Non US/UK/Australia tv shows??

Just remembered another fantastically (awful) New Zealand series that hit ITV in the 80s. It was called "Gloss" and set in the office of a "high fashion magazine".

As you can expect it was truly awful - and thus carcrash watchable! (All that 80s fashion, which seemed strangely dated by the time it got to NZ)

Back in the day's when Gloss was actually on air, it was a very high rating show, just like Shortland Street, and thats still a VERY high rating show at its 7pm slot here on tv2 and has been since 1992.

I don't doubt it was high rating - it was fantastic viewing - though not for the right reasons! It was kind of a low budget Dynasty or Falcons Crest - or that is how it felt to me.

I suspect Shortland Street and Gloss get strong ratings partially because they are original NZ productions - so are more directly relevant to the audience than imports.

The Tribe and The New Tomorrow (NT is shown on Five, Sundays at 11:05) are filmed in New Zealand by New Zealand Based company Cloud 9

Gage

Not sure if this is off-topic,but why don't CiTV start showing Power Rangers again? GMTV don't show the full series and CiTV were a lot better at it.

From what I've seen of European TV on my travels (and I always make sure I get a room with a TV!) they just don't seem to make their own comedy shows. They love their big entertainment / chat shows that would seem really old-fashioned to us, and they seem to make quiz fomats last over an hour at a time. I've only seen American sit-coms dubbed into whatever language.

I've some German friends, and once had a German lodger who just couldn't understand why we had so many comedy shows as he said they don't make them in Germany. I made the awful mistake of suggesting he watched Fawlty Towers (when they repeated it in 1998 on BBC1) only to find it was "that" episode He took it ok - and loved the line about invading Poland! He also loved One Foot in the Grave. Across Scandinavia and Germany, an annual New Years Eve tradition is to watch a long-forgotten black and white British TV comedy sketch by a guy called Freddie Frinton (Dinner for One) - which says something about their expectations from TV perhaps? Benny Hill is still popular in parts of Europe I think.

I shared a house with a French guy once, he also couldn't understand our love of comedy shows and dramas - they seem to have films and the chat/entertainment formats in peak-time in France (which of course he claimed was far better).

There's a couple of other reasons too perhaps: in the US and UK TV is a huge part of our leisure time - I wonder if Europeans take it quite so seriously or so central to their culture? Also, Britain and the US are (I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong here) the biggest original production centres so perhaps we don't need to buy in from elsewhere -and have to dub or subtitle it (which just isn't going to wash with most TV watching Brits - and even less so in the US I imagine.

There was a dodgy dubbed show from China (I think) on ITV4 tonight at 6pm - The Water Margins!

The VRT make quite a few:

<http://www.een.BE/televisie1_master/programmas/e_programma_humor/index.shtm>

including the long running FC de Kampioenen (sitcom about a soccer club)

<http://www.dekampioenen.BE/indexo.php>

on TV Een, and the new, slightly surreal, In De Gloria

<http://www.indegloria.BE>

on Canvas.

And do not forget that RTL + (Deutschland) did broadcast a German cloned version of Married With Children , even down to a near duplicate set.

Thanks. It'd be good to see if someone could make a UK version of a European comedy - has it been done before?

Well a company did make a comedy out of a Dutch soap about a hospital and it aired on C4.

What they did was add comedic sub-titles which had nothing to do with the original storyline dialog.

Does anybody remember this?

C4 also shewed the Australian hospital comedy Let the Blood Run Free .

<http://www.bbc.co.UK/comedy/guide/articles/l/letthebloodrunfr_1299001885.shtml>

The popularity of comedy shows in the UK may well be indicative of the role that "humour" plays in the English (and in many cases British) psyche. Humour, irony, sarcasm etc. are part of the very nature of life in the UK - to a much greater extent than in other countries, where humour is very clearly signposted, and slightly separate from daily life.

(Totally off topic - but I heartily recommend reading Kate Fox's "Watching the English" - which is a book covering why we English do what we do and are like we are. Very un-nerving when you read it and sit there cringing with realisation that you do exactly what she details, yet have no understanding why!)