One of the contrasts that helps explain why the US pilot failed is the scene of Lister re-awakened from stasis. In the UK version, he struggles to accept that everyone is dead. In the US version, it's just another situation for a joke. The UK shows Lister as a believable person, the US has him as an awkward joke delivery machine.
US sitcoms tend to go for the joke "one liners" and not character development. Sitcoms in the US which do character development like Frasier you will notice have a very British feel to them. Just watch Frasier and count how many British actors appear on it, and you can see why they did, it has a unique British feel to it.
@@johnking5174 - good point. As a Brit I've seen Frasier as typically American (on the rare occasions we see it) - but you are right. It is more character-based than others.
Yeah, it's typical of US sitcoms then to just be a succession of jokes, with no attempt to play anything for real. Also they wouldn't dare have pauses, for fear of audiences switching channels or an ad break coming on. Red Dwarf has some great moments of drama in what is primarily a comedy.
@@johnking5174 Frasier is one of my all-time favourite sitcoms, and while it does have some British influence on it, and some more high brow elements in general, it still is fundamentally American in style. There are love interests coming and going, quips/zingers, guest spots galore, the characters are generally likable and there's usually a happy ending.
14 writers on Red Dwarf USA = utter crap and did not work. 2 writers on the original Red Dwarf here in the UK = total excellence and utterly brilliant, wonderfully funny. Enough said.
+josiahscurlock Except this is how a lot of well-loved and popular American comedy gets made. The Simpsons was written by a team of writers. One writer pitches the basic concept and the rest construct the nitty gritty, the scenes and the gags. So it can work but it's a style that jars with English comedy like RD and the way we expect that to be.
I met him at a convention a few years back he's a really nice guy. Took the time to talk to me and my brother for 30-40 minutes . A really down to earth guy.
The Yanks did a remake of the IT crowd too - word for word basically, but again, missed the point entirely. real Moz was there, but Roy was played by a guy who was just too good looking. Same with Men Behaving Badly. U.S. ideas about "dingy", simply aren't the same as the U.K.s. The U.S. version they lived in a large apartment etc...
I'm Irish but for me the three best comedy shows of all time are Red Dwarf, Only Fools and Blackadder. British comedy was always by far and away the funniest but over the last few years the comedy out of the beeb has been poor.
I’ve never heard of Only Fools but I wholeheartedly agree with the other two. A couple of more recent shows I’ve enjoyed are Upstart Crow which is about the everyday life of William Shakespeare and Moone Boy which is about an eccentric Irish family.
A similar situation happened with The Young Ones. Although this was a few years after the British series ended. MTV filmed a US pilot, and for some reason hired Nigel Planer to be Neal in it, even though it was set in an American student house. It was so awful that Planer was terrified it'd be picked up, as he'd signed a seven season contract! Luckily it was never even broadcast.
Red Dwarf has always meant a lot to me, i can't sleep without a bit of noise - too many thoughts running through my head - Red Dwarf is a kind of security blanket for me - put it on and feel a bit safer
I used to do that as a teen, recorded off the TV on my VHS player. My mum used to come into my room and turn my TV off after I'd fallen asleep. Nowadays either use BBC iPlayer to fall asleep to red dwarf or I fall asleep to the sitcom Scrubs.
Robert Llewellyn and Hattie Hayridge seem like two of the nicest, most pleasent people in the television industry (if you haven't seen it, do go and watch the episode of Carpool they do together, it's quite wonderful)
Robert is a very kind, sweet man, all the cast are nice, maybe Chris Barrie is a little bit more reserved than the others. Hattie just has wonderful energy on screen.
@Stefano Pavone I've met Norman Lovett, he's a funny, charming guy. And just as deadpan in real life. Also told me he gets pissed off when people tell him the other Holly was rubbish, as Hattie is a mate of his, and he thinks she did an excellent job, as her's is a completely diff character to his.
Because original Red Dwarf looks cheap? The first two series have very lo fi effects and sets etc. It's the characters and writing that pulls it through.
@@thursoberwick1948 A) that's its charm B) Exactly. Characters and writing. As soon as the production values are "non-BBC'd", it turns to crap (series 7 onwards).
if the american one lasted they'd do 28 episodes a year and it would go for 10 years... I'm saying this as a Canadian, lots of shows in the USA just go to quantity over quality.
@@gooseygoose604 I'm an American and I entirely agree. Sadly our entertainment industry is driven by profit rather than quality. A television show only stays in production here as long as the ratings are high enough...in other words, the show is profitable. Once they decline, the final curtain goes down.
