Genuine question - what do Americans have against watching sitcoms in their original versions? In the UK you could write a huge list of US shows which are popular and no issues of cultural barriers to understand the humour.
UK carrys American TV, Food, late night tv, comedy pretty much are all British and the ones they try and steal the name are usually awful besides maybe the Office which again Was British idea
Lots of Americans don't like to be confronted with the idea that countries other than America exist. They especially hate anything that requires them to learn or understand the culture and social mores of countries that aren't America. As far as they're concerned, America is the world.
The people that make the American versions don’t think the American public will get the humour. It’s poignant, ironic and genteel in the UK version vs bawdy, in your face, desperate in the US version. Personally I think they would get it.
Dear America. We love you. But stop trying to remake our sitcoms. You had one success out of 100s and even that ( The Office ) wasn't as good. The American Inbetweeners was almost a war crime.
@@lukeharrop4620 Shameless wasn't a sitcom. Personally never watched the US version but tbh I found the UK version shit anyway. Like Skins....Perhaps made for a different gen than me.
America wanted independence yet still rely on our amazing taste in television to try and make their country look great. And it’s not a sitcom, but I think I screamed into my pillow when I found out they tried to remake Life on Mars.
The casting is horrible, it’s like they didn’t watch a single second of the original. There are American actors who could pull off those roles but definitely not who they casted
I think they cast this based mainly on physical resemblances to the two-sentence descriptions of each character in the original. The idea of interpreting the actual characters never occurred to them.
wait until you realise that Ruth Jones and James Corden were both executive producers on the show for at least one episode… they were aware, they knew what was going on, they gave not a single iota of a damn, probably because they knew it was going to flop 🤣 (source: it was in the video, look for the clip where the Mick rip off says something about homeless people. it’s between that and the scrabble racism)
@@astralloser1177’Executive Producers’ on a remake of a show often means very little. You can be an exec producer, technically speaking, and just be on one video call giving a few tips. That said, I agree they almost certainly knew it would be shit and it was a ‘take the money and run’ scenario.
Though the original doesn't specifically say what Stacey's dad died of, the letter he wrote to her to be opened on her wedding day shows that he knew he wasn't going to be around and so I think we can assume it probably was cancer or some kind of illness as opposed to an accident.
It's highly implied that Trevor (god rest his soul) was not a very nice man and possibily a drinker. I remember brynn saying how he remembers www. Is whiskey with water as that was his brothers favourite drink. Gwen said he was homophobic to jason and cheated on her/partied a lot when she fell pregnant with him and the christmas episode mention how he made christmas miserable. This always made me think that he was an abusive drinker which would explain how they all miss him so much because they always talk about him so fondly, maybe he was nice when he was sober but died of something relating to alcoholism like liver failure?
@@jazzybubblezzz3114 while the rest of your comment makes sense (and the fact that somewhere along the way, Bryn says something to the effect of "The drink and the drugs," when talking about Trevor), I think the first point you make is a stretch. Someone having a favourite drink doesn't automatically mean they're an alcoholic.
@@onlyashes89 I just meant as in addition to everything else said in the show, its another instance where Trevor is linked to alcohol. Of course if the rest of Trevor's character wasn't talked about in the same way then yes I agree with you it would mean nothing lol
@jazzybubblezzz3114 yeah definitely! That's absolutely fair. I just felt like I wanted to clarify that alone doesn't point to alcoholism 😊 we're definitely on the same page about the picture of Trevor as a whole!
The thing about Nessa is that she's not a loser woman with trashy taste in clothing. She's a worldly woman who has lived such an interesting life that nobody believes anything she says. And it's all true. When she walks into a room, people notice, and they respect her. Stacey would never be friends with the American incarnation of Nessa. Although, I also think the British Nessa would eat the American Stacey for breakfast. She's too prim and proper. The US has managed to do some good versions of British shows. The US version of Ghosts is very good, probably because it has been produced in a gentle style with some rather poignant scenes as well as humour. But they tried to make Red Dwarf twice and failed. Americans have been able to watch the British version of Red Dwarf on BBC America for years, so they haven't missed out. It's not like American audiences don't enjoy British humour. But maybe the British should be flattered that the US wants to remake their shows. With Gavin and Stacey, they just didn't understand the characters enough, and I'm not sure they realised that the story arc is really about Smithy and Nessa's on/off relationship.
They actually pay off Nessa’s impossible sounding backstory by having some of the celebrities she’s namedropped cameo at her wedding at the end of series three as well, I don’t think you can replicate that.
I'm American and I thoroughly Enjoyed "Gavin and Stacy". James Corden must be a Fantastic Actor because First seeing him in "The Wrong Mans" and then "G & S" I thought he was a Likeable Fellow. Oh how wrong I was.
His comedy acting back in the day was actually funny, until we all kind of realised that he probably was just playing himself a bit lol, probably how he can slip back into the character so easy
Thank god my nations favourite sitcom “Derry Girls” is so specific to our social and cultural situation in the 1990s that it just can’t be replicated in the US.
I wouldn't put it past them......But hope you're right. It's also one of the few British Sit Coms that probably wouldn't travel in the original, because things like The Troubles are alluded to many times, but not spelled out.
Of course an American remake didn't work, Gavin & Stacey plays off of cultural differences between Essex and Wales and that's just not going to travel outwith the UK in the same way. Also why does America have to remake British shows instead of just showing the original British show over there in the same way we are bombarded with the likes of Friends, HIMYM, Frasier, Cheers, Family Guy, American Dad, Two and Half Men, Seinfeld etc...
Yeah but cultural differences are just pretty insignificant in the US than compared to the UK, or at least over short distances, so it doesn't directly translate to the US as it does in the UK @@kb5509
Just a thought: could they, for instance, have set the remake in the US and Canada? Aren't you guys always having a laugh at your neighbours to the North, and vice-versa? It seems roughly analogous to the whole England-Wales dynamic, even down to taking the piss out of the way the other country speaks.
I've just never understood why tv shows are remade. Just watch the original. It would be like the UK remaking Friends. It just wouldn't work. Because anyone living in Britain in a apartment complex knows not to talk to each other. 😂
@@ThatDuckieMoment Coupling isn't a remake of Friends and was never written that way. Also, Coupling is ten times funnier than Friends, but that's because it is a sitcom and Friends isn't.
