Replying to arrow valley Daniel Craig said it best in some clip back in the day, that they turned Lister from a space bum into a six foot plus pretty boy which was completely wrong for the character
I don't even hate a lot of post-series 6 Dwarf. The Dave era has a couple of episodes that made me laugh. But it just didn't have the same comedic genius. The balance of Grant and Naylor is pretty necessary, I think Naylor trends towards the more grim when left unattended (series 7 and 8 are... kinda bleak)
@@michaelinlofi For me the low point was series 7. They made some truly baffling decisions, despite a few good moments. I feel like series 8 was a course correction on a lot of those issues, along with some nice touches (Lister and Rimmer sharing bunks again, which should have been capitalised on), but like you say the comedic genius was gone.
And then there's the whitewashing involved too. Craig Charles was pretty miffed about that too - apparently he took to calling the American attempts White Dwarf
Funnily enough the actor that played Lister in UK Dwarf was a published poet by the age of 15, we covered him at school even though my year were only a few years younger. You can hear his working class word play and prose in his delivery from time to time, it's that that sets his character apart in the show from the professional actors that play every other role. UK comedy has ever since been making a lot of crap comedies based around giving comedians their own shows but none have really taken off despite the promotion, over promotion of them.
That was cool of him. I dunno why, but Craig Bierko is an actor I like and hoped would see greater success, but I think he's just destined for supporting roles and failed pilots It's like, watching Craig Bierko always makes me feel wistful
Howdo stratqualacc. As an Australian fan of likewise, I still reckon it might possibly have worked, eh. Like, say, if Lister was more like "Iggy" from 'Taxi'. And kept Hinton Battle as The Cat (I reckon he could've worked it out). And if they had more characterisation and less 'gags'. And had a more upbeat Theme Tune - like Series 3 onwards. Nice to see a female Holly from the start tho! It's nice to know that Red Dwarf still lives on!!! "He's a Smeee-" "Nearly, come on, nearly..!"
Making Lister a suave charmer misses tge whole point, because it ruins all the humor that stemmed from the contrast between Lister and overzelaous, uptight Rimmer.
US Network: We love your show, we want to bring that same spirit and sense of humor to the US. US Network in production: We don't want that humor on our versions.
Hee hee - "Dumb them down"... you mean "Americanize" them. I reckon Sanford and Son was probably the closest 'they' ever got to almost resembling The Original. Even "All In The Family" was a complete lightweight compared to "Til Death Us Do Part". It's sad the Yanks can never really take the piss out of themselves. But hey, if I was in Ah-Merikah, I'd vote for Trump! (Wait, who said I was being 'Off Topic'?!?)
@@kieronpratt3174 All of the 'bluddy 'mericans and thems not bein smart, thats fah true' kind of falls out the window when you're talking about a show that didn't sell and never saw the light of day. If Americans were that stupid this would have been a massive success.
Indeed. I loved Man About the House, but could not watch Three's Company. Loved George & Mildred but couldn't watch the Ropers. I'm just glad they never got around to Americanising Robin's Nest. I also enjoyed that show
I seriously didn't get the obsession with "Americanizing" British shows. They are usually perfect the way they are. (The Office being the ONLY one that actually worked.)
Money talks. If something's doing well, people will do their own version of it in an attempt to cash in on it. And to be completely fair this isn't a uniquely American problem, but I think they might have the worst track record for it in terms of quality.
Gotta disagree with the Office. The US version lacked any of the self-aware awkwardness that made the original so endearing. The subtle sideway glances at the obvious camera crew just disappeared. Oh, and 9 series! Shakespeare put it best in Hamlet; "Brevity is the soul of wit"
The “You’ve been on your own for 3 million years?! What have you been doing?”, “I’ve been looking at that fire exit sign over there” line was absolutely killer though. As funny as anything in the British series. Cracked me tf up
The problem with making shows for an american audience is that the network have no idea what an american audience is or what they want. This is also shown with the Office, which became a live version of the Simpsons and not a take on everyday office life.
The American audience has become the lowest common denominator. The vast majority of us stopped watching TV 20+ years ago when the pandering started and the only ones still watching it today are the ones that can be entertained by a ball sitting on a tabletop for 10 hours straight. It's not rocket science, they have that audience pegged and wish they could get the rest of us back. 330 million people, but hit shows only have 1.5 million viewers on air date? Says it all as there aren't very many new shows each season.
"We eventually made it work when we got rid of that awful 'Basil' guy....." Something I remember the American producer actually saying immediately before it got canned!
Instead of Basil whipping his car with a branch when it breaks down, I imagine the US version would have him suing the car for breach of contract. Then much hilarity would ensue.
The US producers seemed to understand that Red Dwarf WAS funny, but not WHY it was funny. Also the UK cast were an incredible lucky find and could not be reproduced. Wondered why they didn't cast Mac McDonald in RDUSA, cap only in it for a minute and he was in Aliens!
American producers, starting around I guess the late 80s or early 90s, really lost the ability to understand what made British sitcoms funny. They kept trying to turn them into American sitcoms, which is a format in which they just don’t work. The conversion seem to work a little better in decades before that. The office is the one recent exception I can think of that everyone can probably think of, but even that was quite a different show.
@FriendlyNeighborhoodNitpicker I've discussed this with Americans before, The Office worked, I think, because the coporate office environment was always a great fit for American culture, it just needed some tweaks to expand it out and it was good to go.
Shameless also transitioned well. Maybe you just gotta change it and fit with USA. Maybe you need that magical transition. I'm sure if we tried to make friends or Frazier we'd make a mess of it.
Anytime they try to IMPORT a UK show to the US - They always GUT the HEART and SOUL out of the show that made it special... The same thing happened with The IT Crowd...
I can see why they might have wanted to do Red Dwarf - it was pretty new amd original, a SciFi comedy like that hadn't really been done before. But the IT Crowd? American shows and movies had been doing the nerd thing since "Revenge of the Nerds" and had been developing that trope ever since. Why did they feel the need to copy a British take on it?
No. Just no. That's like trying to do an American Black Adder. I will kick somebody's ass. Read the books. Even better, listen to Chris Barrie narrate them in some of the best impersonations you've ever heard. Did you know there was even an RPG? Some of my favorite nights were spent watching Red Dwarf on Georgia Public Broadcasting smoking weed with my friends. I LOVE YOU ACE ❤
Captain Hollister is one of the characters with the least screen-time in the whole show until series 8. Not exactly the main character of the entire show like Lister. Besides, that wasn't the point that was being made. The point was that the original 50/50 split in race in the main 4 was completely gone by the second pilot. So yes, it was whitewashed. Having one black woman as a minor character doesn't change that.
There's something fascinating about watching UK television being 'adapted' for America. Like Alice, looking through the mirror to a world almost but not like her own. If you ever get a chance, look up the John Laroquette show 'Payne' from 1999. This was America's last of 3 attempts to translate Fawlty Towers, and of the three, it's the one that actually steers closest to the original in terms of setting, cast of characters and storyline... and yet it still managed to make a few obvious mistakes that naturally led to it being canned after only a handful of episodes, never to see the light of day again.