Pining after Kochanski.....that was a core essential part of the Lister charachter. Its like starting your movie off with Don Quixote taking Aldonza to the drive-thru. How many episodes in the first few seasons revolved around him just trying to ask her out?
British Red Dwarf was magic. You don't fuck with sorcery and expect anything less than disaster. I do like hearing these guys talk about how terrible the US version is, though.
I do feel that Robert and Chris were misled into believing they had to sign a 6 year contract for the American version. Am I wrong, but I don't think NBC would force them to sign that type of deal. Did the Big Bang Theory guys ever have to sign such a contract with CBS?
It's really interesting to see Doug Naylor's comments and analysis of why the script didn't work. Shows how much he really cares about his craft and why the original Red Dwarf was such a success
The reason why RD USA failed was because they tried to copy the jokes word for word. Had they of incorporated American humor into it they may of had more success. Take the US version of the Office for example, that was a success precisely because they adapted the comedy to suit the audience.
Astuteious The Office USA is so bad. I could not watch it. USA do their own stuff well Brooklyn Nine Nine but mostly cock up everything else Inbetweeners, The Killing etc etc.
The "remake" of The Office was a completely different show, with similar main characters. The British original was written with a story arc that began and ended with a finite number of episodes. The American version was designed to last as long as the viewing public would tolerate it. They're entirely different shows.
SuperPorchswing Well I tolerated about 4 episodes. It was awful and once again missing the whole point. David Brent was designed to be a bit of a loser but I did see that in the Michael Scott character.
Amazing to think 14 writers were employed to work on the Red Dwarf pilot, which in running time for NBC would amount to 22 to 23 minutes of content. In the original version, only Rob and Doug wrote the episodes, for a run time of 29 minutes of content per episode. Says everything doesn't it?
If the Americans can successfully reproduce a UK programme, then good. But Red Dwarf was just so original, and unique, it just can't be replaced. Not even another UK team can reproduce it.
Not joking, I don't know how I haven't stumbled across this before, but I honestly thought this was some sort of odd parody at first? Glad we ended up with only the one definitive version.
Typical American way of making their own version: Have 6,000 writers do what originally took maybe 2-3, use actors that look like models, carefully calculate which demographics will react to it in a particular way, and basically make a mess of it all. It's a miracle they managed to turn the Office into something that's arguably better than the original - at least for a while. "You're so negative, just think of one-liners" - Basically, American producers seem to have very little respect or regard for the original source material. They just want to grab the rights before someone else does it. Sort of exactly what Disney did with Star Wars. "Lots of men in suits doing real fake laughing": Sounds like corporate America to me. Lots of overpaid morons in expensive suits.
I belive NBC.. thought any shit wannabe writers could do with in turn makes me think who was responsible for not understand the series - maybe someone had heard it was terrfic show for "kids" from someone lower in the foodchain or they did this purposely at NBC since it was about to sever the connetion to BBC.
No, they needed a writing staff because they would have done 22-24 episodes per season had it been picked up, and all the writers would have been involved in the pilot to get a feel for the characters. The Simpsons, Frasier, The Office, Cheers... they all do it this way, and they've all been really successful with it. You wouldn't have asked Rob and Doug to write that many episodes themselves, and over here they wouldn't usually do more than six or seven a year of Only Fools, or Porridge, or Father Ted or whatever.
8:04 Yeah, Jane Leeves' hair was wrong for Holly. But at least Jane looked better as Daphne Moon in Frasier. In fact I would like to point out that this Dwarfing USA documentary is how I first became a fan of Frasier.
I view the first American Pilot Episode as an alternate RED DWARF reality in the space time continuum... ua-cam.com/video/TcoycQSHSb4/v-deo.html ...when I don't have time to binge watch the entire original series, I watch the first American Pilot. I think it's hilarious and stands on it's own with a great cliff hanger ending.
I didn't even know that Robert Llewellyn's natural accent was english. I just assumed that his natural accent was American, just like his character Kryten.
I'll admit some of the Americanized jokes work, like Lister.USA's baseball cards being worth a fortune after 3 million years, versus Lister's library book. That joke also underlines the difference in American and British perspectives, with British worried about debt versus Americans hopeful for success.
The show premiered on April 5, 1987 as the very first program ever shown by the brand new FOX Network, and along with The Tracey Ullman Show was one of the network's few hits before The Simpsons turned the network into a major player. It was a constant ratings success until it ended in June of 1997; it's still Fox's longest-running live-action sitcom. This is the show in which Christina Applegate and Katey Sagal got their starts.
