is the foundation, but great comic actors can bring characters to life and make mildly funny lines hilarious by sheer skill. Often, US remakes don't do this. The only exception for me is the US Office, which has great characters.
Honestly, this show could’ve worked. Of course it would never beat the original but a conservative, church scene in America comes naturally. One of the few times where an American remake isn’t god-awful
Very enjoyable video! Crazy it's only that 2nd video on the channel. Can't wait for the red dwarf episode 😜
Thanks! I have a third video about IT Crowd on my Patreon too! (Free trial available!)
An interesting thing that happened for me is that the laugh track in the US version was more noticeable. I never noticed it when watching the UK version.
Thank you for doing this. I’m in the US and have always loved UK TV. Much of the comedy is based on things happening in the UK which can sometimes stump us from the states. However, my favorite tool is a search engine so I don’t hesitate to get background info.
I look forward to more. ❤️
You're welcome! As I type this, I am uploading a Patreon exclusive video about the American version of the IT Crowd as my next video!
@@cinewhirl oh wow! I had not heard about a US version of the IT Crowd. There is no way that the humor could get across. I’ll see about joining your patreon in Nov/Dec.
Well the good news is I have a free trial so you can just give it a watch anyway if you wanted too!
Just to let you know it's up now on my community tab!
I'd never heard of this remake before now, thanks for the vid.
Time to check out the rest of your channel!
Hope you enjoy!
I love how this side-by-side comparison really lets Dibley show off how brilliant it is. You show that the Minister of Divine is a work of high-class professionals, but it just doesn't quite cut the mustard, where Dibley does
There was an experiment back in the early days of the internet to find the worlds funniest joke.
(The one about two hunters in the forest, one suffers a terrible accident so the other calls 911/999/112.
The operator tells the guy to remain calm and asks if the other hunter is dead.
After a short pause there is the sound of a gunshot and the guy comes back on the line.
"He is now, now what do I do?")
Basically a website where you could go in and could rate a bunch of jokes, some with variations. (For example, if a joke does not require a specific animal then a duck is the funniest choice)
But the data also showed a number of trends of what is considered funny based on nationality. I don't remember what all the details of what they found but there is a clear line of what the english find funny compared to what the americans find funny.
If I remember rightly the English prefer puns, wordplay and self-deprecation. Americans tend to be more narrow, they like jokes where the butt of the joke is made to look stupid or foolish.
It is this sort of thing that I think the writers must miss when they are trying to translate from the UK to the US and why it can be so difficult.
A minor change, but one that affects the whole punchline of the joke: the operator doesn't "ask if the other hunter is dead," the operator says to "first make sure he's really dead." It's the ambiguity of that phrasing that carries the joke.
@@bobbuethe1477 True, it's been a while since I heard/told the joke... But apparently it is the most universally funny joke in the world.
Regardless of nationality there is an aspect of the joke that appeals.
I think the US remakes condense things so much because they have so many ad breaks.
Compared to BBC sitcoms especially, where there are no ads at all.
As an American, we are incapable of remaking any British sitcom it just never works.
shameless
the office
Veep(in the thick of it)
Sanford and Son
All In The Family
Threes Company
Cheers
All classic American versions of Brit sitcoms
I'll add that there have been several American sitcoms that the British copied
Good Times
Maude
Golden Girls
Friends
The biggest obstacle is cultural differences. Some shows just won't translate
What was Cheers a remake of?
@@lindaeasley5606It would help if you added which British shows were copies of those American ones. You must be using the word 'copying' very loosely as we definitely have no remake of Friends. We have quite a few sitcoms continuing friends living together as that's a very common setting for comedy. But no actual remake as none of them are like Friends (nor as unfunny)
@@lindaeasley5606Also, the US remakes literally copy a large part of the dialogue from the originals which always sounds unnatural and weird. Even if the UK takes a few ideas from certain US shows, it never outright copies the script.
Its not the worst pilot I have seen but... some of the casting was good. Riki Lindhome was a good choice imo, but as you said the writers didn't expand what was given to make it fit
I remember when they tried to copy Red Dwarf with Robert reprising his role as Kryten, there was two pilots done but never came to fruition.
I've seen one of the pilots. It was certainly.. a pilot. For a TV show. It certainly does exist that's for sure. (It was dreadful, they made Lister a classically handsome white man with the comedic timing of a brick).
Nobody, absolutely nobody, could re-create Red Dwarf!
This is great content. Keep up the great work. I look forward to many more of these videos. Subscribed and ready for them
Thank you, glad you enjoy!
The American version did not flesh out the "Alice Tinker" character - she was central to my enjoyment of 'The Vicar of Dibley.'