You’re right, it’s not a direct remake but an attempt to make a similar show. But there was an American remake of Coupling that’s not great. There has been British remakes of American sitcoms though, like a terrible remake of The Golden Girls called The Brighton Belles and a remake of Married with Children called Married for Life which Rob Brydon appeared in.
There’s so many layers to Gavin and Stacey. Not only is there no comparison to the relationship between the Welsh and the English. But the minor details in the entire show are just sprinkled in there and it makes the viewer feel as if they know the characters. The slow build up of Nessa’s back story. The way that each time they talk about Stacey’s dad, it makes him sound worse. The *fishing trip*. There’s so much more to it than just being a regular sitcom
Not to mention the comedy of the mundane. The second Christmas Special had a whole conversation about different service stations and it just felt so authentic. And the way the characters talk to each other about the most menial things about people we never meet feels so brilliantly dull it becomes relatable. You just can't replicate that for an American audience
Also the way the characters talk over each other. It’s typical of anything written by Ruth Jones and it just creates an authenticity that you don’t usually get from a TV show
Remaking an English speaking programme to English is beyond pointless and a total waste of money. Why can’t yanks just enjoy what is already there?? Loads of American shows are big in the uk and we don’t mind the accents.
I mean even the language shouldn't be a barrier. Subtitles are a thing. Remember when it was trendy for everyone to be watching a different Scandinavian crime drama each week? Or how literal children are watching anime with subtitles. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the language and everything to do with simply not being American.
The problem is Americans don't understand British humour, the think they do because we speak the same language, but what Americans find funny and what brits find funny is completely different. That's why the shot-for-shot scenes never worked. The office only worked because they made the show completely different
Yup, the first season of the US office was quite poor, because it tried to recreate the UK version. Season 2 onwards is its own thing and delivers something based on the Office, rather than an American carbon copy.
This is why I loved Episodes so much. British writers, hit hit, American plan, might not be made, poor casting, remove all the magic... And getting to see two faced behaviour for the sake of possible success.
The crisis I went through after realising the dude who plays American Gavin is the voice actor for Dipper in the masterpiece that is Gravity Falls. WHAT HAPPENED.
Honestly I don’t even blame him, it’s not like he wrote the show. Even good actors struggle to survive bad scripts, so my respect for him remains intact. He was perfect for Dipper, someone just screwed up casting him in a shit remake because my boy didn’t deserve to be done dirty like that 😭
8:50 If Ruth Jones had dropped her phone at the end of the take she would have ad libbed something funny about dropping the phone and because it was a genuine drop it would have been funnier.
American sense of humour is totally different to British, and Australia, and NZ etc. They probably want theirs to be a hit so they can give a finger to the original country’s creation. American egotism!
Like most American remakes, Gavin & Stacey is a concept that can work quite easily, but they always miss the point. The entire cast are meant to represent everyday people that you would actually recognise from both area, maybe with a few stereotypes turned up slightly, but not overly so. Gavin & Stacey aren't meant to be Hollywood attractive, just the slightly better-looking side of average, likewise Smithy & Nessa aren't meant to be some slovenly beasts. This is what The Office gets so right. Even though the tone of the series is different, leaning into more American humour sensibilities than its British counter-part, all of those characters featured feel somewhat like normal people you would encounter in a boring paper-selling company, right down to the warehouse staff. The Inbetweeners misses it, by making their Jay's humour not only cringey, and gross (as it should be), but incredibly awkward and unnatural (often taking jokes too far). Skins (US) was an adaptation that was a little too glitzy, but right towards the end of the series when it diverged a little more from the original, started to find a bit of heart. I think that may have been one that was cancelled a little too soon.
I have never understood how the US version of Ghosts is still going. I think Rose McGyver is great and was why i gave it a chance but oh my days, its terrible.
Tbf to Ghosts, past the first episode they actually copied very little - it’s actual American humour for American audiences (which explains why we as intellectual Brits maybe find it less funny)
Just come across this video on my feed and I really like your style and humour. I was very shocked to see that you don't have at least 500k subscribers. Great video
22:46 Do I see Raphael Bob Waksberg as story editor? Oh God, that's sad. I held him in such high regard for creating Bojack Horseman. No wonder this never made it to his IMDB page.
I'm a certified British person and Gavin and Stacey somehow completely passed me by. Like I'd literally never even heard of it and then suddenly it was 2016 and everyone was talking about it like a beloved classic
I detest the way American actors raise their eyebrows and wave their hands around to signal they are 'being funny'. English and Welsh actors slump their shoulders and look pissed off (or worried) - downplaying the script is way funnier.
I've travelled through 47 of the states and honestly - the culture isn't diverse enough for this to work, at least not with white Americans. The way of life, outlook etc is very similar all over. You could have white/black diversity but the country hasnt recovered enough from slavery to make that work
There have only been a handful of times where the transfer of UK to US versions of the same sitcom/premise have worked. The Office, and three of the times in the 1970s that Norman Lear did the adaptations: Man About the House/Three’s Company, Steptoe & Son/Sanford & Son, and TIL Death Us Do Part/ All in the Family. The reason that these all worked is that they dealt with universal themes, that were all able to be tweaked ever so slightly without killing the soul of what made the originals great. Shows were the focus of the humour is based, at least in part, on a specific cultural reference (G&S, Fawlty Towers etc.), without the background knowledge/experience of the culture necessary to make it work are often not likely to succeed.
Gavin and Stacey was always so beautiful, it’s filled with heart and I think American media can’t accept they don’t understand British humour and it’s so clear how try hard these American adaptations are and it’s honestly heartbreaking to see, I think it hurts knowing that no matter what we feel, the US and UK will always try and adapt each other no matter what anyone feels about it because of the simple fact it’s easier than coming up with new ideas ):
I know like you said at the start that Gavin is probably the straight man of the show but man Matt Horne has insane chemistry with almost every other actor. But too many of these remakes just take a particular aspect of a character and Flanderize it too hell, completely missing that Smithy and Nessa actually do care and have emotion Smithy may come across quite happy go lucky but he shows real emotion, like when Nessa tells him he's they're going to have a baby, his anger felt real, and when Nessa actually gets emotional, like when Stacey finds out she's pregnant and Nessa starts to actually cry, Nessa and Stacey despite being opposites really feel like best friends, Pam and Mick are like a real couple, Gwen is a genuine Mother, you can tell she'd do anything for anyone, especially if it involves beating an egg. We all know a Pete and Dawn, a couple who almost seem to hate each other, but as Pam says they'd never really look at anyone else, and that's probably why they're still together 10 years later in the Christmas special.