And the IT Crowd one, and the inbetweeners one. I have zero idea why they remake them, we speak the same language, we didn't remake friends or nowt. Are Americans even self-centred enough to count UK and Australian TV like it's a French import with subtitles, or do they not really care, like the original, and think the studios are as stupid for trying to remake it as we are?
Back in the late 90's when I was doing the Doctor Who and Cult TV conventions, a friend of mine told me about these pilots. He gave me a couple of VHS tapes (oh, the horror!) with them on. I watched them... Once and never again, it's just too painful! I still have those cassettes for some reason. Perhaps I kept them in case I needed to give myself a kick in the tits, metaphorically that is! Absolute bloody tripe! Made worse so as Red Dwarf has been one of my favourite shows since the first episode in 1988. I watched it so often I could quote each episode, line by line, for the first six series. Sad? Yes, completely, but that show got me through some really tough times and I'll always be grateful for that. The Yanks ruin everything that's good about our shows, I'm so glad this never took off!
What in God's name would the point of that be? Are You Being Served relies a lot on cultural things like knowing what Harrod's is, doesn't it? (I haven't seen the show but I am aware of the premise)
@@michaelinlofi well I believe that at the time America probably didn't have a lot of great Sitcoms that were doing good in the ratings so, they scoured the worlds TV channels and came across a red dwarf and saw that it had GREAT ratings, lol
Australia got a version of it and are you being served again was funny, but the days of a full service dept/clothing store are long gone so a lot would need to be changed to even try making a USA version today
I have an unpopular opinion, which is that I think this could have worked if it had been picked up for a series. The thing about the original is that so much of what makes it great comes from the actors they had. As the series went on, the writers tailored the characters more to the strengths of the performers. The big problem with the pilot is that it tries to map the British characters on to the American actors, and it doesn't work. Craig Bierko is likeable and charismatic, but he's not the gross slob Craig Charles created. So make his Lister more of an air-headed slacker. Chris Eigman is never going to be the monster Chris Barrie was, so figure out the strengths of his portrayal and write to them. And so on.
I can see what you mean but i feel they should have tried to do something different from word go if that be the case instead of doing The End but worse. There are hints of something that could have been good for sure. I genuinely think Hinton Battle could have killed it as The Cat
The original series run was absolute written perfection a-la the Best of British Television! I had no idea I watched some of the very first showings on PBS as a kid! Absolutely the Best!
Ive never seen either versiin of Red Dwarf, but i feel like you could so a Find and Replace of this video with “The IT Crowd” and itd still be dead-on.
Rimmer is the absolute worst person in the universe. He’s also by far my favourite character. The actor is next level perfect and I suspect he inspired the writers.
Chris Barrie is incredible. Have you seen his impression of Kenneth Williams and Sean Connery auditioning possible actors for the next James Bond? "My name is Bond. James Bond. Would you like a claret or a bordeaux?"
A similar thing happened with a film about true events secret British military operation during 2nd World War that was kept secret from America and obviously no Americans were involved in any way at all. The film cast naturally an American in the leading role who took on this entire 'exclusive secret British operation' to its completion, not only that after completion and back in the USA, was honoured in an American military parade.
@@erikseidler793 Can't remember exact title but it's a german U boat. What's stunningly memorable is the VHS tape box showed a still image of the lead character all dressed up in white and shiny buttons attending a patriotic American ceremony. For something America never knew about at that time.
Which movie was that? BTW The events which were later filmed as The Great Escape had nothing whatsoever to do with either Americans or motorcycles, but they still felt the need to shoehorn Steve McQueen on a motorbike into the movie
The only people who could have judged RDUS objectively would be people who never saw the UK version. To the rest of us it's too much like they took a classic Beatles album like Revolver, changed the songs a bit, and redid it with different people.
Dirk Gentle, The Office, Hitch Hikers(film, nice design, bastardised story), Three men and a baby(French), Ghost in the shell(Japanese), Alita battle angle(Japanese), Doctor Who(influence rather then remake), The girl with the dragon tattoo (Swedish, Rapace didn’t reprise her role?), Nikita(French). From some UA-cam comments, from Americans themselves, they actually seem to like watching the original foreign series and don’t seem to need it to be Americanised. What is the studio logic? What other series have been ‘adapted’. Has the UK adapted US series? I think in the UK we usually watch foreign series as is.
I think for a US version, just give the freedom to put it on a sister ship to Red Dwarf where the same happened and then you could always do cross promotion or syndicate it to the UK if it was popular. It would give more freedom to the characters, and you could make more comedy from the differences to the UK version and still use all the same sets and models.
I've never seen a US remake that was 2% as good as the UK original, but the idea of remaking Red Dwarf in the US is so incredibly stupid that it can only be explained by the flood of bad drugs in the early 90s entertainment industry.
It's all about money. There are corporate execs who only see something is "popular", so their mind immediately goes to "Can we copy-cat that and make money off of it?" They don't understand _why_ something is popular, similar to how Large Language Models like ChatGPT don't actually _understand_ a story but only predict which words or text chunks are likely to come next based on texts it has been trained on.
@@TF2CrunchyFrog - It's like the episode of South Park where Cartman pretended to be the Awesome-O robot, and he was hijacked by Hollywood executives who harnessed his "AI" to write movie scripts, most of which starred Rob Schneider.
There are a few 'classic' American sitcoms from the late 60's and 70's are actually UK remakes that went well.. at some point past there our general views on what is funny seem to have diverged too far - and to be fair, UK attempts to remake popular US sitcoms have tended to fall equally flat.. although in general we seem to be able to cope with watching the US originals (even if we don't get half the references) while American audiences either can't handle it, or their TV companies don't give them the opportunity to try
@@johnd6487 - Yes, Minister was an EXCELLENT British television comedy. I'm amazed that it was produced by BBC given the sharp criticism of government and bureaucracy.
I never knew they made an American version until now. Thank goodness I didn't after watching this. Seeing this though, I just may re-watch the original.
Would have been interesting. Terry Farrell can definitely be funny if Deep Space Nine is evidence of anything. She should have just never been cast as the Cat in that second pilot
I've seen the pilot many times, & I have to say as a huge American Red Dwarf fan.....I kind of like it!!!! I think it had the feel of Red Dwarf, & the ONLY reason why it didn't do well is because it didn't translate well from the UK to America. It's very tough to Americanize British television because of cultural differences.
Our sense of humour is very two tier - You have sophisticated, and then youve got utter slapstick stupidity. Id opt for the latter. Google "The Young Ones" or "Bottom". Youll have fun, i promise lol
I remembered reading about this in a Starlog magazine or something and then never heard about it again. Small favors. Bierko was underutilized most of his career but totally wrong for this role. Kryten being a mass-produced automaton it makes sense to use the same actor for that.