What I found interesting with Devine - and a bit telling - was what they felt wouldn't work with an American audience. It says a lot. Actors did well (and looked good) - but the soul wasn't quite there.
I think the problem with US remakes is that they gut the essence of it in trying to "Americanize" it, which in the end just dumbs it down with soulless gags and making the characters caricatures instead of persons in their own right. No one is having a conversation, nothing is flowing. It's just a rush from one advert segment to the next. They also don't know how to pace well, trying to squeeze hundreds of episodes out of a story instead of just making 6 to 13 great ones.
Let's take the British remake of "Who's The Boss" which managed to be so successful, when on paper it shouldn't have. They kept the essence of the show, and let the characters breathe. it didn't blow me away, but what i saw of it surprised me in a good way. It's dated, but shows that it's possible.
This is actually the first I've heard and seen of this "The Vicar of Dibley" remake pilot. I personally think the only US actress who could have pulled off a tenure in Geraldine's collar, other than Dawn French, would have been Melissa McCarthy. I'm not sure I could see anyone stepping in Emma Chambers' footsteps though. Alice is not a bright bulb but she has heart. US sitcoms tend to play such a character as a ditzy one dimensional punchline. One would have to manage to find another Bette White, and I doubt that could ever be possible.
Though back then I was a big fan of Kirstie Alley, and since "The Vicar of Dibley" was one of my favourite shows, I'd have liked to watch this remake, flaws and all. That said, now knowing what a horrible and bigoted person Kirstie was, I didn't enjoy watching any of this and am glad it never went further.
This seems better though than the remake of "Birds of a Feather," which somehow managed several episodes after the pilot.
Thevast majority of the US is to up itself & too scared of what others think/say to be able to make or even appreciate great comedy. This is why a lot of great british comedies dont air in US or are completely remade beyond recognition making them pointless.
There are some shows that do self deprecating humour in the US well, like it's always sunny or curb your enthusiasm, but it is a lot rarer
Never heard of this pilot. Or even the van Nuys one. What finds!
Great videos please do more.
Cheers, I will make more. Hoping to get a few people to sign up to my Patreon too so I have more time to do so!
@@cinewhirl if i could i would. but certainly subscribing for more.
No worries, thanks for subscribing!
To be fair, you should do a few of the UK remakes of US shows, too. Brighton Belles, being the remake of Golden Girls comes to mind as one. Probably a lot more the other way around but just to give a bit of balance. 👍🏻
Yeah that's definitely the plan! Probably do some exclusive to my Patreon too as I'm hoping to build that up to give me more time to make stuff
I remember hearing about this at the time (and seeing Kirstie Alley in her minister attire) but had no idea the pilot had eventually leaked. I'm curious to see the full pilot for the US version of Ab Fab as well - as far as I know only a clip is out there, and the script.
I have now reviewed that!
@@cinewhirlCoincidentally, *just* after I posted that comment I realised the Ab Fab pilot was already on YT in full lol.
This American who LOVES The Vicar of Dibley thought the US pilot was not so great. Dawn French is just such a different person from Kirstie Alley.
Exactly dawn French isn't afraid to say tits where kirsty alley is 🤣
British to American, chalk and cheese springs to mind, what next, Only Fools and Horses? Oh yeah they tried that one too. 😂
We should start doing Quintessentially American shows in a very British manner, knight Rider as a Robin Reliant or Dallas set in a Hotel in Torquay.
I've always been kind of curious about this pilot but was never able to find a copy. It doesn't look nearly as bad as I imagined, but still just doesn't really work.
I agree that it seemed to do a little better then most US remakes but it falls into the trap sadly most do, i have a term "sketch show, sitcom" where a sitcom jumps to much around acting more like a sketch show. This is often what destroys plots of these shows.
Great video, thanks. That balance between originality and simply copying the original is always an issue with US remakes of UK sitcoms. The US version of The Office only took flight once they ditched the UK scripts, and one strange example for me is "Call Me Kat", the supposed remake of "Miranda" (lasting 3 seasons) which had so little in common with the UK original (virtually the only thing they kept intact was the cast waving at the camera over the end credits), that I wonder why the studio even bothered buying the remake rights...
Yeah, I do wonder how much they spend in licensing for what they get back
The exact same script hits different in UK and us contexts, so you need some depth of understanding to make a translation of the comedic and pathetic beats of a story. If you do this on the surface level without a good ear for both cultures then you risk breaking the original and replacing it with something average. In that case your license fee just went on shortcutting some ok writers to their second draft stage.
Scripts definitely need to be changed
To be fair, I don't think remakes of US sitcoms in the UK work either. I can only think of one example off hand and that was 'Brighton Belles', which was an attempt to make a British version of the wonderful 'Golden Girls'. Shiela Hancock, Wendy Craig, Shiela Gish and Jean Boht lead the cast; all four very talented, mature performers. The series limped along and it is a tribute to the four women involved that it lasted as long as it did, as the idea just did not work as well when transplanted from Miami,Florida to Brighton, East Sussex.