In my opinion Gavin has enough quirks to his character to not be a complete straight man. The true straight man is Michael who is used to amazing effect in the one or two times he has to show emotion to console his son. Everything about the original was top tier.
@@cashcorleone3311Michael is 100% the straight man, he solves conflicts, even petty ones and also keeps the insanity of the other characters in check a lot of the time.
It’s also funny to see him working off of the crazier/other characters, like when Nessa flirts with him or when they’re at the wedding fair and he tells Gavin that he tells Pam some “pretty black” lies and Gavin looks absolutely horrified lmao
@@cashcorleone3311 yeah, Michael is the true straight man, but Gavin is younger and so it is logical that he would be more impulsive. Many of the quirky, wacky or impulsive acts that Gavin does you could easily see a younger Michael doing (and Stacey does is such a good fit for Gavin because she is a Pam personality to his Michael personality)
The uk version does play off the differences between England and wales, there’s also the having mates you’d do anything for with smithy, there’s family love. Mostly the characters are believable, we all know a smithy, we all know a giggly girl like Stacey, know mates parents like mick and Pam, and it’s simple grounded in reality
Why would they not have done it with an american and a canadian? Still wouldnt be as good, but would be much better then a small town girl and a big city boy….
No like why do they do this to UK shows 🙈🙈🙈. Like they done it to inbetweeners,skins, Shameless, this and always fails. Like uk and us humor is different
I understand the idea of their version of Smithy being a bit predatory purely because of the reoccurring joke in the original about Smithy seeing a 17 year old when he’s clearly in his mid-twenties… But the original just does it so much more subtly, American remakes just tend to go way too over the top from the get go and it doesn’t build the joke about the Smithy character being a bit of a nonce like the original did.
Tbf, you could also argue that Smithy dating a 17 year old at 28 in the original show was also prrdatorial. I know his age isn’t specified on screen, but he definitely looks too old to be dating Lucy
Americans are phenomenal at acting, especially when it comes to bold, larger-than-life performances. But when it comes to the subtle art of acting like you're not acting ie the office. Gavin and stacy. Inbetweeners those understated, naturalistic portrayals British actors truly are the best in the world. Please America keep to Hollywood blockbusters that we truly do love and leave the real life everyday world situation acting to us Brits 😇
It's to do with culture. They're trying to imitate cultural tv shows and it just doesn't work. Imagine a UK Saved by the bell or something it would just be different to the point where it wouldn't even be the same.
You forgot to mention the fact that the guy who plays ‘American Smithy’ also plays ‘American Rodney’ in the equally terrible remake of Only Fools and Horses with Christopher Lloyd aka Doc from back to the future as Grandad 😂
In my opinion, _MOST_ of the time, if not almost every single time, there is an American remake of a British sitcom, it _ALWAYS_ fails, and this is no exception However, there _are_ some exceptions. I don't care what anyone thinks. I'm British, so I'm allowed to say this. The US version of The Office is better than the UK version. There are probably even cases where both the UK and US versions are both good (just different). For example, Steptoe and Son, and the US version, Sanford and Son are (probably) both good, in different ways (I've never really watched them, but older sitcoms are generally better than modern sitcoms anyway).
Holy shit. The most amusing part of this show for me is that the story was edited by Raphael Bob Waksberg, the man behind the excellent Bojack Horseman
So many incredible shows simply do not translate over here. In fact a majority of them suck. Mostly because of subtle nuance unique to the British culture which makes those shows magic in the first place.
I know its absolutely not gonna be good but I wanna watch it so badly now I know Dipper Pines’s VA and the actress who played Rory Gilmore are in it together 😭
when I saw Raphael bob waksburgs name on the credits there I thought I was hallucinating (story editor for one episode apparently). what is even going on here. I guess they wanted Jane kaczmarek to just be Lois again? :/
Yeah, Steve Coogan's production company made the original. James Corden and Ruth Jones also listed as execs. The most disappointing aspect of it all are that these three legendary names are attached to this.
I wonder if that’s less that they were directly involved, and more that they had to be listed as producers because they created it and needed/wanted credit. I doubt that it would’ve turned out this way if they were actually involved to any degree.
Love America but the sense of humour is just not there please stop destroying our sitcoms you have to stop it. People should be in prison for what they did with the inbetweeners
I’d love it if you did a comparison on ALL the recreations America has done and failed….. the Office, Shameless, the Inbetweeners, Skins, you’ve done Gavin and Stacey so I can’t say to that again but generally just a comparison on all of them would be brilliant, you done good here! I’m even more pissed off then I was to begin with with all of this 😂
"Better With You" (ABC) "Perfect Couples" (NBC) "Mad Love" (CBS) The idea of three contrasting couples: A) the lovey-bunnies pair, B) the dog & cat pair, C) the pair that are either boringly settled but will go off like a time-b0mb one day or we don't even see them as a possible couple yet. The above three sitcoms were all running at approximately the same time. I remember mentally comparing them to Gavin & Stacey, Ned and Stacey (which itself was retooled as Will and Grace), HIMYM, Friends, Coupling, Coupling U.S., Happy Endings and later, Marry Me, A to Z and Friends with Better Lives. A well-worn sitcom concept.
It's a bit weird to call this guy predatory for wanting to be with an 18 year old when the original Smithy was going out with a schoolgirl, I think we're meant to assume she's sixth form so 16/17 (which is still creepy but I guess at least legal) but she's never in it and they talk about her like she's incredibly young (going to sports competitions, being grounded etc.)
I think when remakes work its usually because they take the core idea and adapt it for a different cultural context. There's mileage in a US sitcom about a long distance relationship and the cultural difference between families. But America is huge. Wales to Essex feels like a long way in the UK. In the US version it would be better to make it New York and Texas do the distance feels like distance. Also, what's this messing about with whether Gavin and Stacey are actually going out. The whole point of the UK version is that they get engaged ridiculously quickly and get married at the end of the first series. One thing Gavin and Stacey cannot be is indecisive.