America makes good quiz shows which everyone copys but are fast to drop anything that isn't a instant hit which some shows take time to develop-Red Dwarf,Faulty Towers all had low ratings but were given time to grow. They should just show the uk shows and not assume us viewers only want us made shows.
The only funny thing about the US show is hearing about how much of a disaster it was trying to take what was good from the original series and try and 'copy' the success without putting really collaborative effort in with the original creators. Even more funny is that that the people behind the US version probably didn't learn anything from this experience.
This is not my red dwarf , red dwarf was red dwarf because of it being British the cast the comedy British red dwarf is well obviously the one and only red dwarf the original the og im British so it really smegs me off to see an American version
I'm kind of on the fence when it comes to Hinton Battle's portrayal of the Cat. I thought Hinton was very good. However, while Danny played him as a self--absorbed, and shallow prima donna, for laughs, the Hinton clips I saw appear to show the Cat as manipulative sociopath. I really found the Hinton's Cat to be kind of scary.
I never saw the American version (if there even was one); in my opinion, seeing a number of the British version episodes (but by no means all) & comparing those with the American pilot, I much prefer the British version. The British certainly have a way with humor!
Robert Llewelyn was the only decent thing in the USA version. The problem is - Red Dwarf is fundamentally British, as is its humour! It could have translated into the USA and Americans can and do enjoy the proper Red Dwarf - but it didn’t.
No offence to you ma’am but that is one video I wish I hadn’t stumbled upon. I had heard that red dwarf USA was bad but I didn’t know how bad until now.
Well, the Office and Shameless translated really well, IMO. If Red Dwarf was a US cable show, it might've done better. When you translate for US broadcast networks, they try to play on the safe side with too-good-looking actors and VERY broad humor. UK-Red Dwarf was willing to be a little more risky. At the very least, they should've let Jane Leeves stick with her British accent; it TOTALLY would've worked.
I've been to hundreds,thousands probably of UA-cam videos, can I ask a question of the group ? Who are these people who dislike the videos ? I mean really, Who are they ? Who goes to a video knowing they don't want to watch it ? If you don't want to see it, go see another video, it's like you're stuck for choice.
+Serioussmile51 There's always a handful, hey? I was just wondering this the other day.. It might be one of those vids that there is absolutely NO reason to dislike, but a bunch of people have taken the time to do it. O_o Maybe it's an o.c.d. thing? I mean how many vids have you seen with no dislikes? "This isn't right," they say. "I'll just fix this up.."
Haamurabai Greygate I'm just really confused by it. The logic they must be using must follow this pattern "It hurts when I head butt the table. But I'll keep doing it, because it feels good when I stop."
+Serioussmile51 I think they are mistakes . like with those crappy keyboards with the built in track pad that clicks when you really want to move it. Exactly what i'm typing with now...
+Serioussmile51 I don't think they're going to a video thinking they won't like it but there's something in that video that irritates them enough that only a downvote will satisfy them, even if it defies yours and my comprehension (ala maybe it's too british, too much talking, not enough terry farrell as cat = dumb shit like this). then again autoplay feature might link unsuspecting viewers here. i got sent to some dude's mario LP just because i was listening to mario music and his fucking voice made me hit the downvote
Doug Naylor - "It was just wrong for Lister's character actually to be chasing someone so uptight and kind of dislikeable." OK, so why then did he make that the central premise of series 7?
I can't understand why i didn't work?? we had the 14.75 jokes per 20 mins, we had 23.5% better looking leading man, We had 20.5% original cast and 50.275% type casting?????????? All we did is remove all the things that didn't fit into the "what had worked before"
9:23 perfectly explains the difference between English and American mainstream approaches to writing comedy, and why this whole thing went south faster than Trump's pants on a business trip to Thailand.
To be fair the BBC were involved in the 1996 Doctor Who revival, so they were part responsible for the failure. Torchwood for three seasons stayed in the UK, then in Season 4 it decamped to the US and ruined all warmth and tone. We maybe similar in many ways, but television divides us 100%.
That depends on your point of view that one. I personally loved it! Still do. It proved to people here in the UK there was an appetite for new Dr Who. The ratings may have tanked Stateside but here they skyrocketed! At the time the BBC were certainly not sure about making it at all again until that reaction happened. Sure it has it's problems but the good outweigh's the bad. It's certainly part of the canon to this day. This has never been any attempt to pretend the '96 movie "never happened".
