MovieChat Forums > Teachers. (2006) Discussion > Another crap US tryhard UK Ripoff.

Another crap US tryhard UK Ripoff.

posted 18 years ago by deefiveothree
60 replies | jump to latest

First The Office and now Teachers, hell even another great UK show Coupling was ripped off but it flopped in the US. Just how many more UK TV shows are going to be ripped off? Here's a thought. Why not just play the original UK Versions on TV instead of trying to make a localised US version of everything.

I'm not saying this show is crap. I'm just saying ripping off UK shows is crap.
They could at least change the title to make it slightly original. Then no one would notice.

I'm sure you'd understand my point if say Prison Break was ripped off and just changed slightly and made into a UK version.

What next an Irish version of these shows? An Australian and New Zealand version?
A insert other English speaking countries version here.

Tell you what. Why not just take the UK Versions and dub them with American accents? Just like all those old Kung Fu movies.

If anyone needs to know. I'm Australian. I watch US, UK, Canadian, etc and even subtitled movies and tv shows. I'm fine with the original versions of TV Shows. I don't need an Australian version. As long as these TV Shows are in English I'm fine with them. If they aren't, I prefer subtitles to dubbing.

[–] SportsNight3 18 years ago

The US version of The Office does the UK version justice. But you're right, the US Teachers, Coupling, etc. are bad.

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] XSIV4C 18 years ago

good point. i am in canada. i love watching the original UK shows. FATHER TED, ARE U BEING SERVED, FAWLTY TOWERS, etc. what is the show with HYACINTH? i dont need US remakes. but apparently, people in the US "DO" need remakes, or so think the minds that be.

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] claire-48 18 years ago

Has anybody seen any footage from the US pilot of Red Dwarf??

Enough said i think!!

[–] matthewpaulwood 17 years ago

Yeah, unfortunately. That one was disgraceful.

[–] Dali-Fan 16 years ago

I've been trying to find out more about this (it seems) forever. Any links to info on this subject you could post?

I thought there was suppposed to be a movie -- first with US actors, then, I hear, the original actors. Man, I loved RD, what I saw of it, anyway.

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] tonyfoale 15 years ago

found this on digital spy the other week.
looks like dwarf fans in the uk dont have long to wait!
those here in new zealand do!!

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/cult/a145404/red-dwarf-begins-filming-at-corrie.html?imdb

[–] ceccleston 16 years ago

The show with Hyacinth is "Keeping Up Appearances", which is awesome.

[–] Monster-17 16 years ago

Right, you're saying we in the US steal your TV shows? How about you face the facts our TV shows are programmes you guys can't get enough of. The Simpsons, 24, Friends, Lost, Desperate Housewives, Sex and the City, Mad Men are in heavy, heavy rotation in the UK. In fact, although you do have a strong TV market, you're production values and overall sophistication falls way short of American programmes. In fact I just saw a UK film called Run Fat Boy Run and wonder why the hell it was being shown in the cinemas because it looked and felt like something that would be better viewed on television, i.e. it was wholly crap.

[–] pinkspoons-1 16 years ago

Run Fatboy Run? You mean that American co-funded film co-written by an American, co-starring an American and directed by David Schwimmer? Not the best choice of UK film to pick on there...

I agree that most British TV is awful, but then.... so is most American. We in the UK just get a small handful of the better US shows and don't have to see all the dirge that American audiences have to wallow through to find the gems (unless you're really bored and want to flick through some of the nastier cable channels and catch World's Funniest Liquor Store Robberies or somesuch).

Sadly, the opposite isn't true. The few gems that accidentally appear on the production slates of the UK channels don't make it to the trans-Atlantic shores in any real way because most Americans, when it comes to TV, seem only to want to watch other Americans - hence the remakes. People in the UK, and in most of the rest of the world, aren't quite so ethnocentric in their entertainment choices.

Also, if you want to talk on-screen production values in general - then an awful lot of big-budget SFX-heavy American films are shot in England because we do very much rule in that department, and have done for several decades. This is true from 2001: A Space Odyssey right through to The Dark Knight.

[–] elegoo 16 years ago

Also so far i cant think of an America Show that we've remade into a British version. Please let me know if you can think of one.