It is so funny how Americans keep on trying to do remakes of British comedies but they always get it wrong so my advice is air the original but with explanation and subtitles. Don’t stick a laugh track on it that’s like lipstick on a pig.
When I first thought about what a Gavin and Stacey US remake, I thought Gavin lives in Queens and Stacey lives in Atlantic City. Having thought more I think Gavin should be an Italian-American from Boston and Smithy runs a pizza by the slice cafe in Little Italy. And the drive makes more sense with this second idea. Either way, both are more interesting than this show did. And how difficult is it to adapt series 1? Certainly the first two episodes would work in any first world nation without changing that many lines
Why can they not just watch the UK version. It is insulting to mess up so many good shows I watched Friends yes some of the reverences I didn't understand but it is still one of my favourite shows same as Desperate housewives. The original only fools and horses, ghost, Gavin and Stacey,life on mars work and are so loved due to the brilliant writing and acting just watch and enjoy them.
It's upsetting how many names I recognise in the production credits. Steve Coogan? Raphael Bob-Waksberg? Julie Gardner? All of you are better than this
This definitely wouldn't have fixed the show. Cause it has many problems. You'd have to change the writers and actors. But I'm surprised they didn't make Stacey from Canada. Yeah, it's kinda coping the Original show again. But surely there are more differences in somewhere like Toronto and New York, and New York has with Pennsylvania. Plus if Gavin had done the thing of driving to see Stacey then it would probably be a lot more Romantic, to drive to a completely different country. Especially from New York to Canada.
for every good adaptation of a british show there are a hundred massive flops. The red dwarf adaptation showed how awful this process was. Everyone was told to just sit around and pitch one line jokes while the original writers were trying to fix genuine flaws in the show and being called the wave of negativity. Most studios dont have any understanding of why something works, they just go "hey, we can make so much money here"
Fun fact: Archie's actor, Dustin Ybarra, also starred in a failed remake of another beloved British sitcom, Only Fools and Horses.
Yeh I noticed the same fact also. America should stop trying to copy us and focus on whatever they are good at.
He needs to sort out his agent in this case 😂
I just saw a thumbnail for a video about that remake and thought it looked like the same guy 😂
Oh no that’s my name
To be fair I went to see the British made stage show of Only Fools a few weeks ago. It was embarrassing....
Genuine question - what do Americans have against watching sitcoms in their original versions?
In the UK you could write a huge list of US shows which are popular and no issues of cultural barriers to understand the humour.
UK carrys American TV, Food, late night tv, comedy pretty much are all British and the ones they try and steal the name are usually awful besides maybe the Office which again Was British idea
Lots of Americans don't like to be confronted with the idea that countries other than America exist. They especially hate anything that requires them to learn or understand the culture and social mores of countries that aren't America. As far as they're concerned, America is the world.
@@combathoney1this is so true
The people that make the American versions don’t think the American public will get the humour. It’s poignant, ironic and genteel in the UK version vs bawdy, in your face, desperate in the US version. Personally I think they would get it.
Was gonna say the same. We just watch American shows alongside the British ones and enjoy them for what they are
i cant believe that a video essay with < 1000 views is how i find out that THE Rory Gilmore starred in a shit american remake of gavin and stacey
With Dipper Pines as her love Interest
AND the Malcolm in the Middle mum thrown in.
The did pretty good with the office
@@nick2523147657yeh that’s their only really good and successful remake…they actually outdid our British version on that one I reckon
@Channel-Change-OfficialOH MY GOD ?!
As revenge we should take a beloved American show & make it so good the Americans delete the original
Breaking bad but it’s Scotland
Breaking bad but it’s still in Scotland
@ alright there ya big jesse? Wanna cook like?
The Big Bang Theory or Friends. They’re such a hit. Uk friends would be similar to ‘Fresh Meat’ I feel
@ Fresh Meat holds a very dear place in my heart. Especially Robert Webb playing his creepiest character
Dear America. We love you. But stop trying to remake our sitcoms. You had one success out of 100s and even that ( The Office ) wasn't as good. The American Inbetweeners was almost a war crime.
false nobody loves america
Shameless was shit too
@@lukeharrop4620 Shameless wasn't a sitcom. Personally never watched the US version but tbh I found the UK version shit anyway. Like Skins....Perhaps made for a different gen than me.
We don't love America. We despise them. I refuse to pretend otherwise.
America wanted independence yet still rely on our amazing taste in television to try and make their country look great. And it’s not a sitcom, but I think I screamed into my pillow when I found out they tried to remake Life on Mars.
As an American I couldn’t get passed the first 10 minutes of the American version but I’ve watched the British version 19 times.
It’s got humour and you can see the difference between the families
Respect.
The casting is horrible, it’s like they didn’t watch a single second of the original. There are American actors who could pull off those roles but definitely not who they casted
I think they cast this based mainly on physical resemblances to the two-sentence descriptions of each character in the original. The idea of interpreting the actual characters never occurred to them.
I genuinely don’t think that popular sitcom US actors would have taken any role in this, it looked like a failed show from the get go.
wait until you realise that Ruth Jones and James Corden were both executive producers on the show for at least one episode… they were aware, they knew what was going on, they gave not a single iota of a damn, probably because they knew it was going to flop 🤣
(source: it was in the video, look for the clip where the Mick rip off says something about homeless people. it’s between that and the scrabble racism)
@@astralloser1177wait wdym sorry I don’t get it 😂 James and Ruth produced this ?
@@astralloser1177’Executive Producers’ on a remake of a show often means very little. You can be an exec producer, technically speaking, and just be on one video call giving a few tips. That said, I agree they almost certainly knew it would be shit and it was a ‘take the money and run’ scenario.
Though the original doesn't specifically say what Stacey's dad died of, the letter he wrote to her to be opened on her wedding day shows that he knew he wasn't going to be around and so I think we can assume it probably was cancer or some kind of illness as opposed to an accident.
Yeah it definitely implies long term illness.