I actually watched this pilot thanks to a guy that ran a tv station and got his hands on a copy when it was new; as a major Red Dwarf fan, I wanted to pull an E.T. the Atari game on every copy and everyone involved except the one actor who carried over.
One thing we do well in the UK is comedy, enjoy it, dont try to remake it, it wont work. The actors make the characters, thats thats made red dwarf so funny, it doesent work without them.
There are two American pilots for Red Dwarf? Didn't know that. The pilot in this video is the one ive seen and i thought its main problem was the attempt to dump 3 seasons worth of exposition into an episode with nothing in the performances to justify it.
I remember watching a good percentage of this awesome show on a public broadcasting channel in the USA what always surprised me is nearly no edited out cursing no blurring for when characters flipped the bird hell it pretty much was what the home release DVDs, VHS tapes, or Blu-rays I made a thing to catch it whenever it was on sorta like another show that would air on the opposite nights Red Green Show both made a good part of my humor
No, I just got paranoid about boring the audience with using clips from it constantly. I also operated under the assumption that a lot of the audience would have seen the UA-cam copies of the pilot. This is also an odd video in that it came out around the time I was starting to change my approach to UA-cam. I would do this very differently today
I am still amazed the office worked. I think because they quickly transitioned to a very different show and of course Steve Carell was a fantastic actor who played off an amazing ensemble cast.
I thought I imagined this American version until it popped up on youtube 😂 I thought maybe when I was a kid I saw maybe a directors cut or something but no, it's an American version I probably saw once
The USA makers of the American Version of Red Dwarf - I have to wonder if they EVER watched the UK series? Just watching a few episodes would have given them a clue. But they had NO CLUE and the American Version of Red Dwarf Stank to high heavens. When they showed the American pilot version at Sci Fi conventions, there were two responses - 1. People walked out finding it that awful. 2. They sat in disbelief and wondered what idiot made this, then they walked out and told everyone how awful it was.
It's readily available on UA-cam to find, or at least it was at the time of my making this video. Two of my three sources are UA-cam rips of poor quality VHS rips
@@michaelinlofi could have really added entertainment value if you'd put in some demonstrative clips. Would be less dry and cerebral and more practical.
Me and my boss from my old job talked about Red Dwarf one night. He said the show is great, but the humor was a little too British. “Rimmer man, you’re dead. What’s it like?” “Like vacationing with a group of Germans.” What does that even mean?! We did joke about them ever doing an American version of. But we both agreed it would suck. And then this video popped up in my video recommendation…….
The "holiday with Germans" seems to be based on a common image of German tourists being awful people that was around in the 70s and 80s. There's a similar joke in a Monty Python sketch where Eric Idle goes on a 5 minute rant about package tours. Definitely a joke that doesn't quite scan anymore
Red dwarf is by far the most underrated tv show of all time. I could count on one hand how many fans I've met cos it's 0 and i live in England. If i said craig charles to anyone, guarantee they say that guy from coronation street lol. Fun fact- CC was told he had to pick between the soap and red dwarf, he chose red dwarf. Been my #1 show since the first episode i ever watched. Which is a shock i have a favourite, i don't watch tv. I haven't since i was 12. As a teenager i was convinced msm inc tv msm were brainwashing ppl, travel to 2024 now 41, i was 100% correct. Now milllions think the same way. I do watch occasional show on netflix. Traditional uk TV i don't watch. Netflix is ised by kids and one piece. Im a sucker for one piece.
The real irony here is that "Red Dwarf" was already a British version of an American film: the 1974 sci-fi comedy "Dark Star" by John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon. So translating it back again really shouldn't have been as "problematic" as it was.
This is a huge oversimplification and generally wrong. Dark Star was an influence yes (as was Star Trek, Silent Running and Alien) but Red Dwarf was neither a version nor a copy of Dark Star.
@@Sam_Watson__ You should probably tell that to the creators of Red Dwarf, Grant and Naylor, who say they saw Dark Star at a late-night cinema screening, decided it would make a great basis for a series, and that's how Red Dwarf was born. It's in their DVD audio commentary to the show's opening episode, "The End." And the similarities are numerous: * a bunch of bored men on a spaceship (no women) * light-years away from home * crew comprised of ordinary blue-collar workers * unglamorous lived-in sci-fi where space can actually be boring * crew-members who are whiney, childish, petulant, passive-aggressive, and generally unprofessional * a crew-cabin that's more like a squat * a crew member who is "dead" but can still be spoken with * an 'alien' on the ship that one of the crew members brought aboard as a pet * speaking "ship's computer" with a somewhat sarcastic tone * clash of personalities between a crew member who takes the job seriously and a crew member who won't * comedic lack of basic supplies like toilet paper * chatty electronic appliances (albeit toasters and vending machines in Red Dwarf rather than planet-busting bombs) That'll probably do. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find another sci-fi property that ticks all those boxes...
@@Sam_Watson__ You don't seem very interested in what anyone else has to say, not even the authors of the show, so I think I'll pass. Life's too short.
It's interesting that the project began around the end of Series 5, as I must say the segment in Back to Reality where Lister watches the 'replacement' players and sees his other more macho, successful self get Kochanski, almost feels like the Red Dwarf makers envisioning their worst nightmare of what an Americanized Red Dwarf would be like. Which makes it odd that they went along with the project at all, and only seemed to realise their terrible mistake after. My main takeaways when I finally saw the pilot were that I had a bit of a guilty liking for the opening theme, Jane Leeves as Holly and Robert Llewellyn as Kryten were definitely the highlights. But the jokes just felt like crude and cheap digs rather than part of a charming dynamic. Rimmer ends up being a non-entity we barely know before he dies, and certainly lacks the pathos of Chris Barrie's version. It does just feel like the actors here are delivering their given lines rather than truly inhabiting their characters. The Making of itself, actually ends up being a far more interesting story than the pilot. Overall it feels like a relief it did fail and didn't make it to air. It does overall feel like it was always a doomed venture.
The Brits copy USA shows. "The Golden Girls" became "Brighton Belles" and sank like a stone. And the UK version of "Married... With Children" was a dud.
The trouble is translation in general. The Brits and the Yanks have extremely different senses of humour, and removing that from their respective shows kills it. I'd never ever want an English Community or Futurama, for example
I stumbled into Red Dwarf twenty plus years ago on public television. The British somehow have a knack for sci Fi comedy that we don't.I loved this show and have all the episodes on DVD.
It’s a small point but lister being taller than rimmer doesn’t work either, rimmers frustration over lack of dominance re lister is undercut by the fact that he’s 5 inches smaller than him.
There's also a terrible American copy of the Australian series "Kath & Kim". I do prefer the U.S. series of The Office, to the original U.K. series, though.
The yanks totally screwed up Fawlty Towers as well. Apparently they decided to leave out Basil as they thought their audiences wouldn't like him. They also ruined "Whose Line Is It Anyway" with their pre-rehearsed acts which completely missed the point of spontaneity and dont get me started on that supremely unfunny Drew Carey.