One of the contrasts that helps explain why the US pilot failed is the scene of Lister re-awakened from stasis. In the UK version, he struggles to accept that everyone is dead. In the US version, it's just another situation for a joke. The UK shows Lister as a believable person, the US has him as an awkward joke delivery machine.
US sitcoms tend to go for the joke "one liners" and not character development. Sitcoms in the US which do character development like Frasier you will notice have a very British feel to them. Just watch Frasier and count how many British actors appear on it, and you can see why they did, it has a unique British feel to it.
@@johnking5174 - good point. As a Brit I've seen Frasier as typically American (on the rare occasions we see it) - but you are right. It is more character-based than others.
Yeah, it's typical of US sitcoms then to just be a succession of jokes, with no attempt to play anything for real. Also they wouldn't dare have pauses, for fear of audiences switching channels or an ad break coming on. Red Dwarf has some great moments of drama in what is primarily a comedy.
Lister being unable to grasp that everyone was dead WAS the joke in the UK version.
@@johnking5174 Frasier is one of my all-time favourite sitcoms, and while it does have some British influence on it, and some more high brow elements in general, it still is fundamentally American in style. There are love interests coming and going, quips/zingers, guest spots galore, the characters are generally likable and there's usually a happy ending.
14 writers on Red Dwarf USA = utter crap and did not work. 2 writers on the original Red Dwarf here in the UK = total excellence and utterly brilliant, wonderfully funny. Enough said.
Quite right. Fuck comedy made by committee.
+josiahscurlock Except this is how a lot of well-loved and popular American comedy gets made. The Simpsons was written by a team of writers. One writer pitches the basic concept and the rest construct the nitty gritty, the scenes and the gags. So it can work but it's a style that jars with English comedy like RD and the way we expect that to be.
14 writters?
Thats what Doug Naylor said they had
The definition of the term 'too many cooks...'
Is it just me or is Robert Llewellyn possibly the nicest, happiest, most well adjusted TV star on the planet?
I met him at a convention a few years back he's a really nice guy. Took the time to talk to me and my brother for 30-40 minutes . A really down to earth guy.
+Buffoon1980 Danny & Hattie are pretty cool as well I met them in 2014, they gave me a good 20 min or so when they had a semi hectic day at MCM
aTiefling Ha, good to know. That must have been awesome.
12:26 He is brilliant.
He is. I've met him a few times over the course of 20 or so years and is always friendly to fans.
Damn, that US pilot is wretched.
To be fair, if we made a British version of The Big Bang Theory it probably wouldn't work either.
... that's why we made The IT Crowd instead.
Stephen Higgins IT Crowd is so much better than Big Bang.
To be fair, the American version of the Big Bang Theory is absolute shit.
The Yanks did a remake of the IT crowd too - word for word basically, but again, missed the point entirely.
real Moz was there, but Roy was played by a guy who was just too good looking.
Same with Men Behaving Badly. U.S. ideas about "dingy", simply aren't the same as the U.K.s.
The U.S. version they lived in a large apartment etc...
@@nickfifteen It's a show about geeks aimed at the non-geek.
@@nickfifteen lol...yes it is
"The guy that played me was really good, that's what pissed me off!" XD I love Craig.
I'm Irish but for me the three best comedy shows of all time are Red Dwarf, Only Fools and Blackadder. British comedy was always by far and away the funniest but over the last few years the comedy out of the beeb has been poor.
Mick Doyle- Im American, and completely AGREE!
I’ve never heard of Only Fools but I wholeheartedly agree with the other two. A couple of more recent shows I’ve enjoyed are Upstart Crow which is about the everyday life of William Shakespeare and Moone Boy which is about an eccentric Irish family.
these are stil my favourite shows too. Wish there would be stuff as good as them being made today
Ah come on now what about Father Ted.
Father Ted is very good.
Upstart Crow has done well, and had former Blackadder writer Ben Elton involved...
A similar situation happened with The Young Ones. Although this was a few years after the British series ended. MTV filmed a US pilot, and for some reason hired Nigel Planer to be Neal in it, even though it was set in an American student house. It was so awful that Planer was terrified it'd be picked up, as he'd signed a seven season contract! Luckily it was never even broadcast.
Every time Robert Llewellyn says something, he just bursts out laughing! He's a legend!
Robert Llewellyn looks a lot like Simon Pegg in the thumbnail for this.
PassiveSmoking if you’re blind
It looks exactly like him!
Oh absolutely.
Yeah I did a double take too
I keep thinking Robert Llewellyn is Stuart Ashens Dad. They have a similar manner.