Taking the CONCEPT is acceptable but out and out copying WORD FOR WORD, scene for scene is just ridiculous. I saw a Fawlty Towers ages ago i couldn't believe what i was seeing! They had just copied it but using American Actors. As if ANY American has the comic genius of John Cleese. Any Briton in that fact.

Die Jay Garrick, Die.

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] Radalan 15 years ago

Right, you're saying we in the US steal your TV shows? How about you face the facts our TV shows are programmes you guys can't get enough of. The Simpsons, 24, Friends, Lost, Desperate Housewives, Sex and the City, Mad Men are in heavy, heavy rotation in the UK. In fact, although you do have a strong TV market, you're production values and overall sophistication falls way short of American programmes.

If we just let the Run Fat Boy Run thing pass, I think you pretty much missed the point, like most of the people that lose their nerves after seeing something that insults their patriotism does.

The point was, that Americans do not show British tv-shows on their TV instead they rip them off aka. "REMAKE" them.

Your point apparently is that lots of American shows are being showed in UK too.
But you didn't mention anything about remaking, which just strenghtens the original posters point--.

-Which is that Americans should just show the UK shows instead of remaking them.
Just like the british show the American shows instead of remaking them.

Why do you people fight?

There's only a small difference between UK and US and it's only one letter.

[–] NorthFiend 14 years ago

"Right, you're saying we in the US steal your TV shows? How about you face the facts our TV shows are programmes you guys can't get enough of. The Simpsons, 24, Friends, Lost, Desperate Housewives, Sex and the City, Mad Men are in heavy, heavy rotation in the UK. In fact, although you do have a strong TV market, you're production values and overall sophistication falls way short of American programmes. In fact I just saw a UK film called Run Fat Boy Run and wonder why the hell it was being shown in the cinemas because it looked and felt like something that would be better viewed on television, i.e. it was wholly crap."
What you just said has nothing to do with what "deefiveothree" was talking about.
His point was that loads of decent English shows have been remade in the US and are *beep* or at least not as good as the original version.
Yeah we do have shows like The Simpsons, Lost, etc playing here but we show the original versions, we don't have English versions of these shows (with one exception actually, there's Law and Order UK). We don't want to ruin them.
If you're judging UK films and shows on Run Fat Boy Run you clearly don't know much about the stuff we watch here. There are a lot of brilliant shows and films from England, some better than American films.
But I guess you're one of those over the top "patriotic, I love my country it's better than every other country" kind of people. If not I don't understand why you'd post something stupid like that.

But yeah, if these people like the show so much they want it in America, they should just show the original versions rather than ruining it with their awful attempts at remaking them. I guess they think that since they did a decent job with The Office they're gonna try it with loads of other decent shows.
I don't know if anyone here has seen Misfits, I think it's a really good British drama, I hope they don't remake that.
I wouldn't mind if they remade Skins, I mean, it's not like they can make that show any worse than it is.

[–] aoibhgreinemm 15 years ago

Hyacinth Bucket = Keeping up Appearances

[–] youfnhobo 18 years ago

I'm going to start this off by saying that I absolutely adore British television. Even to the point where one might say that I'm obsessed with it. The Office, The Mighty Boosh, everything Steve Coogan does etc. (Even Eastenders)

This being said...

I get seriously seriously seriously annoyed when people complain about the US "ripping off" UK comedy. There are certain factors that are blatantly obvious in regard to this issue that make this complaint futile. I think that once you consider these factors this complaint just comes off as incredibly self-righteous and pretentious.

(1)"They could at least change the title to make it slightly original. Then no one would notice."

Only the Americans who have spent time abroad or have access to BBC America will have ever heard of a UK show called "Teachers." Additionally, and maybe more importantly, I'd even go so far as to say that the majority of Americans don't really care if "Teachers" was a show in Britain. American film and television production companies are the dominant companies in the industry. You guys watch our shows but we don't necessarily watch yours. That might sound pompous but it's just the way it is.

(2)"I'm sure you'd understand my point if say Prison Break was ripped off and just changed slightly and made into a UK version."

I really don't think that the average American holds the kind of pop cultural grudge against other countries that the world holds against us. Maybe it's arrogance...I don't know. At any rate I don't think that the average American cares or would even know if Prison Break was remade in the UK.