It's highly implied that Trevor (god rest his soul) was not a very nice man and possibily a drinker. I remember brynn saying how he remembers www. Is whiskey with water as that was his brothers favourite drink. Gwen said he was homophobic to jason and cheated on her/partied a lot when she fell pregnant with him and the christmas episode mention how he made christmas miserable. This always made me think that he was an abusive drinker which would explain how they all miss him so much because they always talk about him so fondly, maybe he was nice when he was sober but died of something relating to alcoholism like liver failure?
@@jazzybubblezzz3114 while the rest of your comment makes sense (and the fact that somewhere along the way, Bryn says something to the effect of "The drink and the drugs," when talking about Trevor), I think the first point you make is a stretch.
Someone having a favourite drink doesn't automatically mean they're an alcoholic.
@@onlyashes89 I just meant as in addition to everything else said in the show, its another instance where Trevor is linked to alcohol. Of course if the rest of Trevor's character wasn't talked about in the same way then yes I agree with you it would mean nothing lol
@jazzybubblezzz3114 yeah definitely! That's absolutely fair. I just felt like I wanted to clarify that alone doesn't point to alcoholism 😊 we're definitely on the same page about the picture of Trevor as a whole!
"Uncle Brian" made me go through all the levels of hell at once
Real I almost cried
The thing about Nessa is that she's not a loser woman with trashy taste in clothing. She's a worldly woman who has lived such an interesting life that nobody believes anything she says. And it's all true. When she walks into a room, people notice, and they respect her. Stacey would never be friends with the American incarnation of Nessa. Although, I also think the British Nessa would eat the American Stacey for breakfast. She's too prim and proper. The US has managed to do some good versions of British shows. The US version of Ghosts is very good, probably because it has been produced in a gentle style with some rather poignant scenes as well as humour. But they tried to make Red Dwarf twice and failed. Americans have been able to watch the British version of Red Dwarf on BBC America for years, so they haven't missed out. It's not like American audiences don't enjoy British humour. But maybe the British should be flattered that the US wants to remake their shows. With Gavin and Stacey, they just didn't understand the characters enough, and I'm not sure they realised that the story arc is really about Smithy and Nessa's on/off relationship.
They actually pay off Nessa’s impossible sounding backstory by having some of the celebrities she’s namedropped cameo at her wedding at the end of series three as well, I don’t think you can replicate that.
honestly i always thought people *did* believe the random stories she drops, because shes such a plausibly strange woman
I'm American and I thoroughly Enjoyed "Gavin and Stacy". James Corden must be a Fantastic Actor because First seeing him in "The Wrong Mans" and then "G & S" I thought he was a Likeable Fellow. Oh how wrong I was.
His comedy acting back in the day was actually funny, until we all kind of realised that he probably was just playing himself a bit lol, probably how he can slip back into the character so easy
Thank god my nations favourite sitcom “Derry Girls” is so specific to our social and cultural situation in the 1990s that it just can’t be replicated in the US.
I wouldn't put it past them......But hope you're right. It's also one of the few British Sit Coms that probably wouldn't travel in the original, because things like The Troubles are alluded to many times, but not spelled out.
Nobody is safe, get ready for Pittsburgh Girls coming soon to a streaming service near you
Isn't Derry girls kust a rip off of the Inbetweeners already though?
@IndecentExposure. Absolutely not! It's very specific to tie time and place it is set.
@@carolineskipper6976 maybe but the characters and the banter are ripped off no denying
LOOK AT YOURSELVES. WILL YOU JUST LOOK AT YOURSELVES.
Of course an American remake didn't work, Gavin & Stacey plays off of cultural differences between Essex and Wales and that's just not going to travel outwith the UK in the same way.
Also why does America have to remake British shows instead of just showing the original British show over there in the same way we are bombarded with the likes of Friends, HIMYM, Frasier, Cheers, Family Guy, American Dad, Two and Half Men, Seinfeld etc...
There are more places than Essex and Wales that can have cultural differences.
Yeah thanks mate we all just watched the video too.
Yeah but cultural differences are just pretty insignificant in the US than compared to the UK, or at least over short distances, so it doesn't directly translate to the US as it does in the UK @@kb5509
@@kb5509 that obviously don’t translate well like the Wales/England difference did
Just a thought: could they, for instance, have set the remake in the US and Canada? Aren't you guys always having a laugh at your neighbours to the North, and vice-versa? It seems roughly analogous to the whole England-Wales dynamic, even down to taking the piss out of the way the other country speaks.
I've just never understood why tv shows are remade. Just watch the original. It would be like the UK remaking Friends. It just wouldn't work. Because anyone living in Britain in a apartment complex knows not to talk to each other. 😂
Ah but we did try remaking friends, ever seen coupling?
Chums on SMTV
@@ThatDuckieMoment Coupling isn't a remake of Friends and was never written that way. Also, Coupling is ten times funnier than Friends, but that's because it is a sitcom and Friends isn't.
You’re right, it’s not a direct remake but an attempt to make a similar show. But there was an American remake of Coupling that’s not great.
There has been British remakes of American sitcoms though, like a terrible remake of The Golden Girls called The Brighton Belles and a remake of Married with Children called Married for Life which Rob Brydon appeared in.
There’s so many layers to Gavin and Stacey. Not only is there no comparison to the relationship between the Welsh and the English. But the minor details in the entire show are just sprinkled in there and it makes the viewer feel as if they know the characters. The slow build up of Nessa’s back story. The way that each time they talk about Stacey’s dad, it makes him sound worse. The *fishing trip*. There’s so much more to it than just being a regular sitcom
Not to mention the comedy of the mundane. The second Christmas Special had a whole conversation about different service stations and it just felt so authentic. And the way the characters talk to each other about the most menial things about people we never meet feels so brilliantly dull it becomes relatable. You just can't replicate that for an American audience
@ that scene about oven gloves vs tea towels. It’s just peak British humour.
Also the way the characters talk over each other. It’s typical of anything written by Ruth Jones and it just creates an authenticity that you don’t usually get from a TV show
Remaking an English speaking programme to English is beyond pointless and a total waste of money. Why can’t yanks just enjoy what is already there?? Loads of American shows are big in the uk and we don’t mind the accents.
Some of us do 😆
I mean even the language shouldn't be a barrier. Subtitles are a thing. Remember when it was trendy for everyone to be watching a different Scandinavian crime drama each week? Or how literal children are watching anime with subtitles.
I'm sure it has nothing to do with the language and everything to do with simply not being American.