Red Dwarf has always meant a lot to me, i can't sleep without a bit of noise - too many thoughts running through my head - Red Dwarf is a kind of security blanket for me - put it on and feel a bit safer
I've had red dwarf on every night since before lockdown to fall asleep to, one day I'll have a red dwarf dream 😅
I used to do that as a teen, recorded off the TV on my VHS player. My mum used to come into my room and turn my TV off after I'd fallen asleep. Nowadays either use BBC iPlayer to fall asleep to red dwarf or I fall asleep to the sitcom Scrubs.
Love love love the Boys from the Dwarf... Celebrating Chris Barrie all week in honor of it being his birthday on Sunday!
The most Hilarious thing about the Red Dwarf USA was how much all the UK cast and creators slag it off
Because it's shit!
Robert Llewellyn and Hattie Hayridge seem like two of the nicest, most pleasent people in the television industry (if you haven't seen it, do go and watch the episode of Carpool they do together, it's quite wonderful)
Robert is a very kind, sweet man, all the cast are nice, maybe Chris Barrie is a little bit more reserved than the others. Hattie just has wonderful energy on screen.
@Stefano Pavone I've met Norman Lovett, he's a funny, charming guy. And just as deadpan in real life. Also told me he gets pissed off when people tell him the other Holly was rubbish, as Hattie is a mate of his, and he thinks she did an excellent job, as her's is a completely diff character to his.
@davidjames579 the dvd extra for season 3 seems to debate the fact that norm used to fully accused hattie for stealing his act tho
......
Hearing their opinion on the second reading was utterly brutal! Would have love to have been a fly on the wall for this utter car crash.
Kryten' s book goes into a lot of detail about this whole period, it's very funny
I feel so sorry for anyone who saw the USA version live :(
ikr they really fucked it up like always
No one did, it was a laugh track played too much
That fire exit line was hilarious 😅
Craig Bierko turned down Joey from Friends? Wow. I wish I could peek into that timeline.
Why did they do this? Why not just watch Red Dwarf?
ApriliaRSV4F because Americans always think they can do it better. Typical American arrogance
Money
As an American, I can agree, but it’s not just arrogance. It’s also the nationalism. Most refuse to watch British shows.
Because original Red Dwarf looks cheap? The first two series have very lo fi effects and sets etc. It's the characters and writing that pulls it through.
@@thursoberwick1948 A) that's its charm
B) Exactly. Characters and writing. As soon as the production values are "non-BBC'd", it turns to crap (series 7 onwards).
It's interesting seeing how the english team focused on story while the american writers just focus on jokes
DarMar106 a good story makes it's own jokes.
Jokes? What jokes?
if the american one lasted they'd do 28 episodes a year and it would go for 10 years...
I'm saying this as a Canadian, lots of shows in the USA just go to quantity over quality.
@@gooseygoose604 I'm an American and I entirely agree. Sadly our entertainment industry is driven by profit rather than quality. A television show only stays in production here as long as the ratings are high enough...in other words, the show is profitable. Once they decline, the final curtain goes down.
and money, this is why Seinfeld was such a revolution to them it went against the studio crap
Pining after Kochanski.....that was a core essential part of the Lister charachter. Its like starting your movie off with Don Quixote taking Aldonza to the drive-thru. How many episodes in the first few seasons revolved around him just trying to ask her out?
12:25 Someone needs to isolate that laugh for a forum weapon.
O.o; powerful stuff!
British Red Dwarf was magic. You don't fuck with sorcery and expect anything less than disaster. I do like hearing these guys talk about how terrible the US version is, though.
smecking What do you mean was? Still is
You know what they say, if you can't make it right, don't make it.
smecking yup same thing with the inbetweners
As an American................ British Red Dwarf is just amazing
I do feel that Robert and Chris were misled into believing they had to sign a 6 year contract for the American version. Am I wrong, but I don't think NBC would force them to sign that type of deal. Did the Big Bang Theory guys ever have to sign such a contract with CBS?
@Gabe Larsen - bless you Gabe, and there are so many truly excellent US shows too - MASH was only one, back in the day.
From an American fan. Thank God they went the current way with the show!
It's really interesting to see Doug Naylor's comments and analysis of why the script didn't work. Shows how much he really cares about his craft and why the original Red Dwarf was such a success
A couple of those gags are quite good. The baseball cards one in particular.
Kryten’s eyes landing in the tea (coffee?)
It's very notable how Robert can't say anything at all about the experience of actually being on set for this.
