US version
Someone thought they could sell it to the Americans. Unfortunately they did and it became the short-lived series "Lotsa Luck", starring Dom DeLouise: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069603
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MovieChat Forums > On the Buses (1969) Discussion > US version
At the time, America had obtained "Til Death Do Us Part" and we got it as "All In The Family" a 'groundbreaking' comedy for its time in dealing with issues, tho it has become dated. Still the bigoted husband-father, ARchie Bunker, played by Carroll O'Conner was a tv fave.
Ironically, I understand the actress who played the wife on "Til Death" died for real and the show said the character left her husband and he spent several seasons trying to find her (she had gone to Australia at one time, if I understood it correctly) and win her back.
On the American version, the actress, Jean Stapleton, who played the wife, Edith, left the show and her character was killed off.
Then we got "Sanford & Son" which of course was from "Steptoe And Son".
And a bit of irony there. There was an episode of "Sanford and Son" in which the father and son (who were black) learned there was a Jewish tv version of their lives called "Steinberg and Son".
Interesting play on characters learning they inspired tv characters and the show itself was inspired by an outside source, the English program.
So why shouldnt the thought have been lightning would strike yet again with "Lotsa Luck"?
The cast seemed ideal. I've sent off for the dvd set, but havent received it yet.
Beverly Sanders is going to be ideal as Olive, about the closest in likeness in American television you would find from that time period.
I fear the show will not be as blue collar working class as On The Buses was, so that will be why it didn't work.
Kathleen Freeman is going to be nothing like On The Buses mother tho, brilliant as Freeman was. She isn't the doting mother type.
Danny Wells has got to be Jack. I looked him up to see who he was and as soon as I realized what I knew him from, he could only be the best friend.
Can't imagine who the Inspector might be, tho knowing how American shows work, they probably did away with the Inspector and/or merged him with Stan, which has happened on American version shows of English programs (Bea Arthur would appear in "Amanda's" which was based on Fawlty Towers, but Basil and Sybil were 'merged' with the intention of it being a cantankerous boss woman in a hotel. The show sank and fast.)
The actress Dandy Nicols who played Elsie Garnett (Silly Moo) in Till Death Us Do Part did'nt die while making that series although she did leave for a while to visit her ill sister Maud in Australia leaving Alf with his daughter and son-in-law (i don't think that Dandy Nicols and Warren Mitchell who played Alf got on very well in real life).
She did actually die after filming 1 series of In Sickness And In Health which was about the Garnetts in retirement which left Alf a widower who in a later series tried to marry Mrs Hollingbury the widow from the upstairs flat for finacial reasons.
gryzor-4 said: "The actress Dandy Nicols who played Elsie Garnett (Silly Moo) in Till Death Us Do Part did'nt die while making that series although she did leave for a while to visit her ill sister Maud in Australia leaving Alf with his daughter and son-in-law (i don't think that Dandy Nicols and Warren Mitchell who played Alf got on very well in real life).
She did actually die after filming 1 series of In Sickness And In Health which was about the Garnetts in retirement which left Alf a widower who in a later series tried to marry Mrs Hollingbury the widow from the upstairs flat for finacial reasons."
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Thanks for the clarification. Obviously what I watched during one UK visit was when Elsie was in Australia.
I heard Alf mention Elsie's sister Maud in one episode of these I have of Til Death.
Interesting, as on the American version, All In The Family, Maude (with an E) became Edith's (American Elsie) cousin, not her sister.
Maude turned up for all of one hilarious episode when Archie, Mike and gloria were all ill and Edith was running ragged taking care of them, so Maude came to help.
Right off the bat we got the understanding that Archie and Maude coudln't stand one another and Maude was going to be no slouch with ARchie, either, and the actress (Bea Arthur, who would later on appear on Golden Girls as Dorothy) held her own with O'Conner, with hilarious results.
At the end of the episode, Edith got sick, Archie yells at her as she runs to the bathroom, "Edith, who's going to take care of us if you get sick?"
Maude taps ARchie on the shoulder as he turns around.
"Maudey's here," she says quietly as he winces. He'd spent the entire episode screaming for her to leave his house.
Joan Sims would have been ideal for this role in Til Death. Pity she was wasted on that elderly mother or grandmother part.
In America, Maude would immediately spin off into her own show, an overly feminist show from the 1970s, and needless to say, it is now extremely dated.
Joan Sims played Gran who wasn't even a relative. There was a great episode where Gran was ill and Alf while visiting her with Elsie thought she was going to die so he pinched her dead husbands gold pocket watch from her and replaces it with his worthless metal one. However Gran makes a recovery and tells them that she had two visiters, one was the holy mother herself who she would have gladly died for and gone to heaven with, and the other was the devil himself who with the just a touch took all the gold out of her watch. needless to say Alf's family are disgusted with him for robbing a possible dying old lady. Alf tries to get out of it by saying that he was only looking after it for her.
