My son is doing a paper on European comedy vs American comedy. Does any one know of any British (or European) comedies that were written by Americans and American Comedy that was written by British (or Europeans)? He used Fawlty Towers and The Monty Python as examples of British or European comedies, but he is trying to show (if there are some) that there are some British (or European) comedies written by Americans and that there are some American comedies written by British or European writers. I know that we (Americans) are always starting sitcoms in America that are hits in Britian and Europe (The Office, Couples to name a few) but are they written by Americans or Britians for American tv. I would really appreciate any help you could give us! Thanks,Nancy

Would laso like to know of any more shows that we have started because they were hits in Britian and have ya'll started any that were hits in America and were they successful (like Friends, maybe)?

Fawlty Towers was co-written by Connie Booth. An American I beleive.

Thank you! I knew she was american, but I just didn't think about it. Thanks for pointing it out. Do you have any examples of any other shows?

my family.

Quote: johnny roulette @ November 26, 2007, 1:27 PM

my family.

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Yeah, My Family, After You've Gone and the atrocious, atrocious Home Again were all created by Fred Barron, Mr American Sitcom, and are the first British sitcoms to use the American, lots of writers around a table technique.

That I can think of:
British -> American
Red Dwarf (flopped)
Coupling (flopped)
The Thick Of It (flopped)
Peep Show (flopped) though they are apparently trying again
The Office (big success)
Absolutely Fabulous (flopped, I'm pretty sure)
The IT Crowd (flopped?)
Spaced (coming soon, I believe)
Man Stroke Woman (coming soon also, and sketch show rather than sitcom)

As far as I'm aware, they've all been (mostly) written by American writers for the American audience. The odd episode (The Office: An American Workplace pilot) was word-for-word the same as our pilot, and Gervais & Merchant have written an episode or two later on in series two or three, and maybe some of Coupling was the original scripts, but they're mostly 'new' or 'reimagined' episodes written by the American writers. It's more than likely that this is due to some Writers' Guild rules, I'd have thought.

Can't think of anything that went the other way as we seem to look for original stuff than just copying a comedy format, though I'm sure it'll become more common in future.

Hope this helps

Dan

That helps alot and really adds more questions:
Are the sitcoms still being written by the British writers for America or are the Americans just buying the rights to the sitcoms and rewriting them with American writers? My guess is that we are re-writing them for America tv with American writers. Is the reason that they don't succeed because of the differences in American humor and British humor and what are the differences in the two? I watch Fawlty Towers and I can't stop laughing, but when we show it to some of our friends, some get it, some don't. These are great examples, but I would also like to find some that were big hits in America that were written by British and were acted by Americans and some that were hits in Britian that were written by American writers, but used British actors. What we might be finding out is that there aren't any, but I would think that there had to be least a few examples of each. Thanks for all of the help it has been great, but I am still searching if you have any more ideas, the more the better!

Quote: nancy daniel @ November 26, 2007, 3:08 PM

That helps alot and really adds more questions:
Are the sitcoms still being written by the British writers for America or are the Americans just buying the rights to the sitcoms and rewriting them with American writers? My guess is that we are re-writing them for America tv with American writers. Is the reason that they don't succeed because of the differences in American humor and British humor and what are the differences in the two? I watch Fawlty Towers and I can't stop laughing, but when we show it to some of our friends, some get it, some don't. These are great examples, but I would also like to find some that were big hits in America that were written by British and were acted by Americans and some that were hits in Britian that were written by American writers, but used British actors. What we might be finding out is that there aren't any, but I would think that there had to be least a few examples of each. Thanks for all of the help it has been great, but I am still searching if you have any more ideas, the more the better!

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Rewriting with American writers. I suspect it's to do with Writer's Guild of America rules and memberships but you'll have to look further into that to see if it's having an effect. Probably also to do with the fact that we only have 6-8 episodes in a season, which is not anywhere near enough for an American season. Those 6-8 episodes are written by one or two people and takes about nine months from writing to finishing filming. I'm not sure about this anymore but suspect that all 6-8 episodes are written before the filming even starts, whereas in American sitcom an episode is written as they're filming and they're about 2-3 weeks ahead with stories which are not quite finished and are constantly re-written right up to and during filming. You need a big team of writers to do this and it's very difficult to do with one or two writers.