The trouble is that an American Kingswood Country wouldn't work at all because your average American sounds like Ted Bullpitt anyway so the humour of what a terrible person he is would be completely lost
@@michaelinlofi Ha Haa!!! Love it, because it's true, eh!!! But, admittedly, there'd be a heck of a lot less "Bloody"s in it!!! Dude - New Show premise - "American Country"..!?! "Cadillac!?! You're not taking the 'Cussing' Cadillac!!! I just had the roof-rack hoovered!" Anyway... Cheers mate!!! The money's on the fridge!
The thing is, that the US has done some really great comdey shows - Frasier (obviously), Arrested Development (s1-3) and Parks and Rec were fantastic. Why try to do "British" comdey? The US Office was successful because it is fundamentally different from the UK version. Please tell me that they've never tried to do Father Ted
The first transfer show that I know of was called Sanford and Son in the U.S. and Steptoe and Son in the U.K. Fraier came from a TV show called Cheers which was based on the British TV show Fawity Towers (hotel instead of a bar).
The biggest problem almost ALL American remakes suffer from is the shorter running time. A BBC programme in a half-hour slot has nearly 30 minutes of runtime. An American program in a half-hour slot has only 23 minutes of run time, so they end up trying to string gags together too quickly and they fall flat. There's also not enough time to properly tell a story.
I don't think the 23 minute format is necessarily the kiss of death here. Community and Frasier frequently told great stories in 23 minutes. The trouble was that this pilot tried to stuff a 30 minute episode PLUS a character that wasn't even in the original episode into that 23 minutes. That's the real failure here
I don't feel the colour of the characters is really important, and I think it is a little racist to raise this point. They are not historical characters, and their skin colour does not matter. The reason Danny got the job is because he was amazing in the audition. I think whoever would be best for the part can play the characters. 🤨
@@Bertaut I appreciate you consider you are making a point here, but I am not sure it is the point you strive to effectuate. I am aware that there are those that skin colour is the most essential part of a person, and I respect your point of view, but culturally I am just not wired that way. Let's hope the future brings a more positive outlook. Personally you could say I feel 'Sanguine' about the situation.
It was important to Craig Charles and Danny John Jules, who called the US attempts "White Dwarf". There weren't a heap of non white sitcom leads at the time as i understand it, so they were well within their rights to be annoyed when they got recast as white people for the USA remake attempts (Terry Farrell of Star Trek: DS9 would play the Cat in the second attempt)
Biggest failure was they made Lister a working joe to a hollywood pretty boy.
they do it every time.... being human,- I couldn't tell who was the werewolf and who the vampire- they just looked the same
Replying to arrow valley
Daniel Craig said it best in some clip back in the day, that they turned Lister from a space bum into a six foot plus pretty boy which was completely wrong for the character
oops do appologise
And made him really buff which is miles away from Dave Lister.
@@mackthemouse8443 James Bond said that ?
“Smoke me a kipper I’ll be back for Breakfast” what a guy 😂
America , " Whats a KIPPER " .
@@boydovens4180 a fish 🐟 👍🇬🇧
Smoke me a kipper skipper...
Delicious,and side note Are you being served had an Australian version
Stoke me a clipper, I’ll be back for Christmas!
Love that it's recognised for once that Red Dwarf was amazing up until series 6 or so and then went drastically downhill.
True though. 4,5 and 6 were magnificent. After series 6, Rob Grant left the writing partnership and it showed.
I don't even hate a lot of post-series 6 Dwarf. The Dave era has a couple of episodes that made me laugh. But it just didn't have the same comedic genius. The balance of Grant and Naylor is pretty necessary, I think Naylor trends towards the more grim when left unattended (series 7 and 8 are... kinda bleak)
for once lol ok
@@michaelinlofi For me the low point was series 7. They made some truly baffling decisions, despite a few good moments. I feel like series 8 was a course correction on a lot of those issues, along with some nice touches (Lister and Rimmer sharing bunks again, which should have been capitalised on), but like you say the comedic genius was gone.
I think the new series were great.
I'm glad Craig Bierko was self aware that the remake was going to be a dud. Lister had that everyman charm, and Craig was too handsome for the part.
And then there's the whitewashing involved too. Craig Charles was pretty miffed about that too - apparently he took to calling the American attempts White Dwarf
Funnily enough the actor that played Lister in UK Dwarf was a published poet by the age of 15, we covered him at school even though my year were only a few years younger. You can hear his working class word play and prose in his delivery from time to time, it's that that sets his character apart in the show from the professional actors that play every other role. UK comedy has ever since been making a lot of crap comedies based around giving comedians their own shows but none have really taken off despite the promotion, over promotion of them.
I feel like the pilot may have been measurably better if the Lister and Rimmer actors swapped roles.
That was cool of him. I dunno why, but Craig Bierko is an actor I like and hoped would see greater success, but I think he's just destined for supporting roles and failed pilots
It's like, watching Craig Bierko always makes me feel wistful
@@JamesJoy-yc8vs I still remember The Thirteenth Floor. MASSIVELY underrated movie.
As an American fan of British comedy, this information about an Americanized Red Dwarf terrifies me beyond words.
Howdo stratqualacc. As an Australian fan of likewise, I still reckon it might possibly have worked, eh. Like, say, if Lister was more like "Iggy" from 'Taxi'. And kept Hinton Battle as The Cat (I reckon he could've worked it out). And if they had more characterisation and less 'gags'. And had a more upbeat Theme Tune - like Series 3 onwards. Nice to see a female Holly from the start tho! It's nice to know that Red Dwarf still lives on!!!
"He's a Smeee-" "Nearly, come on, nearly..!"
Ah, Robert llewellen doing his Canadian Herman munster impression to an American audience. Priceless 🤔
Making Lister a suave charmer misses tge whole point, because it ruins all the humor that stemmed from the contrast between Lister and overzelaous, uptight Rimmer.
its interesting that the two lead actors are still called craig and chris
US Network: We love your show, we want to bring that same spirit and sense of humor to the US.
US Network in production: We don't want that humor on our versions.
The problem with US versions of UK shows is they almost always miss the point of the show and try to dumb them down.
Only fools and horses was absolutely gash
Hee hee - "Dumb them down"... you mean "Americanize" them. I reckon Sanford and Son was probably the closest 'they' ever got to almost resembling The Original. Even "All In The Family" was a complete lightweight compared to "Til Death Us Do Part". It's sad the Yanks can never really take the piss out of themselves. But hey, if I was in Ah-Merikah, I'd vote for Trump! (Wait, who said I was being 'Off Topic'?!?)
@@kieronpratt3174 All of the 'bluddy 'mericans and thems not bein smart, thats fah true' kind of falls out the window when you're talking about a show that didn't sell and never saw the light of day. If Americans were that stupid this would have been a massive success.