The problem is Americans don't understand British humour, the think they do because we speak the same language, but what Americans find funny and what brits find funny is completely different. That's why the shot-for-shot scenes never worked. The office only worked because they made the show completely different
Yup, the first season of the US office was quite poor, because it tried to recreate the UK version. Season 2 onwards is its own thing and delivers something based on the Office, rather than an American carbon copy.
Wait there's a remake of Gavin and Stacey???? BRITISH HUMOR DOESN'T WORK FOR AMERICA!! They need to stop doing this,.
Welcome to this video 😂 welcome to this channel 😂
@cre8ivoutlet 😂😂 thanks
Remember when Smithy gave England football team a pep talk & Nessa had a single out with Tom Jones!?
A simpler time!!😅
I’ve never had the misfortune of watching the American version of Gavin and Stacey, but this video filled me with so much rage. Thank you.
This is why I loved Episodes so much.
British writers, hit hit, American plan, might not be made, poor casting, remove all the magic...
And getting to see two faced behaviour for the sake of possible success.
The crisis I went through after realising the dude who plays American Gavin is the voice actor for Dipper in the masterpiece that is Gravity Falls. WHAT HAPPENED.
NO OMG I WAS GOBSMACKED JASON WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE GIRL
@ LITERALLY- WHILE WATCHING THE VID I WAS THINKING HE LOOKED AND SOUNDED FAMILIAR AND THEN IT CLICKED IN MY HEAD BEFORE I SEARCHED UP TO DOUBLE CHECK
I WAS TRYNA FIGURE OUT WHERE I KNEW THE NAME JASON RITTER FROM
Honestly I don’t even blame him, it’s not like he wrote the show. Even good actors struggle to survive bad scripts, so my respect for him remains intact. He was perfect for Dipper, someone just screwed up casting him in a shit remake because my boy didn’t deserve to be done dirty like that 😭
@ yeah this script is so shit so fair point 😭
8:50 If Ruth Jones had dropped her phone at the end of the take she would have ad libbed something funny about dropping the phone and because it was a genuine drop it would have been funnier.
American sense of humour is totally different to British, and Australia, and NZ etc. They probably want theirs to be a hit so they can give a finger to the original country’s creation. American egotism!
It’s very hard for me to see Louis from Malcom In The Middle be in a bad product
She was so iconic as Louis
Especially when you think of how well Bryan Cranston did and she was even better than him in Malcolm in the Middle.
I know right! When I saw Louis I thought how can t be bad
Like most American remakes, Gavin & Stacey is a concept that can work quite easily, but they always miss the point. The entire cast are meant to represent everyday people that you would actually recognise from both area, maybe with a few stereotypes turned up slightly, but not overly so. Gavin & Stacey aren't meant to be Hollywood attractive, just the slightly better-looking side of average, likewise Smithy & Nessa aren't meant to be some slovenly beasts. This is what The Office gets so right. Even though the tone of the series is different, leaning into more American humour sensibilities than its British counter-part, all of those characters featured feel somewhat like normal people you would encounter in a boring paper-selling company, right down to the warehouse staff. The Inbetweeners misses it, by making their Jay's humour not only cringey, and gross (as it should be), but incredibly awkward and unnatural (often taking jokes too far). Skins (US) was an adaptation that was a little too glitzy, but right towards the end of the series when it diverged a little more from the original, started to find a bit of heart. I think that may have been one that was cancelled a little too soon.
Can we the uk take them to court over this
The TLDR of this video
"This remake is a SHOWER OF SHIT...
...
...and I'll tell you for why"
I have never understood how the US version of Ghosts is still going. I think Rose McGyver is great and was why i gave it a chance but oh my days, its terrible.
Tbf to Ghosts, past the first episode they actually copied very little - it’s actual American humour for American audiences (which explains why we as intellectual Brits maybe find it less funny)
@@EuanBCFC The American Ghosts is OK. I prefer our version but I can watch the American one. The real crime was what the Americans did to Taskmaster.
Just come across this video on my feed and I really like your style and humour. I was very shocked to see that you don't have at least 500k subscribers. Great video
22:46 Do I see Raphael Bob Waksberg as story editor? Oh God, that's sad. I held him in such high regard for creating Bojack Horseman. No wonder this never made it to his IMDB page.
This show bugs me because I love Alexis Bledel and Jason Ritter but this show makes them look like bad actors
Right! I mean, dude did gravity falls yet still felt this was a smart choice 😭😭
Rory Gilmore deserved better
Class video mate. Just popped up on my home page and glad I clicked, keep it up!
I'm a certified British person and Gavin and Stacey somehow completely passed me by. Like I'd literally never even heard of it and then suddenly it was 2016 and everyone was talking about it like a beloved classic
I detest the way American actors raise their eyebrows and wave their hands around to signal they are 'being funny'. English and Welsh actors slump their shoulders and look pissed off (or worried) - downplaying the script is way funnier.
james cordon is from the depts of hell itself IM DYINGGG
I shit you not, I got an ad for a theme park in Abu Dhabi in the midroll after the rollercoaster 'joke'. Ryan Reynolds was in it for some reason.
I did too 😂 thought OP had edited it in at first
I've travelled through 47 of the states and honestly - the culture isn't diverse enough for this to work, at least not with white Americans. The way of life, outlook etc is very similar all over.
You could have white/black diversity but the country hasnt recovered enough from slavery to make that work
There have only been a handful of times where the transfer of UK to US versions of the same sitcom/premise have worked. The Office, and three of the times in the 1970s that Norman Lear did the adaptations: Man About the House/Three’s Company, Steptoe & Son/Sanford & Son, and TIL Death Us Do Part/ All in the Family. The reason that these all worked is that they dealt with universal themes, that were all able to be tweaked ever so slightly without killing the soul of what made the originals great.
Shows were the focus of the humour is based, at least in part, on a specific cultural reference (G&S, Fawlty Towers etc.), without the background knowledge/experience of the culture necessary to make it work are often not likely to succeed.
I never even knew this existed, and I had heard of a bunch of the shitty remakes before like the inbetweeners and the IT crowd but this is shocking
I didn't even know they had done The IT Crowd as well 😭😭
Do they do the “where’s the salad” joke??
