The American one was too 'shiny' for such a downbeat comedy. The British one is still probably my all-time favourite sitcom.
A friend of mine watched it for the first time recently and said all the characters were 'caricatures'- then went on to extol the virtues of Spaced, Peep show and The Office, all of which ARE brilliant, but are full of caricatures of the most obvious kind! He's evidently too young to realise that some people in the 1980s were genuinely like that. Ironically the show was the forefather of all the 'dark' and 'edgy' comedies people like today, but most of them have probably never heard of it.
Kevin Lloyd's character was called Ricky Fortune, by the way. I was going to be Kirk St Moritz on this forum but I plumped for Badvoc because I was bearded when I joined.
All time favourite Dear John... quote:
Kirk: "I remember the first night Lola and I spent together, she whispered, 'be gentle with me, Kirkie.'"
Ralph: "Be gentle with her what?"
Series 2 was a bit chaotic, with people leaving and rejoining the cast every five minutes and Sullivan clearly struggling to keep up, but the Christmas special was brilliant.