(3)"Why not just play the original UK Versions on TV instead of trying to make a localised US version of everything. "

We can't just air the British versions here. I'm sure there are some licensing issues. (it might even be cheaper to make our own version, i personally do not know)Also, there are references in British comedies that a lot of Americans wouldn't get. Just look at the difference between the first episodes of the British and American versions of The Office. The Americans worked from the same script but had to change many of the pop culture references. The average American likes things that are easily consumed.

(4)"hell even another great UK show Coupling was ripped off but it flopped in the US."

Although the American Coupling was crap the British Coupling was a Friends rip off. (But changed a bit to suit the British audience)

(5) I lived in London for a while and I watched some good shows. But there were also some really horrible ones too. Here in America we have some really good (original) shows but there are also some really horrible shows. So, you, know, I feel like, just get over your selves.

(6) I think that the hostility surrounding this issue is systematic of something greater than stealing, or ripping off, or co-opting television shows. I personally believe that it's about the image that America projects to the world.

(7)America is a capitalist nation. If there is an idea that is a proven money maker then a capitalist country is going to try and figure out how to use that idea for its advantage. It's done here, it's done in the UK, it's done in Australia, it's done in Canada, etc., etc.

In conclusion, if your complaint (or anyone else who agrees with you on the subject)is more about cultural imperialism than about "Americans are so unoriginal" I would be interested in hearing more from you on the issue. I think that would be a really interesting socially aware argument that could actually contribute something to the usually trite and obnoxious discourse on the subject. I hope I showed that I do not think that America is blameless or superior. I just wanted to show that this is an annoying complaint that people always make, it's meaningless, it's just complaining for the sake of complaining, and it comes off as arrogant. But I guess this was all just a long winded way of saying "why does it matter?" It's not as though Americans have never come up with a good original television show. But really that doesn't even matter because I think you'll find that everyone steals from everyone else...that's showbiz!

[–] bluesunday3 18 years ago

coupling wasn´t a friends rip off.one show has nothing to do with another!

[–] mad_megz_666 17 years ago

Yep, no way was coupling a friends rip-off....We don't rip off American shows, and why the hell would we rip off a show like Friends, it was as big over here as it was in America...

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] Metathesiophobia 18 years ago

Your points are valid and I don't really have anything against US remakes. However, I do have a beef against this particular US remake. The main issue I see here is that the UK version was absolutely brilliant and that the people behind the US version could have at least tried to make their version of the show just as good. But they didn't. They just settled for crass jokes and a laugh track and thought that it would suit the average American viewer. That's why so many people hate American remakes of shows, because they never seem to do them well-US remakes have the potential to be just as good as the original and yet the writers look like they don't even try. Why take an idea if it's not going to be used properly? It's a real waste and I'm more sad than angry, because it means so many people are missing out on the fantastic original and watching the second-rate 'ripoff' instead.

And I'm not complaining for the sake of complaining. I'm complaining because I'm a really dedicated fan of the original show and it's actually painful to see it remade so shoddily.

[–] nosemellon 17 years ago

hey, Your words were very frank and almost abrupt, but you do have a great point and made me think of my own views in more detail.

[–] elegoo 16 years ago

"there are references in British comedies that a lot of Americans wouldn't get."

so why then are some copied word for word?

I remember when my bf first heard about an American Version of "Spaced" (look it up if you don't know). It is VERY British and he couldn't understand how it would work. I took along time explaining to him that it would be American Humor and therefore it wouldn't be Spaced as we know it. Lets face it American humor and British Humor is very different. If they had just copied word for word then it would just be a bit weird for you guys in the US. NOT saying you don't get British humor. But there is obviously a reason that someone feels the need to Remake it into a American version.

At the same time we just have to cope with the references to American culture that we dont get. I don't know. At the end of the day we just want to watch something we can relate to. If Coupling IS an American Friends so what. I can relate to someone talking about London better seeing as how i know and have been there than someone talking about New York, where I've never been, don't know anyone there. even though I'm fairly indifferent to both shows.

I don't know but i imagine this isn't a topic that will go quietly into the night.

Die Jay Garrick, Die.

[–] strykergamer 15 years ago

Spaced isn't very British. Most of the jokes are inspired by pop culture created in America. The only thing I didn't understand in Spaced was Jaffer Cakes, and then I just googled it. The remake of Spaced is going to be terrible, though. I read the script for the first episode.

[–] elegoo 14 years ago

referencing an American film or million doesn't take away from that fact that the humour is British.

Die Jay Garrick, Die.