Indeed. I loved Man About the House, but could not watch Three's Company. Loved George & Mildred but couldn't watch the Ropers.
I'm just glad they never got around to Americanising Robin's Nest. I also enjoyed that show
They did the same with Utopia. I don't understand why they can't just trust US audiences to enjoy an import of the original instead.
It's like the Dollar General version of Red Dwarf.
That's a pretty apt description actually
It's the Wish or Temu version of Red Dwarf
I'm from the States, I could only watch the first 5 min of the American Office and had to call it quits
I seriously didn't get the obsession with "Americanizing" British shows. They are usually perfect the way they are. (The Office being the ONLY one that actually worked.)
Money talks. If something's doing well, people will do their own version of it in an attempt to cash in on it.
And to be completely fair this isn't a uniquely American problem, but I think they might have the worst track record for it in terms of quality.
@@michaelinlofi The laughably ironic thing is that it's actually much cheaper to just import the show.
I recall Sanford and Son being pretty successful as well.
@@evrbody "All In The Family" as well.
Gotta disagree with the Office. The US version lacked any of the self-aware awkwardness that made the original so endearing. The subtle sideway glances at the obvious camera crew just disappeared.
Oh, and 9 series! Shakespeare put it best in Hamlet; "Brevity is the soul of wit"
The “You’ve been on your own for 3 million years?! What have you been doing?”, “I’ve been looking at that fire exit sign over there” line was absolutely killer though. As funny as anything in the British series. Cracked me tf up
er, ok. Doesnt take much to get you laughing.
The problem with making shows for an american audience is that the network have no idea what an american audience is or what they want.
This is also shown with the Office, which became a live version of the Simpsons and not a take on everyday office life.
The American audience has become the lowest common denominator. The vast majority of us stopped watching TV 20+ years ago when the pandering started and the only ones still watching it today are the ones that can be entertained by a ball sitting on a tabletop for 10 hours straight. It's not rocket science, they have that audience pegged and wish they could get the rest of us back. 330 million people, but hit shows only have 1.5 million viewers on air date? Says it all as there aren't very many new shows each season.
I am proud to be an American. However…things like this don’t make it easy sometimes.
They drop all the characters in episode one? Jeez, no room to breathe.
Next video: the American version of Fawlty Towers...
They did a very long and successful run of a steptoe and son remake
There's been three American remakes of Fawlty Towers
"We eventually made it work when we got rid of that awful 'Basil' guy....." Something I remember the American producer actually saying immediately before it got canned!
Instead of Basil whipping his car with a branch when it breaks down, I imagine the US version would have him suing the car for breach of contract. Then much hilarity would ensue.
That was tried a total of 4 times, with varying levels of abysmal failure.
The US producers seemed to understand that Red Dwarf WAS funny, but not WHY it was funny. Also the UK cast were an incredible lucky find and could not be reproduced. Wondered why they didn't cast Mac McDonald in RDUSA, cap only in it for a minute and he was in Aliens!
American producers, starting around I guess the late 80s or early 90s, really lost the ability to understand what made British sitcoms funny. They kept trying to turn them into American sitcoms, which is a format in which they just don’t work. The conversion seem to work a little better in decades before that. The office is the one recent exception I can think of that everyone can probably think of, but even that was quite a different show.
@FriendlyNeighborhoodNitpicker I've discussed this with Americans before, The Office worked, I think, because the coporate office environment was always a great fit for American culture, it just needed some tweaks to expand it out and it was good to go.
@@lancebaylis3169 true
Shameless also transitioned well. Maybe you just gotta change it and fit with USA. Maybe you need that magical transition.
I'm sure if we tried to make friends or Frazier we'd make a mess of it.
Top Gear and American Top Gear
I would have had my name removed from the credits as a creative consultant as soon as they stopped listening to my objections
Yep, same here. No way am I putting my name to that.
Anytime they try to IMPORT a UK show to the US - They always GUT the HEART and SOUL out of the show that made it special... The same thing happened with The IT Crowd...
Hollywood sucks
You wanna see the only fools and horses American pilot. On second thoughts don’t 😩
Inbetweeners also
I can see why they might have wanted to do Red Dwarf - it was pretty new amd original, a SciFi comedy like that hadn't really been done before. But the IT Crowd? American shows and movies had been doing the nerd thing since "Revenge of the Nerds" and had been developing that trope ever since. Why did they feel the need to copy a British take on it?
Liked immediately after seeing the fact that there only 6 series of red dwarf
It's not even that I hate series 7 and onwards, it's just clearly not the work of genius that the first six series are
Totally agree mate
No. Just no. That's like trying to do an American Black Adder. I will kick somebody's ass. Read the books. Even better, listen to Chris Barrie narrate them in some of the best impersonations you've ever heard. Did you know there was even an RPG? Some of my favorite nights were spent watching Red Dwarf on Georgia Public Broadcasting smoking weed with my friends. I LOVE YOU ACE ❤
Don't give them ideas. The last thing we need is an Americanised version of the Black Vegetable
Ok. Rimmer being shorter makes him vulnerable than Dave Lister. So slightly more posh Lister having a pop at him seems less cool.
So lister is white washed but no comment on captain hollister being a black woman?
Captain Hollister is one of the characters with the least screen-time in the whole show until series 8. Not exactly the main character of the entire show like Lister. Besides, that wasn't the point that was being made. The point was that the original 50/50 split in race in the main 4 was completely gone by the second pilot. So yes, it was whitewashed. Having one black woman as a minor character doesn't change that.
There's something fascinating about watching UK television being 'adapted' for America. Like Alice, looking through the mirror to a world almost but not like her own. If you ever get a chance, look up the John Laroquette show 'Payne' from 1999. This was America's last of 3 attempts to translate Fawlty Towers, and of the three, it's the one that actually steers closest to the original in terms of setting, cast of characters and storyline... and yet it still managed to make a few obvious mistakes that naturally led to it being canned after only a handful of episodes, never to see the light of day again.
Inbetweeners and only fools and horses are also terrible.
I guess shameless and the office are the only 2 that crossed over well.
@@armondtanz Steptoe/Sanford & Son apparently worked well, though i didn't watch either show
The Americans made two pilot shows of Red Dwarf and had the misfortune of seeing them both. They are tragic and absolutely terrible.....
And the IT Crowd one, and the inbetweeners one.
I have zero idea why they remake them, we speak the same language, we didn't remake friends or nowt.
Are Americans even self-centred enough to count UK and Australian TV like it's a French import with subtitles, or do they not really care, like the original, and think the studios are as stupid for trying to remake it as we are?
Back in the late 90's when I was doing the Doctor Who and Cult TV conventions, a friend of mine told me about these pilots. He gave me a couple of VHS tapes (oh, the horror!) with them on. I watched them... Once and never again, it's just too painful! I still have those cassettes for some reason. Perhaps I kept them in case I needed to give myself a kick in the tits, metaphorically that is! Absolute bloody tripe! Made worse so as Red Dwarf has been one of my favourite shows since the first episode in 1988. I watched it so often I could quote each episode, line by line, for the first six series. Sad? Yes, completely, but that show got me through some really tough times and I'll always be grateful for that. The Yanks ruin everything that's good about our shows, I'm so glad this never took off!
