A British Version should be made

2012 is a blatant rip-off

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/45014.html

A story appeared recently in The Sunday Times in London about the fact that the BBC is about to broadcast a program bearing marked conceptual similarities to The Games, a show we created in 1998.

It featured a good-looking bald man and Gina Riley, Bryan Dawe and Nicholas Bell. Two series, each of 13 episodes, were produced in the lead-up to the Sydney Olympics and it was, at that time, the highest rating comedy in the history of the national broadcaster, the ABC (all stand).

In 2006, shortly after London was awarded the 2012 Olympic Games and following approaches from several overseas producers interested in making their own versions of the show, we spoke with producer Rick McKenna who had experience in overseas markets with Kath and Kim. Rick McKenna travelled to London and met with BBC comedy head Jon Plowman.

At a later date Jon Plowman introduced Rick McKenna to writer John Morton with the prospect that perhaps we might consider John Morton as one of the writers on the project. John Morton was lent DVDs of The Games. At the time he acknowledged he had never previously seen nor heard of the show and was impressed and keenly interested.

After many phone conferences, meetings and almost four years of email exchanges, Mr Morton and Mr Plowman have now apparently made a satirical series for the BBC about the organising committee of the London Olympics (set to air next Monday March 14 on BBC4 in the UK), without our participation or permission.

In other words, it seems that in 2008/9 Morton had already had the idea he'd never heard of and was so excited by, and he was interested in obtaining episodes of The Games only so he could check out how someone had created his original idea in Australia, 12 years previously. We have suggested that once Mr Morton finds out that repressed memory is not an Olympic event, perhaps he could return the DVDs.