No way can Americans replicate British humour.
True but there was a decent job with All in the Family.
Have you ever seen Frasier, Debbie? It's one of the few American sitcoms that can match maturity and wit with British counterparts.
Bitish sitcoms don't run endlessly and lose quality because of it. Frasier went on for too long. Best US comedy for me was The Middle. Wonderful UK comedies that ended but left you wanting more - the Office, The Young Ones, People Just Do Nothing, the IT Crowd. Mind you, Allo Allo kept going despite becoming unfunny.
@@leec6707 Nah, Frasier's run was perfect. Sorry it didn't vibe with you. ♥
Honestly, I think Kirstie Alley is a pretty good choice. She had the charisma and comic talent to pull it off.
The village of Dibley itself is a character in it's own right. So you can't just pick up everything else and plop it down in a different location. Small town Britain and small town USA are two completely different places. It looks like everyone tried their hardest though.
I can't hear that name without INSTANTLY being reminded of Duane Dibley, the Duke of Dork!
13:39 "Oh Dear" is too funny
Never knew about this one. It actually didn't seem too bad!
Part of the reason that Dibley worked so well was that it was constantly riffing on aspects of British rural life that everybody understood before ever seeing the show. You can't just transplant the British setting to the US and expect it to work. The shared cultural understanding of American rural towns are completely different.
Live in the US, can't say I ever saw this on TV. but from what I have seen here I don't think I missed anything!
I just think anytime something like this happens it’s an embarrassing indictment on American audiences in general. The fact that they can’t open their minds to enjoy something universally excellent like The Vicar of Dibley as it is is just sad.
I can't imagine a church in the US giving the money for a fancy window to stavning disaster victims....
I didn't know about this, great video, thanks.
You've just made me realise that, in many ways, Impastor is an American take on the Vicar of Dibley (intentional or not). The premise is of course quite different in that the pastor is a fraud (and that's what the plot mostly revolves around), but there's a number of key shared elements:
- Controversy around the identity of clergy (female vicar - gay pastor)
- The naive, phlegmatic sidekick (Alice Tinker - Dora Winston)
- The domineering, wealthy, conservative antagonist (David Horton - Alden Schmidt)
- The shy, somewhat pathetic youngster providing comic relief (Hugo Horton - Russell Kerry)
Also another difference is that in America Religion is private and the state is not in involved so who's sending the minister? Who's he writing to?
Good point, that isn't clear
If they are anything like Anglican, there would be a hierarchy.
There'll be a church hierarchy. In England the bishops are chosen by the government in theory, but it's a rubber stamp, and it doesn't extend to parish vicars.
Alice ticker was played brilliantly rip
As a concept I can't think of a sitcom that translate any worse to an American audience
UA-cam recommendations sometimes throw up gems like this
Personally im still pondering if that butter alice bought really was butter. Because i just cant believe its not butter
A striking difference is how spitefulness is used for comedy in the US version.
Eg. when she says "yeah" at 14:28, and it's just plain rude. In the UK, doing that would show how the vicar is meant to be unlikeable -- like in Blackadder, who's constantly rude, but is a terrible person... But here it doesn't make sense, it's just someone supposedly good being pointlessly hostile. It actually made me feel very uncomfortable.
The biggest problem with the uk version as well is the occ not knowing they had a female vicar. This isn’t possible they are introduced to the applicants on the day they have their interview so they would know exactly who their new vicar is
I had no idea that this was ever made. Would've watched the remake. Like with Miranda, this looks pretty decent made.
Fair play to the Americans for trying.
But theres one word to describe any of our English comedies and that's quintessential.
It works for us, because it relies on very English thinking, values, standards and beliefs.
They should leave alone or just show the originals in all their traditional English glory 😁
Yeah, this one is a bit too specific to be transferred easily
I didn’t realise they did this - it’s not too bad as you say. The Red Dwarf one however … well. Different story.
The main issue I see with most of these remakes is they focus far more on the scenario or a one liner than they do on the characters. We can't laugh, jeer or cry if we don't care about the people on the screen. Even if they try to translate a character to their own version, they tend to translate the joke and not the person, like they did with Jim. What makes him funny isn't just he says no no no it's the subversive lines he's given and the unique delivery almost no one can immitate.
I didn't know Kirstie Allie had died. I liked her in Cheers.
