My mother's English, I'm American. Fawlty Towers and Monty Python are funny, hilariously so, and I enjoyed Doctor Who, still do, and there have been others I've enjoyed, but with not a clue what it was, when I saw two VHS sets of On The Buses in a video catalog, I ordered them and truly was enchanted.
Jack and Stan were drunk in one episode and laughing all over the place, 'cor, mate' and what-have-you, and my mother said, "I left England to get away from all that and you go and bring it back over here!"
They got up in the middle of night in another episode to tighten the screws on Arthur and Olive's bed and I hit pause and said to my mother and sister, "in the middle of night, they have to do this."
It was like a lifelong question had been answered for us.
I'm absolutely enraptured by the show. Bus drivers, I guess. My granddad was apparently a lorry driver of some sort and best way I can describe it is if my parents had remained in the UK, some aspect of this would be my life.
I ordered the American version with Dom Deluise, Lotsa Luck, and there's no comparison. I only ordered it to see how it compared to ON the Buses, which biggest complaint was they did away with the Inspector completely. Deluise was like a younger version of Carroll O'Conner on All In The Family, the American version of Til Death do Us Part.
I got about the first three seasons of Only Fools and Horses and while it was funny, it just didnt click. Clearly my blood would be working but never having money, not finding what I could sell for a quick buck.
The Good LIfe (retitled the Good Neighbors in the states, which just puzzles Brits why this was done, clearly to focus more on the neighbor involvement. Americans wouldn't understand why farming is considered so favorable) was another good one I enjoyed, but I'm from a very rural area.
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laurence01
12 years ago
Actually The Good Life was retitled simply because there had been a US sitcom of the same name a couple of years earlier.
Let Zygons Be Zygons.
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richard.fuller1
12 years ago
laurence01: "Actually The Good Life was retitled simply because there had been a US sitcom of the same name a couple of years earlier."
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Yea, at the time Tom, Barbara, Margo and Jerry were appearing in America, alot of people were recollecting that Hagman-Mills show . . . . . NOT!!!
I'm reminded of when George Clooney started on ER and everyone recalled his appearing on the short-lived Elliot Gould sitcom, ER, and it seemed reviewers and the like wanted everyone to NOT remember it.
But the first thing I thought when I watched the Good Neighbors (since I'm American, I don't want to confuse it with the previous show, The Good LIfe, with Larry Hagman and Donna MIlls) was Tom, Barbara and Margo were all characters on As The World Turns, but Tom was married to Margo there, and Barbara was the conniving other woman, or so she led Tom to believe she was.
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