They did the same thing to "are you being served?"
What in God's name would the point of that be? Are You Being Served relies a lot on cultural things like knowing what Harrod's is, doesn't it? (I haven't seen the show but I am aware of the premise)
Which show was this?!!
@@thetachi5 a brititsh comedy show called Red Dwarf.
@@michaelinlofi well I believe that at the time America probably didn't have a lot of great Sitcoms that were doing good in the ratings so, they scoured the worlds TV channels and came across a red dwarf and saw that it had GREAT ratings, lol
Australia got a version of it and are you being served again was funny, but the days of a full service dept/clothing store are long gone so a lot would need to be changed to even try making a USA version today
I have an unpopular opinion, which is that I think this could have worked if it had been picked up for a series. The thing about the original is that so much of what makes it great comes from the actors they had. As the series went on, the writers tailored the characters more to the strengths of the performers. The big problem with the pilot is that it tries to map the British characters on to the American actors, and it doesn't work. Craig Bierko is likeable and charismatic, but he's not the gross slob Craig Charles created. So make his Lister more of an air-headed slacker. Chris Eigman is never going to be the monster Chris Barrie was, so figure out the strengths of his portrayal and write to them. And so on.
I can see what you mean but i feel they should have tried to do something different from word go if that be the case instead of doing The End but worse.
There are hints of something that could have been good for sure. I genuinely think Hinton Battle could have killed it as The Cat
This is the 2nd time I've seen Jago commenting on something I've watched, that doesn't involve a train either
@@JD-wn3cc He is the recurring commenter on our regular watchlist.
@typhoidtyphoon seen him a 3rd time since I wrote that last comment. I must have some shared interests with him
The original series run was absolute written perfection a-la the Best of British Television!
I had no idea I watched some of the very first showings on PBS as a kid! Absolutely the Best!
In 1983 they tried to do Fawlty Towers with Bea Arthur called Amanda’s. I can still smell it. What a stinker.
Ive never seen either versiin of Red Dwarf, but i feel like you could so a Find and Replace of this video with “The IT Crowd” and itd still be dead-on.
nailed it
Rimmer is the absolute worst person in the universe. He’s also by far my favourite character. The actor is next level perfect and I suspect he inspired the writers.
Chris Barrie is incredible. Have you seen his impression of Kenneth Williams and Sean Connery auditioning possible actors for the next James Bond?
"My name is Bond. James Bond. Would you like a claret or a bordeaux?"
I got into Red Dwarf pretty late and I honestly prefer the later seasons (well not so much the new-new ones) and the books. The books are amazing.
I'm looking forward to the UK "Frazier" with Danny Dyer in the title role with Paddy McGuinness as Niles.
Brian Blessed
A similar thing happened with a film about true events secret British military operation during 2nd World War that was kept secret from America and obviously no Americans were involved in any way at all.
The film cast naturally an American in the leading role who took on this entire 'exclusive secret British operation' to its completion, not only that after completion and back in the USA, was honoured in an American military parade.
Name of the movie?
@@erikseidler793 Can't remember exact title but it's a german U boat. What's stunningly memorable is the VHS tape box showed a still image of the lead character all dressed up in white and shiny buttons attending a patriotic American ceremony. For something America never knew about at that time.
U571 ?
Which movie was that?
BTW The events which were later filmed as The Great Escape had nothing whatsoever to do with either Americans or motorcycles, but they still felt the need to shoehorn Steve McQueen on a motorbike into the movie
Yeah its U-571. About capturing an enigma machine from a U boat.
The only people who could have judged RDUS objectively would be people who never saw the UK version. To the rest of us it's too much like they took a classic Beatles album like Revolver, changed the songs a bit, and redid it with different people.
YES!!!! Revolver re-recorded by The Osmonds! I think that would nail EXACTLY what you're saying.
Dirk Gentle, The Office, Hitch Hikers(film, nice design, bastardised story), Three men and a baby(French), Ghost in the shell(Japanese), Alita battle angle(Japanese), Doctor Who(influence rather then remake), The girl with the dragon tattoo (Swedish, Rapace didn’t reprise her role?), Nikita(French).
From some UA-cam comments, from Americans themselves, they actually seem to like watching the original foreign series and don’t seem to need it to be Americanised. What is the studio logic? What other series have been ‘adapted’. Has the UK adapted US series? I think in the UK we usually watch foreign series as is.
Nice vid man. Subbed and looking forward to the second one
Cheers mate, much appreciated!
I think for a US version, just give the freedom to put it on a sister ship to Red Dwarf where the same happened and then you could always do cross promotion or syndicate it to the UK if it was popular. It would give more freedom to the characters, and you could make more comedy from the differences to the UK version and still use all the same sets and models.
I never get tired of introducing the original British show and the books to new viewers 😊
Everybody's dead dave,
Dave, Everybody's dead.
I've never seen a US remake that was 2% as good as the UK original, but the idea of remaking Red Dwarf in the US is so incredibly stupid that it can only be explained by the flood of bad drugs in the early 90s entertainment industry.
It's all about money. There are corporate execs who only see something is "popular", so their mind immediately goes to "Can we copy-cat that and make money off of it?" They don't understand _why_ something is popular, similar to how Large Language Models like ChatGPT don't actually _understand_ a story but only predict which words or text chunks are likely to come next based on texts it has been trained on.
@@TF2CrunchyFrog - It's like the episode of South Park where Cartman pretended to be the Awesome-O robot, and he was hijacked by Hollywood executives who harnessed his "AI" to write movie scripts, most of which starred Rob Schneider.
@@Liberty4EverTwo US remakes that worked are Welcome Back Kotter and All in the Family, but that's going WAY back.
There are a few 'classic' American sitcoms from the late 60's and 70's are actually UK remakes that went well.. at some point past there our general views on what is funny seem to have diverged too far - and to be fair, UK attempts to remake popular US sitcoms have tended to fall equally flat.. although in general we seem to be able to cope with watching the US originals (even if we don't get half the references) while American audiences either can't handle it, or their TV companies don't give them the opportunity to try
@@johnd6487 - Yes, Minister was an EXCELLENT British television comedy. I'm amazed that it was produced by BBC given the sharp criticism of government and bureaucracy.
Its always hard to change a way of thinking with complexity from another perspective to another way of Guess. Complexity
Amazing that the creator of Malcolm in the Middle did this to Red Dwarf. How do they miss ALL the points that made it funny.
The thing is, I think Malcolm in the Middle is a pretty funny show by in large. But Boomer's off-kilter sense of humour is a poor fit for Red Dwarf
I thought malcom in the middle was hilarious
I never knew they made an American version until now. Thank goodness I didn't after watching this. Seeing this though, I just may re-watch the original.