Two other great characters were Alf's neighbours Bert and Min played by Alfie Bass and Patricia Hayes
gryzor-4: "Two other great characters were Alf's neighbours Bert and Min played by Alfie Bass and Patricia Hayes"
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Alfie Bass, I've seen in Are You Being Served, as well as a minor role in Fearless Vampire Killers.
Interesting the neighbors on Til Death stood out, because once again, All In The Family had some standout next door neighbors as well, but they were black, so of course, Archie Bunker didn't like them, especially him.
They were called George and Louise (Weezie) Jefferson. George Jefferson owned a dry cleaning store, and eventually established a chain, so he moved out of the neighborhood into a hi-rise and into his own tv show, The Jeffersons.
The spinoffs from All In The Family are interesting to note.
The next-door neighbors, The Jeffresons, got their own show, and Edith Bunker's cousin, Maude, got her own show (after only one appearance on All In The Family).
Maude had three maids. The first was a black woman named Florida Evans, played by Esther Rolle, who likewise got her own show about her husband and kids, called Good Times.
Maude's second maid, you may be familiar with. She was played by Hermione Baddeley, pardon my misspelling, whose sister you may recall was the cook on Upstairs, Downstairs.
Third maid isn't worth recalling. She was there briefly.
The Jeffersons maid, Florence Johnston, also had a brief attempt at a sitcom, and Gloria Bunker Stivic, Archie's daughter, would later get her own show, which also didn't last.
Did Maud the sister ever appear on Til Death?
I don't recall seeing her in the TV series but she did appear in the Movie version from 1969 which charted Alf and Elsie's life from 1939 to the late 1960's.
In reference to my previous post about Bert and Min. Bert was Alf's best friend and Min was very frustrated due to the fact that Bert's reluctance to perform in the bedroom. There was a great episode when Elsie had gone to Australia where Alf decided to move in to Bert and Min's spare bedroom and Min put on her nightdress and threw herself at Alf who was like a startled rabbit caught in the headlights of a car.
I kept meaning to check, and finally did.
I saw a program, wow, 20 years ago, with Kiri Te Kanawa and Jeremy Irons singing various selections (nearly the entire musical) of My Fair Lady and there was an elderly gent who sang two numbers, songs from Eliza Doolittle's dad, I'm Getting Married in the Morning and With a Little Bit of Luck.
A quick check, and yep, it was Warren Mitchell.
I had not a clue who he was, but he was hamming it up the entire time, never stopped, even when he got applause.
He yelled back at the audience 'aw, shut up!' and reached to the conductor's pocket and acted like he was looking for something.
And he definitely fit the bill for singing those two songs.
Back then, I recorded the songs onto an audio-cassette, and still have it.
Just got the dvd set of Lotsa Luck, and have only watched two episodes so far.
It seems Stan and the Inspector were merged. The American Stan works in the lost and found at the bus depot.
Wow, UK Stan would have cleaned up if he worked there, wouldn't he?
But the appeal is lost in the American version.
More people, in the UK and the USA, have rode a bus than they have gone to the lost and found at the bus depot, so the attraction of a show about a bus driver would be more inviting.
America already had their favorite bus driver in Jackie Gleason in the 1950s, on the Honeymooners, the basis for the Flintstones, by the way.
And the character of Arthur was completely overhauled in Lotsa Luck.
He is a complete and total bum in Lotsa Luck, and while he may have been unemployed in On The Buses, something I never caught on to if he was, he maintained an air of dignity about himself.
It seems like Stan and Arthur were to be the main antagonists in Lotsa Luck, not the Inspector.
Strange then as well, if Carl Reiner 'created' this American version, after he had played one of the most menacing bosses on American tv up to that time, Alan Brady on The Dick Van Dyke Show, that he would completely remove the Inspector from Lotsa Luck.
If I recall rightly Arthur did work in a train station but was made redundant in a later episode. Arthur was originally a hospital porter in the episode where stan ,blakey and jack reminisce about the day jack started work in the depot and olive first met Arthur.
sharewas the show popular in usa
shareI would have to say no.
shareThe Lotsa Luck show, the Americanized On The Buses?
Virtually unheard of. Deluise got a golden globe nomination for it, but that was nothing.
Ironically, the first episode on the dvd has the voice over promo for the upcoming next show, which is called Oh, Diana, and starred Diana Rigg, who also did the promo.
Never heard of that show either.
Just ordered the complete On The Buses and episode two, the characters are gradually going to develop, aren't they?