Could you do a video covering the IT crowd American pilot with Joel McHale? Also would be cool to see a video that covers the trend in a broader sense as it was a big deal in the early 2000s to remake and Americanise all kinds of shows and movies that had success overseas. The office was probably the most successful example but it definitely wasn't the first
Already made that one, but it's a Patreon exclusive - free trial though if you don't want to pay. Yeah that's a good idea, I'll note it down!
I would suggest that any serious attempt at an American remake of The Vicar of Dibley would cast Hailee Steinfeld in the lead role, her comedic delivery is uncannily similar to Dawn French & she could pretty-much deliver the lines from the original scripts as-is & it would work (accounting for the explicitly British & outdated cultural references).
Kirsty was such a great and charismatic actress she could have made it work. If anything it was too loyal to the source material
From what I saw the US version had potential, but in this case I agree with you. One of my complaints of most American re-works is that they lost the British humour making it un-funny, in this case the problem is that it didn't feel right to take place in the US.
Yeah exactly
@@cinewhirl A drama is usually needed in the US for what would be a truly controversial topic like this. In fact, it might need to almost be a morality play in this case to try to teach misogynistic Americans a lesson.
Eh; that depends on the community. My mom became a minister maybe a few years before they made that pilot, in a metropolitan city where you might not think that would generally be an issue, but some people in the congregation still protested.
Like, they literally just *didn't show up* if they knew she was going to give the sermon.
You're definitely right about the comedic timing, though.
@@someTransChick Oh I am not saying the subject of a female priest is the issue (And my mother was ordained and given very rural parish in Canada while it was still rare), so believe me that was not the part I was commenting on. Most American remakes of British sitcoms don't work, they either try to stick too close to the original, and Americans don't get it, or they realise Americans won't get it and so make up for it by Americanising the joke, which makes it less funny.
The best Sitcom based on a British Show was "All in the Family" (based on "Til Death Us Do Part"- and the reason it worked was it was simply "inspiration", they didn't try to copy the script of storyline... unless you knew, you wouldn't know that one was based on the other... it was "what would happen if we put similar (not the same) characters in an American town, how would the story unfold. So rather than copying the UK storyline, this would have been a better approach, and would largely be how I would say another countries version of a show should generally be done.
@@petervenkman69 Ah, okay, gotcha.
In the Vicar of Dibley, all church scenes were filmed inside the real onsight church not a set, the same with the pub.
US sitcoms are about 21 mins. The BBc one is probably 25-28 mins. Hence the cuts
Yeah, but they also merged multiple episodes into that shorter timescale
It feels weird that they even considered remaking based on the differences between religion in each country.
There's a good cast there for the remake, definately had potential!
What you say at the end is correct. US remakes of UK sitcoms work when they take the concept but make it American. Case in point, The Office US. First series is terrible, because the use the UK scripts. As soon as they write their own for the new US characters, it really works. I would like to think that had this version gone ahead, it would have become more American and worked.
Yeah, I think they had some potential, but unfortunately as far as pilots go, they didn't do what they needed to be turned into a series
Is that Dr. Newitski?
Oh dear God . . . the Coupling remake, I cried 😢
Its also the Delivery
To use the ending joke as a standard...the joke at the end of Divine sounds like it was memorised from a script.
Whereas in Dibley it feels like they just asked Dawn French to tell a joke she thought would be funny.
I never knew this was a thing... I don't understand why they try to remake everything... The funny bits about the Vicar of Dibley are the quirks and eccentricities of the characters in a small english village. You can't just lift jokes and expect it to work.
One of the biggest problems with Americans remaking (particularly BBC) British shows is runtime. There are no ads on the BBC, so a half-hour show has pretty much half an hour of content. In the US, however, a half-hour slot has only 23 minutes of actual programming due to the ludicrous amount of ads. That alone means that jokes and setup cannot all be copied verbatim because there simply isn't time. Hence the reason the vicar's introduction is so cut down in the US version.
RIP KIrstie Alley , just as funny if not funnier than Dawn French.
Nice work you should do some more.
I've got a new one on this channel soon, and a Patreon exclusive too (on my community tab)
Never saw this before, but it does bring up one horror: Can you imagine how the Americans would have screwed up FATHER TED?!!
Although, interestingly, there WAS a 1978 American sitcom "In The Beginning" that, ironically, seemed to have more than a few similarities, even though it aired two decades before Father Ted. And it starred McLean Stevenson as the main priest, which probably explains why it died in a month. It also starred Jack Dodson (Howard on The Andy Griffith Show) as the kinda prototype Father Jack. Yeah, not really the same thing....
Seems like the common, fundamental issue of so many American remakes of British shows is that we love our heroes to be unattractive underdogs, and American TV can't abide unattractiveness or heroes who aren't the top dog in every situation they find themselves in. So premises that rely on the protagonist being downtrodden and struggling against the odds just don't translate.