I do like the control console that the US Lister tries to operate. That's about all I like.
The American Red Dwarf pilot could have been better. Would be good if Terry Farrell guest starred in UK Red Dwarf.
Would have been interesting. Terry Farrell can definitely be funny if Deep Space Nine is evidence of anything. She should have just never been cast as the Cat in that second pilot
@@michaelinlofi If the 2nd Red Dwarf USA pilot had been much better, it could have been Terry Farrell's big breakout role, not DS9.
“NOW…..something, something…”
"You haven't the slightest clue what it's for do you?" "Why sure I do Grease Stain..."
I've still got a crush on claire grogan
Always have always will
I've seen the pilot many times, & I have to say as a huge American Red Dwarf fan.....I kind of like it!!!! I think it had the feel of Red Dwarf, & the ONLY reason why it didn't do well is because it didn't translate well from the UK to America. It's very tough to Americanize British television because of cultural differences.
Our sense of humour is very two tier - You have sophisticated, and then youve got utter slapstick stupidity. Id opt for the latter. Google "The Young Ones" or "Bottom". Youll have fun, i promise lol
Cheers has always been and will always be the funniest show to come out of the States
I remembered reading about this in a Starlog magazine or something and then never heard about it again. Small favors. Bierko was underutilized most of his career but totally wrong for this role. Kryten being a mass-produced automaton it makes sense to use the same actor for that.
I actually watched this pilot thanks to a guy that ran a tv station and got his hands on a copy when it was new; as a major Red Dwarf fan, I wanted to pull an E.T. the Atari game on every copy and everyone involved except the one actor who carried over.
One thing we do well in the UK is comedy, enjoy it, dont try to remake it, it wont work. The actors make the characters, thats thats made red dwarf so funny, it doesent work without them.
There are two American pilots for Red Dwarf? Didn't know that.
The pilot in this video is the one ive seen and i thought its main problem was the attempt to dump 3 seasons worth of exposition into an episode with nothing in the performances to justify it.
I remember watching a good percentage of this awesome show on a public broadcasting channel in the USA what always surprised me is nearly no edited out cursing no blurring for when characters flipped the bird hell it pretty much was what the home release DVDs, VHS tapes, or Blu-rays I made a thing to catch it whenever it was on sorta like another show that would air on the opposite nights Red Green Show both made a good part of my humor
Would have been nice to include some examples of the show you are talking about. Was there copyright issues?
No, I just got paranoid about boring the audience with using clips from it constantly. I also operated under the assumption that a lot of the audience would have seen the UA-cam copies of the pilot.
This is also an odd video in that it came out around the time I was starting to change my approach to UA-cam. I would do this very differently today
OMG that theme is jarring.
Ghosts US. Very good american version of the original british show, coming from a brit. One of the few (only) that worked for me.
I am still amazed the office worked. I think because they quickly transitioned to a very different show and of course Steve Carell was a fantastic actor who played off an amazing ensemble cast.
I thought I imagined this American version until it popped up on youtube 😂 I thought maybe when I was a kid I saw maybe a directors cut or something but no, it's an American version I probably saw once
OMG! I thought i was having serious game glitch. I ran into that floating jelly fish above the giant tree Forest. Thought it was a bug. 😆
The USA makers of the American Version of Red Dwarf - I have to wonder if they EVER watched the UK series? Just watching a few episodes would have given them a clue. But they had NO CLUE and the American Version of Red Dwarf Stank to high heavens. When they showed the American pilot version at Sci Fi conventions, there were two responses - 1. People walked out finding it that awful. 2. They sat in disbelief and wondered what idiot made this, then they walked out and told everyone how awful it was.
Not enough footage of the actual episode so we can judge
It's readily available on UA-cam to find, or at least it was at the time of my making this video. Two of my three sources are UA-cam rips of poor quality VHS rips
@@michaelinlofi could have really added entertainment value if you'd put in some demonstrative clips. Would be less dry and cerebral and more practical.
Sometimes there is just no improving on the original.
The office was one of the exceptions.
Both versions were excellent.
Me and my boss from my old job talked about Red Dwarf one night. He said the show is great, but the humor was a little too British.
“Rimmer man, you’re dead. What’s it like?”
“Like vacationing with a group of Germans.” What does that even mean?! We did joke about them ever doing an American version of. But we both agreed it would suck. And then this video popped up in my video recommendation…….
The "holiday with Germans" seems to be based on a common image of German tourists being awful people that was around in the 70s and 80s. There's a similar joke in a Monty Python sketch where Eric Idle goes on a 5 minute rant about package tours. Definitely a joke that doesn't quite scan anymore
Red White and Blue Dwarf.
As a massive red dwarf fan and also a massive fan of buffy Hinton battle would have made a great cat imo.
The US tried to remake Faulty Towers but without Basil Faulty ever appearing in it.
Red dwarf is by far the most underrated tv show of all time. I could count on one hand how many fans I've met cos it's 0 and i live in England. If i said craig charles to anyone, guarantee they say that guy from coronation street lol. Fun fact- CC was told he had to pick between the soap and red dwarf, he chose red dwarf. Been my #1 show since the first episode i ever watched. Which is a shock i have a favourite, i don't watch tv. I haven't since i was 12. As a teenager i was convinced msm inc tv msm were brainwashing ppl, travel to 2024 now 41, i was 100% correct. Now milllions think the same way. I do watch occasional show on netflix. Traditional uk TV i don't watch. Netflix is ised by kids and one piece. Im a sucker for one piece.
The real irony here is that "Red Dwarf" was already a British version of an American film: the 1974 sci-fi comedy "Dark Star" by John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon. So translating it back again really shouldn't have been as "problematic" as it was.
This is a huge oversimplification and generally wrong. Dark Star was an influence yes (as was Star Trek, Silent Running and Alien) but Red Dwarf was neither a version nor a copy of Dark Star.
@@Sam_Watson__ You should probably tell that to the creators of Red Dwarf, Grant and Naylor, who say they saw Dark Star at a late-night cinema screening, decided it would make a great basis for a series, and that's how Red Dwarf was born. It's in their DVD audio commentary to the show's opening episode, "The End."
And the similarities are numerous:
* a bunch of bored men on a spaceship (no women)
* light-years away from home
* crew comprised of ordinary blue-collar workers
* unglamorous lived-in sci-fi where space can actually be boring
* crew-members who are whiney, childish, petulant, passive-aggressive, and generally unprofessional
* a crew-cabin that's more like a squat
* a crew member who is "dead" but can still be spoken with
* an 'alien' on the ship that one of the crew members brought aboard as a pet
* speaking "ship's computer" with a somewhat sarcastic tone
* clash of personalities between a crew member who takes the job seriously and a crew member who won't
* comedic lack of basic supplies like toilet paper
* chatty electronic appliances (albeit toasters and vending machines in Red Dwarf rather than planet-busting bombs)
That'll probably do. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find another sci-fi property that ticks all those boxes...