[–] harriet_lucy 18 years ago

maybe the US should learn to watch the uk ones like we have to watch theirs ?

DR WHO !!!

[–] headless_horsegirl 18 years ago

I watch (and absolutely love) UK shows, and I'm in America. But I'm a very tolerable person, so I don't really mind the US versions. The UK ones are much better, but I'll watch them both.

[–] random-45 18 years ago

the main reason your networks do use british orignals is because of censorship the british version would have to be heavily edited. Whilst I was on holiday in vegas I watched an episode Of the office on bbc america and i was edited quite alot

[–] RitalinDixon 17 years ago

You don't have to watch American tv. We just happen to make more.

[–] HeroofCanton152 18 years ago

>_<
What about this? Igonore the fact that it is based on the UK version, accept it as a completely different show, and get over it.

[–] Batten_12 18 years ago

Good point!!!! it only shares a title! how many shows around the world have shared a title before???? too many to bother counting.
Any Moron can tell from the minute this show starts it isn't a remake of teachers but a new show with differetn storylines and different characters.
British teachers = chalk ... u.s teachers = cheese COMPLETLY DIFFERENT SHOWS!!!!

+ to whoever said that the uk's coupling was a friends rip off is considerably wrong as Coupling is actually funny

[–] roroluluuk 18 years ago

I've never seen any of this show, but I was kind of shocked when I was told the brilliant Teachers was being re-made in America.

I don't know, but it seems to me Teachers would be hard for the US to make. I mean, the show is so typically British, it's what makes it so funny. I really don't think it'd have the same effect in the American comedy style.

From the picture clips of the show it all looks too, fake.

But then again, I haven't seen this show, so I can't really judge!

(D: No Kurt or Brian either, I see D; Such a shame, they were the best characters.)

x

[–] zz99 18 years ago

No one has mentioned one of the biggest reasons for the US to remake UK shows. The US needs, expects, 22-24 episodes a year. Most UK shows do six.

To be viable in syndication a show has to reach the magic number of 100 episodes. Anything less and they'll struggle to give it away. Above 100 they can make a fortune.

Until the UK can make more than 20 episodes a year, apart from soaps, the US will remake them.

And it isn't really a "rip off" when they buy the rights, work with the same creator or producer etc.

BTW, there have been some spectacularly bad UK remakes of US shows. I seem to remember UK versions of Sex And The City, Golden Girls, etc.

[–] octomancer 17 years ago

"Until the UK can make more than 20 episodes a year"

Let's hope they don't. I'd rather see Quality / 6 per episode than Quality / 20 ...

"BTW, there have been some spectacularly bad UK remakes of US shows. I seem to remember UK versions of Sex And The City, Golden Girls, etc."

I don't ... what were they called? The fact that I don't remember them as remakes may be because they had different titles. Hang on, didn't somebody recommend that earlier in this thread?

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] jewelsuofl06 17 years ago

Isn't imitation the best form of flattery? Why not just take it as a compliment and move on...

[–] pele_uk 17 years ago

because its not a compliment...... takings a show and making it worse is pointless. and btw if americans don't get british humour just dont watch em, creating a bad remake is just embaressing, we have no problem getting your comedy shows.
Also when have the UK remade US shows?!! we dont need to

[–] SamtheTeacher 17 years ago

Regardless of pop culture references, the British version of Teachers is vastly superior in almost every way.

[–] ezytim 17 years ago

American humour is not the same as British humour and I'm not saying one is better than the other. I think the main reason for remaking shows is the difference in audience.

I also think that British peeps get pissed off because we don't try and fix what ain't broke... why bother trying to make a British Frasier? We acknowledge that it's great and it works just fine. BUT people dont seem to realise that just because a network remakes a show, it doesn't mean they think they can do better, they are just adjusting for their audience. I'm fine with that, it's just that I'm British and as such find British comedy a lot more appealing. I enjoyed Friends but not as much as those British classics.

As for a British Sex and the City... ummm are you sure??? I really don't remember it if it did exist.

And now just to wind up all the yanks: you spell homour, colour and favourite with a 'u', OK?!?!?!?

[–] MeanerWithTheScenery 16 years ago

And now just to wind up all the yanks: you spell homour, colour and favourite with a 'u', OK?!?!?!?

Oh, the irony

"That sound you hear, is stunned silence."

[–] 17 years ago

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