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NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
Woodpecker posted:
Neil Jones posted:
When Fresh Prince of Bell Air aired on BBC Two, they made a specific point for some reason to change the opening of each episode so it opened in "our" traditional way of titles first, content later, rather than the intended pre-title -> titles -> next segment way. Not sure if this happened to other US programmes, though I know the BBC aired at least the first season of Malcolm In The Middle (with original pre-title sequence and order IIRC) not long after they lost The Simpsons to Channel 4 but I think they'd stopped changing the openings of US programmes long before that point.


IIRC they showed all but the final season of Malcolm in the Middle - I'm pretty sure, though please correct me if I'm wrong, that they were all shown with the 'cold open' first, then the titles.


Genome suggests BBC Two aired all but the last season of Malcolm for whatever reason and it also had a completely mixed up airing schedule over the years which suggests they didn't quite know what to do with it. It first appeared April 6th 2001 at 6:45pm (after The Simpsons) and the second season appeared on a Monday night at 8:35. After that it sort of just appeared anywhere there was a gap, including exclusively overnight for a while.

I presume it kept its cold opening, though in 2001 it was aired right before Fresh Prince which we know had its opening changed as I wrote above. Presumably that first season of Malcolm was changed in the same way for consistency?
RO
Rory
Neil Jones posted:
Woodpecker posted:
Neil Jones posted:
When Fresh Prince of Bell Air aired on BBC Two, they made a specific point for some reason to change the opening of each episode so it opened in "our" traditional way of titles first, content later, rather than the intended pre-title -> titles -> next segment way. Not sure if this happened to other US programmes, though I know the BBC aired at least the first season of Malcolm In The Middle (with original pre-title sequence and order IIRC) not long after they lost The Simpsons to Channel 4 but I think they'd stopped changing the openings of US programmes long before that point.


IIRC they showed all but the final season of Malcolm in the Middle - I'm pretty sure, though please correct me if I'm wrong, that they were all shown with the 'cold open' first, then the titles.


Genome suggests BBC Two aired all but the last season of Malcolm for whatever reason and it also had a completely mixed up airing schedule over the years which suggests they didn't quite know what to do with it. It first appeared April 6th 2001 at 6:45pm (after The Simpsons) and the second season appeared on a Monday night at 8:35. After that it sort of just appeared anywhere there was a gap, including exclusively overnight for a while.

I presume it kept its cold opening, though in 2001 it was aired right before Fresh Prince which we know had its opening changed as I wrote above. Presumably that first season of Malcolm was changed in the same way for consistency?


Nope, looks like they were kept intact:
JA
james-2001
I'm sure I remember when the Fresh Prince was repeated in the early 00s, they had the re-edited cold open on the earlier seasons, but left it before the titles in the later ones.
VM
VMPhil
One of those peculiar BBC things - I don’t think Channel 4 ever did that with its American sitcoms.

Note how Malcolm in the Middle was produced in HD so could be shown in SD widescreen here (or 14:9 letterbox on that analogue recording). Pretty rare at the time, especially for a comedy.
Last edited by VMPhil on 6 March 2018 4:17pm
LL
Larry the Loafer
Could it have been something to do with their copies of the Fresh Prince airing in the DEF II days and the protocol had changed by the time MITM started?
DE
DE88
VMPhil posted:
One of those peculiar BBC things - I don’t think Channel 4 ever did that with its American sitcoms.


Unless I'm mistaken, the omission of the "Lois & Clark" from the name of the series starring Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher was also a BBC thing.

BBC2 were still regularly repeating this series in 2003 - six years after it ended, and shortly before The Simpsons left the channel and Eggheads arrived. And there were even three repeat showings in August 2005, according to Genome - all on weekday mornings, but still without the "Lois & Clark".
RD
RDJ
I think the omission of 'Lois & Clark' was to remove the romantic context of it, given its initial pre-L&K 8.30 Saturday morning run. 'The New Adventures of Superman' sounds far more appealing to kids.

Same goes for 'Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles' as the BBC felt 'Ninja' wasn't suitable for children.
:-(
A former member
Rik Mayall was supposed to be 60 today: So here he is, provening he could do anything and work with anyone...

DJ
DJF
Inspector Sands posted:
james-2001 posted:
Some british sitcoms have a pre-title tease. My Family did (though admittedly that was based on an American formula), and 2point4 children did on its last 3 series too, Not Going Out has one too. I'm sure there's other examples.

I can't think of any to be honest. It's an American thing as that's how their ad breaks work. The have a break directly following the opening titles so the pre-title tease or 'cold open' is actually part 1 of the programme


Barbara used cold openers for the entirety of the series, Kiss Me Kate used a fair few too.
LL
Larry the Loafer
In light of Rik Mayall Day, here's the man himself infiltrating the Broom Cupboard doing what would send Twitter into absolute meltdown. It still makes me sad to think he's not around anymore.

BH
BillyH Founding member
"Lois & Clark" was, I assumed, a reference to the two US explorers Lewis and Clark whose names are on various American sites and landmarks - something that would be lost on international audiences.
IS
Inspector Sands
BillyH posted:
"Lois & Clark" was, I assumed, a reference to the two US explorers Lewis and Clark whose names are on various American sites and landmarks - something that would be lost on international audiences.

Why would that be a problem when the names of the characters were so well established

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