I'm guessing they don't work because of the 'perceived' differences in humour, what the network *thinks* works and tries to change something into something it's not, looking at the list of failures why buy something if it's going to be completely different. (I saw the intro sequence to the American Peep Show and it was god-awful!)

In a nutshell, British sitcoms are about losers trying to 'make it' and failing. American sitcoms are about already successful people and their problems.

Some people will laugh at stuff and some people won't; that's taste. There are people here that don't laugh at Fawlty Towers and people a lot closer to home that just don't 'get' The Office. I can't legistate why people laugh at some things but not others (I'm the only one in my circle of friends who laugh at Napoleon Dynamite and I think it's hilarious; everyone else just stares at me laughing).

Due to sitcoms being driven by talent here rather than idea, there are very few that I can recall being written by Americans for the British market. Rich Hall's Cattle Drive for BBC4, I suppose, but I've never seen it so don't know if it's a sitcom/sketch show/stand-up. He is American though. And I think he starred in it with Sean Cullen (a Canadian) so not sure that it counts!

Dan

ANY CHANCE OF KEEPING THIS ALL IN ONE THREAD SO WE DON'T ALL RESEARCH THE SAME STUFF??

I just posted this is in the other thread:

On the point of Britain remaking hit American comedies, we tend to basically steal ideas and pretend they are our own rather than just admit that it's a remake. In recent years Lead Balloon compared with Curb Your Enthusiasm, Annually Retentive compared with The Larry Sanders Show, Roman's Empire compared with Arrested Development, Extras with Larry Sanders/Seinfeld/Curb. So don't be fooled by the "Britain likes to be original" stuff, it's just a pretence, just because we don't come out and admit that it's a remake, more than likely it will be heavily influenced if not trying to be exactly like a hit American comedy.

You could look at the success of Saturday Night Live in America because Britain remade that as Saturday Live in 1985 on Channel 4 and later it became Friday Live. But unlike America it is no longer still running over here, although there is a 'reunion' show of sorts called Saturday Live Again! on this coming weekend.

Quote: nancy daniel @ November 26, 2007, 4:25 PM

Is there any particular episode that you recommend as being really funny of My Family? I am going to try and order it on Netflix for the presentation. Thanks

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Oh and there are no funny episodes of My Family.

Yes, I agree with CN. Everything other than this one will now be closed.

Quote: swerytd @ November 26, 2007, 3:30 PM

In a nutshell, British sitcoms are about losers trying to 'make it' and failing. American sitcoms are about already successful people and their problems.

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Although that is quite a big theme in a lot of American sitcoms it's not always necessarily true. My Name Is Earl, It's Always Sunny In Philidelphia and the best sitcom of all time...Seinfeld all have losers at the centre of their shows, especially Seinfeld. There's probably more too but I can't think right now.

On the whole though I tend to agree, Britain does favour the loser more.

The characters in Friends weren't exactly successful either...

Quote: Aaron @ November 26, 2007, 5:09 PM

The characters in Friends weren't exactly successful either...

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Hmm. Maybe not in a social aspect, but they had money, typical middle-class, attractive folk living in a pretty nice looking apartment, with all steady well paying jobs (apart from Joey maybe..)

Yeah, that's true I suppose. Yeah. Good point.

How about Sanford and Son? That was of course a remake of Steptoe and Son, but how much a remake, and how unsuccessful, were the Sanfords?

[name="Aaron"]Oh, I'd like to point out in regards to the above post, Lead Balloon and Curb Your Enthusiasm are nothing alike at all, so don't let your son put that down as a US -> UK remake.

They are a lot more alike than Coupling is to Friends!

[name="Aaron_again!"]
Might be worth noting that the British series Coupling was basically our own version of Friends - with Coupling in turn being remade (I don't think very successfully though) for the US.

Dan

EDIT: and my quotes aren't working for whatever reason...