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Live from, uh, Germany, it's Saturday Night! -- and other U.S. formats overseas

T

TVWorldwide

I thought it may be interesting to look at some successful U.S. formats that were adopted by overseas broadcasters.

Here's Saturday Night Live, German-style, from 1994: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqk--CdGcoA

From 1991, here's the title sequence of a short-lived German version of Jeopardy! that looked nothing like the original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb70aUb1cIg

But this 1996 version, also from Germany, could easily have passed for the American original -- down to the name, the set, and the legendary theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44D83pn5VN4
 
For the last few years now, there have been international versions of SNL in Japan, Korea, Russia, Brazil, Canada (Quebec), and several other countries.

And in the '80s, there was "620 Soul Train" on Britain's Channel Four, airing Fridays (I think) at 6:20 pm and it was the only overseas version of the Soul Train franchise. It could've been worse if they put it on two hours earlier.
 
Considering how many shows we have that are adapted (OK, stolen) from foreign countries, this seems only fair.

One of the funnier interviews I've seen on Youtube was the members of Monty Python talking about taking a trip to Germany to teach the Germans how to do comedy.

Of course, though it's usually better when channels in other countries make their own versions, some unintentional humor occurs when shows are dubbed.
 
There was a rather infamous German dubbed version of 'Hogan's Heroes', which made the show even more farcical than the original version was supposed to be, completely changing plots and characterizations, and sometimes adding unseen original characters. (Klink had a cleaning lady, whom Hogan loved to mention because she always did her housework in the nude.)
 
onairb said:
there was a rather infamous german dubbed version of 'hogan's heroes', which made the show even more farcical than the original version was supposed to be, completely changing plots and characterizations, and sometimes adding unseen original characters. (klink had a cleaning lady, whom hogan loved to mention because she always did her housework in the nude.)
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rofl!
 
...for all intents and purposes, BBC's Dave Allen at Large and CTV's You Can't Do That on Television and Whatever Turns You On were British and Canadian variations on the structure of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In; Whatever Turns You On even had Ruth Buzzi in the regular cast. And CBC's This Hour Has 22 Minutes was clearly an attempt to make a weekly half-hour out of the Weekend Update segment of NBC's Saturday Night Live...
 
Ultimajock said:
...for all intents and purposes, BBC's Dave Allen at Large and CTV's You Can't Do That on Television and Whatever Turns You On were British and Canadian variations on the structure of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In; Whatever Turns You On even had Ruth Buzzi in the regular cast. And CBC's This Hour Has 22 Minutes was clearly an attempt to make a weekly half-hour out of the Weekend Update segment of NBC's Saturday Night Live...
Click to expand...

Did you ever watch Dave Allen at Large? It was an excellent sketch comedy show, but it was more like all the standard shows of that type, like The Red Skelton Show or The Danny Kaye Show. And Laugh-In was, in many ways, just an adaptation of what was standard fare on stage in vaudeville or Broadway revues or earlier TV shows like Ernie Kovacs.
 
Avid Listener said:
Did you ever watch Dave Allen at Large? It was an excellent sketch comedy show, but it was more like all the standard shows of that type, like The Red Skelton Show or The Danny Kaye Show. And Laugh-In was, in many ways, just an adaptation of what was standard fare on stage in vaudeville or Broadway revues or earlier TV shows like Ernie Kovacs.
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...indeed, I watched Dave Allen at Large whenever I saw it was on. The sketches were always quickie blackouts, collected in thematic sequences and presented in-between the host's contributions -- exactly like Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. Unlike Kaye or Skelton, the sketches were never any longer than about 45 seconds apiece, and musical performances were never incorporated into the show...
 
Dave Allen At Large was a classic example of 'less is more'. The 'sketches' were usually (but not always) set up by Allen as a brief aside at the end of one of his hilariously meandering 'shaggy dog' jokes,or pointed observations about sex, drink, or the Church. For the longer sketches, even 45 seconds may have been a stretch. I recall a couple of 'nuclear war'-themed ones that may have exceeded one minute, just to dwell a bit on the miserable landscape. There was also a 'Scottish funeral procession' gag I remember dragging on a bit (interminable bagpiping, that ended with corpse sitting up in his coffin and shouting at the piper to shut up, because he was 'loud enough to wake the dead!') The best blackouts were dialogue-free, usually preceding the opening titles.
So, due to their brevity, Allen's sketches may not have that classic reputation of Monty Python's routines, but they also didn't have the 'dead air' evident in some of the 'less than classic' Python stuff.
 
I think the German dubs of "Hogan's Heroes" were called "A Cage Full Of Heroes". I've also heard that in some countries' versions of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire", the last thing you want to do is ask the audience, because they purposely give wrong answers.
 
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