Gavin and Stacey was always so beautiful, it’s filled with heart and I think American media can’t accept they don’t understand British humour and it’s so clear how try hard these American adaptations are and it’s honestly heartbreaking to see, I think it hurts knowing that no matter what we feel, the US and UK will always try and adapt each other no matter what anyone feels about it because of the simple fact it’s easier than coming up with new ideas ):
I know like you said at the start that Gavin is probably the straight man of the show but man Matt Horne has insane chemistry with almost every other actor. But too many of these remakes just take a particular aspect of a character and Flanderize it too hell, completely missing that Smithy and Nessa actually do care and have emotion Smithy may come across quite happy go lucky but he shows real emotion, like when Nessa tells him he's they're going to have a baby, his anger felt real, and when Nessa actually gets emotional, like when Stacey finds out she's pregnant and Nessa starts to actually cry, Nessa and Stacey despite being opposites really feel like best friends, Pam and Mick are like a real couple, Gwen is a genuine Mother, you can tell she'd do anything for anyone, especially if it involves beating an egg. We all know a Pete and Dawn, a couple who almost seem to hate each other, but as Pam says they'd never really look at anyone else, and that's probably why they're still together 10 years later in the Christmas special.
In my opinion Gavin has enough quirks to his character to not be a complete straight man. The true straight man is Michael who is used to amazing effect in the one or two times he has to show emotion to console his son. Everything about the original was top tier.
@@cashcorleone3311Michael is 100% the straight man, he solves conflicts, even petty ones and also keeps the insanity of the other characters in check a lot of the time.
It’s also funny to see him working off of the crazier/other characters, like when Nessa flirts with him or when they’re at the wedding fair and he tells Gavin that he tells Pam some “pretty black” lies and Gavin looks absolutely horrified lmao
@@cashcorleone3311 yeah, Michael is the true straight man, but Gavin is younger and so it is logical that he would be more impulsive.
Many of the quirky, wacky or impulsive acts that Gavin does you could easily see a younger Michael doing (and Stacey does is such a good fit for Gavin because she is a Pam personality to his Michael personality)
The uk version does play off the differences between England and wales, there’s also the having mates you’d do anything for with smithy, there’s family love.
Mostly the characters are believable, we all know a smithy, we all know a giggly girl like Stacey, know mates parents like mick and Pam, and it’s simple grounded in reality
Why would they not have done it with an american and a canadian? Still wouldnt be as good, but would be much better then a small town girl and a big city boy….
No like why do they do this to UK shows 🙈🙈🙈. Like they done it to inbetweeners,skins, Shameless, this and always fails. Like uk and us humor is different
The US Shameless is excellent so please don’t compare it to this muck.
literally right after the little rant about the arabs and rollercoasters joke i got an ad for a theme park in abu dhabi lmao
I understand the idea of their version of Smithy being a bit predatory purely because of the reoccurring joke in the original about Smithy seeing a 17 year old when he’s clearly in his mid-twenties…
But the original just does it so much more subtly, American remakes just tend to go way too over the top from the get go and it doesn’t build the joke about the Smithy character being a bit of a nonce like the original did.
yeah tbf I did think about smithy and his 17 year old gf at that bit 😂😂😂
Tbf, you could also argue that Smithy dating a 17 year old at 28 in the original show was also prrdatorial. I know his age isn’t specified on screen, but he definitely looks too old to be dating Lucy
I just heard about this a week ago. So dumb that they did a US remake. It's stupid.
Americans are phenomenal at acting, especially when it comes to bold, larger-than-life performances. But when it comes to the subtle art of acting like you're not acting ie the office. Gavin and stacy. Inbetweeners those understated, naturalistic portrayals British actors truly are the best in the world. Please America keep to Hollywood blockbusters that we truly do love and leave the real life everyday world situation acting to us Brits 😇
It's to do with culture. They're trying to imitate cultural tv shows and it just doesn't work. Imagine a UK Saved by the bell or something it would just be different to the point where it wouldn't even be the same.
What! I didn’t know this existed bloody hell please America just stop
You forgot to mention the fact that the guy who plays ‘American Smithy’ also plays ‘American Rodney’ in the equally terrible remake of Only Fools and Horses with Christopher Lloyd aka Doc from back to the future as Grandad 😂
They tried to ruin, I mean adapt only fools and horses
In my opinion, _MOST_ of the time, if not almost every single time, there is an American remake of a British sitcom, it _ALWAYS_ fails, and this is no exception
However, there _are_ some exceptions.
I don't care what anyone thinks. I'm British, so I'm allowed to say this.
The US version of The Office is better than the UK version.
There are probably even cases where both the UK and US versions are both good (just different).
For example, Steptoe and Son, and the US version, Sanford and Son are (probably) both good, in different ways (I've never really watched them, but older sitcoms are generally better than modern sitcoms anyway).
Holy shit. The most amusing part of this show for me is that the story was edited by Raphael Bob Waksberg, the man behind the excellent Bojack Horseman
Hey America u don’t have to “best” absolutely everything that other nations have successfully done! Did u not know this???
The American Kath and Kim was atrocious too. I don’t like the American Office either.
So many incredible shows simply do not translate over here. In fact a majority of them suck. Mostly because of subtle nuance unique to the British culture which makes those shows magic in the first place.
Absolutely Fabulous being a great example.
“Ruth Jones is from Wales, James Corden is from the depths of hell itself”
You just earned yourself a new subscriber 😂
I know its absolutely not gonna be good but I wanna watch it so badly now I know Dipper Pines’s VA and the actress who played Rory Gilmore are in it together 😭
when I saw Raphael bob waksburgs name on the credits there I thought I was hallucinating (story editor for one episode apparently). what is even going on here. I guess they wanted Jane kaczmarek to just be Lois again? :/
Executive producer at 14:50 is Steve Coogan? What, actual Steve Coogan??
Yeah, Steve Coogan's production company made the original. James Corden and Ruth Jones also listed as execs. The most disappointing aspect of it all are that these three legendary names are attached to this.
10:15 bro was ahead of the curve
Whenever they adapt a UK show its bloody awful!Wait a while and the BBC will buy it and show it here,to no good reason.
Just looked this up on IMDB and James Corden, Ruth Jones and Steve Coogan are listed as producers on this show !! Unless I've read it wrong?