He talks more about it in his autobiography, The Man In The Rubber Mask. Well worth a read (or a listen to the audiobook)!
Pretty refreshing to see a making of where they fully acknowledge that something didn't work
The reason why RD USA failed was because they tried to copy the jokes word for word. Had they of incorporated American humor into it they may of had more success. Take the US version of the Office for example, that was a success precisely because they adapted the comedy to suit the audience.
***** only when it's british humour performed by americans.
***** it's not like british humour by itself is always funny. there's loads of shows in england that are just as shit as american shows.
Astuteious The Office USA is so bad. I could not watch it. USA do their own stuff well Brooklyn Nine Nine but mostly cock up everything else Inbetweeners, The Killing etc etc.
The "remake" of The Office was a completely different show, with similar main characters. The British original was written with a story arc that began and ended with a finite number of episodes. The American version was designed to last as long as the viewing public would tolerate it. They're entirely different shows.
SuperPorchswing Well I tolerated about 4 episodes. It was awful and once again missing the whole point. David Brent was designed to be a bit of a loser but I did see that in the Michael Scott character.
Amazing to think 14 writers were employed to work on the Red Dwarf pilot, which in running time for NBC would amount to 22 to 23 minutes of content. In the original version, only Rob and Doug wrote the episodes, for a run time of 29 minutes of content per episode. Says everything doesn't it?
Red Dwarf
The IT Crowd
Doctor Who
Sherlock
Fawlty Towers
America... STOP TRYING TO FIX WHAT'S NOT BROKEN!
But Sherlock is awful though, it's an over edited awfully written slog.
horrible mistake insult to the british original
If the Americans can successfully reproduce a UK programme, then good.
But Red Dwarf was just so original, and unique, it just can't be replaced.
Not even another UK team can reproduce it.
12:20 - Those men in suits are probably the same NBC executives who laugh at Jay Leno jokes when he started on the Tonight Show in 1992.
Robert Llewellyn is brilliant and funny as hell.
I won’t lie some of the American jokes made me laugh.
The two women in these work better than the male casting. Except Robert Llewellyn perhaps.
Lone Starr from "Spaceballs" is an American Lister.
Not joking, I don't know how I haven't stumbled across this before, but I honestly thought this was some sort of odd parody at first? Glad we ended up with only the one definitive version.
I thought it was leaked CIA footage of what they use to torture Guantanamo Bay prisoners with.
Hinton Battle: The singing demon from Buffy.
They used the triplicator to copy Red Dwarf and the American version is the shit version and the British one is the excellent version..
"You don't need to be pug ugly to be funny." LoL.
This US pilot is a trainwreck. But that fire exit one-liner at 14:00 made me giggle like a banshee.
Rob looks like and even sounds like Simon Pegg....albeit an older version
You can't beat the original.
Great documentary
0:11 WHERE ARE MY NIGHT COURT TAPES
I must admit...that female Cat (not showing in this video)...daaaang. Also, the intro music gives me strong StarCraft vibes
"There must be a store" :D brilliant
Typical American way of making their own version: Have 6,000 writers do what originally took maybe 2-3, use actors that look like models, carefully calculate which demographics will react to it in a particular way, and basically make a mess of it all. It's a miracle they managed to turn the Office into something that's arguably better than the original - at least for a while.
"You're so negative, just think of one-liners" - Basically, American producers seem to have very little respect or regard for the original source material. They just want to grab the rights before someone else does it. Sort of exactly what Disney did with Star Wars.
"Lots of men in suits doing real fake laughing": Sounds like corporate America to me. Lots of overpaid morons in expensive suits.
They really needed 14 writers to basically copy half the jokes from the original series?
I belive NBC.. thought any shit wannabe writers could do with in turn makes me think who was responsible for not understand the series - maybe someone had heard it was terrfic show for "kids" from someone lower in the foodchain or they did this purposely at NBC since it was about to sever the connetion to BBC.
No, they needed a writing staff because they would have done 22-24 episodes per season had it been picked up, and all the writers would have been involved in the pilot to get a feel for the characters. The Simpsons, Frasier, The Office, Cheers... they all do it this way, and they've all been really successful with it. You wouldn't have asked Rob and Doug to write that many episodes themselves, and over here they wouldn't usually do more than six or seven a year of Only Fools, or Porridge, or Father Ted or whatever.
@@SlowMotionAtomicBomb so they went for quantity over quality and it fucked them.
@@SlowMotionAtomicBomb Speaking of which, can you imagine what they would have done with an american Father Ted? Prob keeping Ardal O'Hanlon!
