Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em..in America!

Should be interesting to see what the American version of SMDAE would look like, bearing in mind the American remakes of Fawlty Towers fell flat, their version of The Office was poor initially, Weakest Link didn't last very long, Millionaire was saturated and now only runs in daytime... Even the American remake of Teachers fell flat after 6 episodes.

Not looking good going by the track record - they couldn't even get something incredibly simple like Supernanny right, insisting on filling this programme with flufffy pointless interviews, same with Wife Swap US.

If you put together the right people who aren't afraid to take risks (not just changing details for the sake of it), and understand what makes great TV, you get complete genius such as The Office US.

It just proves that the majority of UK to US conversions are done by producers who have very little vision or any sense of why the original worked. It's no surprise they also aren't any good at hiring decent writers or the right cast.

That's such a myth - a lot like "Coronation Street is funny".

America produces a lot of **** comedy but so do we!. I'd take the vastly over-rated Friends over My Hero any day. If you dig through all the **** you'll find some real gems which have had a lot of influence on British Comedy. Larry Sanders, Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Arrested Development... All have been ripped off over here over the past decade.

Thinking about it I'm quite surprised that they haven't bought it before now. It's a classic timeless format, and because it's quite visual it sells very well to non-english speaking countries.

If you can get past the horrible 70's fashions, sets and production values the original has stood the test of time quite well

Laurel & Hardy apart (being from about 50 years before the other examples) all those you've named are all classics that many people find funny today. The Two Ronnies had a great renaisance a few years ago for example. How you don't find the great Morecombe and Wise sketches or Tommy Cooper funny I have no idea. Tommy is funny just to look at

And the biggest rip-offs were......

The Golden Girls (US) = Brighton Belles (Carlton S**TE)
Who's The Boss? (US) = The Upper Hand (Central)
Married..With hildren = UK version with Russ Abbot playing the Al Bundy rip-off!!!

They weren't 'rip offs', they were UK made versions. The companies involved paid to use the format. Just like the way American companies paid the BBC for Steptoe, Fawlty Towers, The Office etc

But My Hero has never been touted as anything other than a cheap-ish mid-week schedule filler that gets reasonable ratings for what is a rather average programme. Friends and its ilk are put up there as the cream of American output with cheap canned laughter and appalling acting coupled to weak scripts.

I think My Hero gets a bad press. It's not sophisticated, it's not particually witty, but it is basically a old fashioned mainstream family sitcom... and it does very well for it. Not every sitcom can be The Office

But they were poor compared to the US original versions and yet in the case of The Upper Hand and The Brighton Belles the same production companies were used if I remember correctly!!!

What was the name of the UK version of arried with Children (again if I remember well wasn't that pulled from primetime after 2 or 3 episodes - just like The Brighton Belles?)

Twas called Married for Life and surprisingly lasted for 7 episodes when aired in 1996.

The Yanks' version of Dad's Army, "The Rear Guard", didn't even make it beyond the pilot stage.