I wonder if that’s less that they were directly involved, and more that they had to be listed as producers because they created it and needed/wanted credit. I doubt that it would’ve turned out this way if they were actually involved to any degree.
That’s mentioned in the credits included on several clips in this video so it must be correct.
Probably "executive producer" meaning they get paid for the rights to use the characters etc, but without them having any actual creative input.
The makers would’ve given them a lump of cash to slap their names on it. They want to be able to use their names to market it.
@ and likely a clause saying they can’t publicly discuss their thoughts of the show while it’s still airing…
12:06 this is exactly how I feel about How I Met Your Mother. Script trying to fit around bad jokes, rather than jokes written to fit the script.
Love America but the sense of humour is just not there please stop destroying our sitcoms you have to stop it. People should be in prison for what they did with the inbetweeners
I’m sure some Americans get British humour but if this and the office have taught us anything it’s that most really don’t. 😂
I’d love it if you did a comparison on ALL the recreations America has done and failed….. the Office, Shameless, the Inbetweeners, Skins, you’ve done Gavin and Stacey so I can’t say to that again but generally just a comparison on all of them would be brilliant, you done good here! I’m even more pissed off then I was to begin with with all of this 😂
Americans tryna imitate us so hard😂
The US already has Dharma and Greg. Hippie girl with Rich boy.
Just be glad Jason Ritter redeemed himself by going on to play dipper in gravity falls
"Better With You" (ABC)
"Perfect Couples" (NBC)
"Mad Love" (CBS)
The idea of three contrasting couples: A) the lovey-bunnies pair, B) the dog & cat pair, C) the pair that are either boringly settled but will go off like a time-b0mb one day or we don't even see them as a possible couple yet.
The above three sitcoms were all running at approximately the same time. I remember mentally comparing them to Gavin & Stacey, Ned and Stacey (which itself was retooled as Will and Grace), HIMYM, Friends, Coupling, Coupling U.S., Happy Endings and later, Marry Me, A to Z and Friends with Better Lives. A well-worn sitcom concept.
It's a version of a TV show that starred James Corden that doesn't star James Corden. That makes it the better version by default.
It's a bit weird to call this guy predatory for wanting to be with an 18 year old when the original Smithy was going out with a schoolgirl, I think we're meant to assume she's sixth form so 16/17 (which is still creepy but I guess at least legal) but she's never in it and they talk about her like she's incredibly young (going to sports competitions, being grounded etc.)
She was 17 in series 1 (he frequently mentions that her 18th is coming up)
I think when remakes work its usually because they take the core idea and adapt it for a different cultural context.
There's mileage in a US sitcom about a long distance relationship and the cultural difference between families. But America is huge. Wales to Essex feels like a long way in the UK. In the US version it would be better to make it New York and Texas do the distance feels like distance.
Also, what's this messing about with whether Gavin and Stacey are actually going out. The whole point of the UK version is that they get engaged ridiculously quickly and get married at the end of the first series. One thing Gavin and Stacey cannot be is indecisive.
It is so funny how Americans keep on trying to do remakes of British comedies but they always get it wrong so my advice is air the original but with explanation and subtitles. Don’t stick a laugh track on it that’s like lipstick on a pig.
When I first thought about what a Gavin and Stacey US remake, I thought Gavin lives in Queens and Stacey lives in Atlantic City. Having thought more I think Gavin should be an Italian-American from Boston and Smithy runs a pizza by the slice cafe in Little Italy. And the drive makes more sense with this second idea. Either way, both are more interesting than this show did. And how difficult is it to adapt series 1? Certainly the first two episodes would work in any first world nation without changing that many lines
So Crackle is region locked. How did you watch it?
VPN boi
Was that the mum from Malcolm in the middle at 11:59
yep
Watching this ready for tonight’s finale 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
Gwen is played by Trudy from Reno 911. Was not expecting that.
Proof that Father Ted will forever go down as the best sitcom ever! Because the creators were offered big dollars but said "no"
I think the same about the American Inbetweeners.
Why can they not just watch the UK version. It is insulting to mess up so many good shows I watched Friends yes some of the reverences I didn't understand but it is still one of my favourite shows same as Desperate housewives. The original only fools and horses, ghost, Gavin and Stacey,life on mars work and are so loved due to the brilliant writing and acting just watch and enjoy them.
This is how I found out there was an American gavin and stacy
9:02 no, she doesn't drop her phone. She grabs the case flap, and uses gravity flip the phone closed.
What I'll never understand is instead of remaking, why not just show the original?
It's upsetting how many names I recognise in the production credits. Steve Coogan? Raphael Bob-Waksberg? Julie Gardner? All of you are better than this
Depths of hell itself is the perfect way to describe High Wycombe tbh
John Carroll Lynch was involved in this mess?!
This definitely wouldn't have fixed the show. Cause it has many problems. You'd have to change the writers and actors.
But I'm surprised they didn't make Stacey from Canada. Yeah, it's kinda coping the Original show again. But surely there are more differences in somewhere like Toronto and New York, and New York has with Pennsylvania.
Plus if Gavin had done the thing of driving to see Stacey then it would probably be a lot more Romantic, to drive to a completely different country. Especially from New York to Canada.
i actually encountered an American woman on FB today that literally didn't recognise a map on the UK
so there is that
Bloody hell, just look at American "humour" like Big Bang Theory: completely unfunny and even the heavily overlaid laughter track doesn't make it so.
They can’t remake Gavin and Stacey……it just can’t be done as they learned the hard way
I've come to the conclusion that America doesn't do comedy.
I forgot their politics.
so true, every single time I see a clip of SNL I wonder how people love it so much
It's because they are programmed like Pavlov's dogs,it's snl it's funny so you will laugh.
@@dxctr_masterand the fact that Will Ferrel is seen as hilarious over there 🤦🏼♀️
Upsidedown Arab roller coaster did make me lol, that could work in a better show as a non sequitur
That guy who plays Smithy needs to stay away from British Comedy remakes
for every good adaptation of a british show there are a hundred massive flops. The red dwarf adaptation showed how awful this process was. Everyone was told to just sit around and pitch one line jokes while the original writers were trying to fix genuine flaws in the show and being called the wave of negativity. Most studios dont have any understanding of why something works, they just go "hey, we can make so much money here"