That's American sitcoms for you. And all they thought they needed were one liners after one liners.
The Red Dwarf USA theme is catchy, but I prefer the UK theme. BTW, the Kryten costume is a lot slimmer in this version.
12:59 A perfect script, sir, with only one minor drawback...
8:04 Yeah, Jane Leeves' hair was wrong for Holly. But at least Jane looked better as Daphne Moon in Frasier. In fact I would like to point out that this Dwarfing USA documentary is how I first became a fan of Frasier.
I view the first American Pilot Episode as an alternate RED DWARF reality in the space time continuum...
ua-cam.com/video/TcoycQSHSb4/v-deo.html
...when I don't have time to binge watch the entire original series, I watch the first American Pilot.
I think it's hilarious and stands on it's own with a great cliff hanger ending.
SOME mistakes?! There was only one mistake - creation of US version.
I've actually never seen this pilot, only the one with Terry Farrell, (from Deeps Space nine and Becker) as Cat.
I didn't even know that Robert Llewellyn's natural accent was english. I just assumed that his natural accent was American, just like his character Kryten.
Kryten's accent is Canadian acc. to RL.
The first US pilot had some great gags, but as a whole it just wasn't as funny or endearing or, dare I say, human as the original
It's not completely bad. The only thing wrong is the casting. The story and setting is okay.
I'll admit some of the Americanized jokes work, like Lister.USA's baseball cards being worth a fortune after 3 million years, versus Lister's library book. That joke also underlines the difference in American and British perspectives, with British worried about debt versus Americans hopeful for success.
I always thought Kryten sounded more Canadian than American?
He got inspiration from Herman Munster
The show premiered on April 5, 1987 as the very first program ever shown by the brand new FOX Network, and along with The Tracey Ullman Show was one of the network's few hits before The Simpsons turned the network into a major player. It was a constant ratings success until it ended in June of 1997; it's still Fox's longest-running live-action sitcom. This is the show in which Christina Applegate and Katey Sagal got their starts.
I think you're in the wrong place. "Married with Children" is down the hall to the right.
Katy Segal was in Simpsons as well as futurama?
This wasnt even 1% of the original cast.. they are THE PERFECT cast
'like a band aid over the cancer' must remember that one for work......
The producer Doug is talking about at the start is Linwood Boomer. The same guy who went on to do Malcolm in the Middle.
At what point, I wonder, did the US directors say "Oh god, the Brits were right".
America makes good quiz shows which everyone copys but are fast to drop anything that isn't a instant hit which some shows take time to develop-Red Dwarf,Faulty Towers all had low ratings but were given time to grow. They should just show the uk shows and not assume us viewers only want us made shows.
How did they make Kryten, performed by the same actor, look different?
krtyens outfit and face looks crappier too :(
The only funny thing about the US show is hearing about how much of a disaster it was trying to take what was good from the original series and try and 'copy' the success without putting really collaborative effort in with the original creators. Even more funny is that that the people behind the US version probably didn't learn anything from this experience.
I didn't even know they had done a pilot. Glad it didn't take off
Absolutely love Red Dwarf ,thank god I’ve never seen this shite though
Now I want Robert Llewellyn fake laughter impersonation as a ring tone...
@Sou1defiler - it can be done - just download this video, strip the audio out, and edit it down to a ringtone for your 'phone!
Ima try that, it will scare the bejesus out of my co workers. Wish I could put it on my work phone/s...
red dwarf is good british comedy
in other words... Americans always fail at replicating iconic British TV programs
Whas that daphny from frasier i spotted?
Yes it was, she appeared in both pilots, and later went on to huge success on Frasier, which was also made by NBC.
Didn't even know there WAS an American version. Won't be going out of my way to find it !! 🙁
It's on UA-cam apparently
This is not my red dwarf , red dwarf was red dwarf because of it being British the cast the comedy British red dwarf is well obviously the one and only red dwarf the original the og im British so it really smegs me off to see an American version
I'm kind of on the fence when it comes to Hinton Battle's portrayal of the Cat. I thought Hinton was very good. However, while Danny played him as a self--absorbed, and shallow prima donna, for laughs, the Hinton clips I saw appear to show the Cat as manipulative sociopath. I really found the Hinton's Cat to be kind of scary.
I never saw the American version (if there even was one); in my opinion, seeing a number of the British version episodes (but by no means all) & comparing those with the American pilot, I much prefer the British version. The British certainly have a way with humor!