@@blatherskite3009 read my comment again
@@Sam_Watson__ You don't seem very interested in what anyone else has to say, not even the authors of the show, so I think I'll pass. Life's too short.
@blatherskite3009 lol of course. Because you admit no other views apart from yours.
The way you say ‘show’ is funny ‘shur’ 😂
Why do you pronounce "show" shurr?
America can never replicate our humour
Do you need a better copy?
It's interesting that the project began around the end of Series 5, as I must say the segment in Back to Reality where Lister watches the 'replacement' players and sees his other more macho, successful self get Kochanski, almost feels like the Red Dwarf makers envisioning their worst nightmare of what an Americanized Red Dwarf would be like.
Which makes it odd that they went along with the project at all, and only seemed to realise their terrible mistake after.
My main takeaways when I finally saw the pilot were that I had a bit of a guilty liking for the opening theme, Jane Leeves as Holly and Robert Llewellyn as Kryten were definitely the highlights. But the jokes just felt like crude and cheap digs rather than part of a charming dynamic. Rimmer ends up being a non-entity we barely know before he dies, and certainly lacks the pathos of Chris Barrie's version. It does just feel like the actors here are delivering their given lines rather than truly inhabiting their characters.
The Making of itself, actually ends up being a far more interesting story than the pilot.
Overall it feels like a relief it did fail and didn't make it to air. It does overall feel like it was always a doomed venture.
My favorite wacky sci-fi show is LEXX. Though really only the first two seasons.
The Brits copy USA shows. "The Golden Girls" became "Brighton Belles" and sank like a stone.
And the UK version of "Married... With Children" was a dud.
The trouble is translation in general. The Brits and the Yanks have extremely different senses of humour, and removing that from their respective shows kills it. I'd never ever want an English Community or Futurama, for example
I am happy I never saw the USA version!
Haven't seen a single US remake that was as good or better than the original UK original. Not one.
I switched off at ‘Lister was white washed’
This isn't an airport darlin' you don't have to announce your departure
@@michaelinlofi sure thing sugar tits, who the f*** announces their departure at an airport anyway?
I stumbled into Red Dwarf twenty plus years ago on public television. The British somehow have a knack for sci Fi comedy that we don't.I loved this show and have all the episodes on DVD.
Galaxy Quest and Orville were superb. We loved them over here :)
@@CitrusParadox82 I enjoyed Galaxy Quest as well,The Orville is a colossal dud here and has been rightly cancelled.
@@darrylwiggins4799 Oh,really? Cancelled? Then again, it actually shows that things across the pond dont always work
Futurama is exceptional sci fi comedy I find, and that show could only have ever come from America
@@michaelinlofi Agreed.
Think this is bad? Wait until you see the only fools and horses pilot, “King of Van Nuys”…
It’s a small point but lister being taller than rimmer doesn’t work either, rimmers frustration over lack of dominance re lister is undercut by the fact that he’s 5 inches smaller than him.
There's also a terrible American copy of the Australian series "Kath & Kim". I do prefer the U.S. series of The Office, to the original U.K. series, though.
You didn't do a video on the second pilot!? Am I in a twilight zone episode??
I had a script for it on a laptop that died spectacularly. Should probably try to pick up where I left off there actually
@@michaelinlofi a prompt response answering my query without scathing sarcasm? How do you survive on UA-cam?
That's my secret, Cap. I don't.
Just kidding. In general I survive by trying to step away much as I can
The yanks totally screwed up Fawlty Towers as well. Apparently they decided to leave out Basil as they thought their audiences wouldn't like him.
They also ruined "Whose Line Is It Anyway" with their pre-rehearsed acts which completely missed the point of spontaneity and dont get me started on that supremely unfunny Drew Carey.
Frasier???????
America does black adder
Or America does 'Kingswood Country'. Hows THAT for a completely obscure reference but making the same point..!🤓👍
The trouble is that an American Kingswood Country wouldn't work at all because your average American sounds like Ted Bullpitt anyway so the humour of what a terrible person he is would be completely lost
@@michaelinlofi Ha Haa!!! Love it, because it's true, eh!!! But, admittedly, there'd be a heck of a lot less "Bloody"s in it!!! Dude - New Show premise - "American Country"..!?! "Cadillac!?! You're not taking the 'Cussing' Cadillac!!! I just had the roof-rack hoovered!" Anyway... Cheers mate!!! The money's on the fridge!
rimmer was chosen by holly to keep dave sane
What about the 2 versions of Holly... they both had some great lines!
Bierko is a great actor and Hinton is a wonderful talent. The USA pilot was never going to match the original any day of the week.
The thing is, that the US has done some really great comdey shows - Frasier (obviously), Arrested Development (s1-3) and Parks and Rec were fantastic. Why try to do "British" comdey? The US Office was successful because it is fundamentally different from the UK version. Please tell me that they've never tried to do Father Ted
The first transfer show that I know of was called Sanford and Son in the U.S. and Steptoe and Son in the U.K.
Fraier came from a TV show called Cheers which was based on the British TV show Fawity Towers (hotel instead of a bar).
Has anyone seen the American remake of The Benny Hill Show? It's hilarious.
The biggest problem almost ALL American remakes suffer from is the shorter running time. A BBC programme in a half-hour slot has nearly 30 minutes of runtime. An American program in a half-hour slot has only 23 minutes of run time, so they end up trying to string gags together too quickly and they fall flat. There's also not enough time to properly tell a story.
I don't think the 23 minute format is necessarily the kiss of death here. Community and Frasier frequently told great stories in 23 minutes. The trouble was that this pilot tried to stuff a 30 minute episode PLUS a character that wasn't even in the original episode into that 23 minutes. That's the real failure here
I don't feel the colour of the characters is really important, and I think it is a little racist to raise this point. They are not historical characters, and their skin colour does not matter. The reason Danny got the job is because he was amazing in the audition. I think whoever would be best for the part can play the characters. 🤨
You think Cat being black was unimportant to his character? So you've never actually seen the original show then?
@@Bertaut I appreciate you consider you are making a point here, but I am not sure it is the point you strive to effectuate. I am aware that there are those that skin colour is the most essential part of a person, and I respect your point of view, but culturally I am just not wired that way. Let's hope the future brings a more positive outlook. Personally you could say I feel 'Sanguine' about the situation.
It was important to Craig Charles and Danny John Jules, who called the US attempts "White Dwarf". There weren't a heap of non white sitcom leads at the time as i understand it, so they were well within their rights to be annoyed when they got recast as white people for the USA remake attempts (Terry Farrell of Star Trek: DS9 would play the Cat in the second attempt)
Racists always think of skin colour and want to project their obsession on to everyone as a sign of their virtue.
There is always one that has to bring race up 🙄 you’re not as smart as you think you are bud
But then; the British one doesn't hold up too well now either.