Original BBC Red Dwarf is hilariously genius. US Red Dwarf is hilariously shit ...smeg-heads!
Cheers mates
That initial music is interesting, anyway.
I couldn't agree more
Robert Llewelyn was the only decent thing in the USA version. The problem is - Red Dwarf is fundamentally British, as is its humour! It could have translated into the USA and Americans can and do enjoy the proper Red Dwarf - but it didn’t.
Wasn't Captain Tau the captain of the ship that blew up stars for a Coke Ad in one of the books?
Why. Why remake something that is already awesome. Why now just air it there?
No offence to you ma’am but that is one video I wish I hadn’t stumbled upon. I had heard that red dwarf USA was bad but I didn’t know how bad until now.
Well, the Office and Shameless translated really well, IMO. If Red Dwarf was a US cable show, it might've done better. When you translate for US broadcast networks, they try to play on the safe side with too-good-looking actors and VERY broad humor. UK-Red Dwarf was willing to be a little more risky. At the very least, they should've let Jane Leeves stick with her British accent; it TOTALLY would've worked.
Some thing shouldn't be re-made.
I've been to hundreds,thousands probably of UA-cam videos, can I ask a question of the group ? Who are these people who dislike the videos ? I mean really, Who are they ? Who goes to a video knowing they don't want to watch it ? If you don't want to see it, go see another video, it's like you're stuck for choice.
+Serioussmile51 There's always a handful, hey? I was just wondering this the other day.. It might be one of those vids that there is absolutely NO reason to dislike, but a bunch of people have taken the time to do it. O_o Maybe it's an o.c.d. thing? I mean how many vids have you seen with no dislikes? "This isn't right," they say. "I'll just fix this up.."
Haamurabai Greygate I'm just really confused by it. The logic they must be using must follow this pattern "It hurts when I head butt the table. But I'll keep doing it, because it feels good when I stop."
+Serioussmile51 I think they are mistakes . like with those crappy keyboards with the built in track pad that clicks when you really want to move it. Exactly what i'm typing with now...
+Serioussmile51 I don't think they're going to a video thinking they won't like it but there's something in that video that irritates them enough that only a downvote will satisfy them, even if it defies yours and my comprehension (ala maybe it's too british, too much talking, not enough terry farrell as cat = dumb shit like this). then again autoplay feature might link unsuspecting viewers here. i got sent to some dude's mario LP just because i was listening to mario music and his fucking voice made me hit the downvote
sumbuddyx But if you end up on a video you don't like just leave the video. Just click the back page arrow in the top left corner.
why is there a doc about cancelled show?
I’ll be honest, I don’t think it’s that bad. Yes it’s very American but it’s sorta quite funny.
Sounds like the series “Episodes”!
that intro is not even anything as good as the UK intro and theme.
IMO the theme doesn't start off too badly, then it just goes completely off the rails and becomes a mangled synth-y mess
It could've worked with Baluchi, the same holly and replacing the cat and rimmer.. They did replace cat though
14:02 one of the very few moments that the American pilot was on par with the original British version
Doug Naylor -
"It was just wrong for Lister's character actually to be chasing someone so uptight and kind of dislikeable."
OK, so why then did he make that the central premise of series 7?
Alright, "Ace". How about getting the smeggin' ASPECT RATIO right, or is that outside your job description?
I can't understand why i didn't work?? we had the 14.75 jokes per 20 mins, we had 23.5% better looking leading man, We had 20.5% original cast and 50.275% type casting?????????? All we did is remove all the things that didn't fit into the "what had worked before"
@Bruce Pulver - and we consulted every single suit that we had!
9:23 perfectly explains the difference between English and American mainstream approaches to writing comedy, and why this whole thing went south faster than Trump's pants on a business trip to Thailand.
Also it must be remembered that we Americans tried to do a revival of Doctor Who and ended up killing the series for another 10 years.
To be fair the BBC were involved in the 1996 Doctor Who revival, so they were part responsible for the failure. Torchwood for three seasons stayed in the UK, then in Season 4 it decamped to the US and ruined all warmth and tone. We maybe similar in many ways, but television divides us 100%.
That depends on your point of view that one. I personally loved it! Still do. It proved to people here in the UK there was an appetite for new Dr Who. The ratings may have tanked Stateside but here they skyrocketed! At the time the BBC were certainly not sure about making it at all again until that reaction happened. Sure it has it's problems but the good outweigh's the bad. It's certainly part of the canon to this day. This has never been any attempt to pretend the '96 movie "never happened".
Dr Who was and it is still bollocks
It isn't