Father Ted US remake

arch_stanton

I've just seen on Dark Horizons that a US remake of Father Ted is due to begin filming in January

http://www.darkhorizons.com/news07/071126c.php

Given their sensitivities about all things religous, I can´t see how it could possibly happen without being watered down beyond recognition.

Down with this sort of thing !!!!

Mr E

Careful now.

(Sorry).

Can't see this working in the US. So much of the humour in the show is derived from Religion, and there are some serious fruitloops in the States who would burn the studio down if they offended God in any way.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

you both realise america is the country that south park is made in, right?

aidan_walsh

Mordeth wrote: »

you both realise america is the country that south park is made in, right?

So the real question is what network is making it.

Mr E

Yep, a niche cartoon on cable network with a cult following vs. a mainstream network-backed sitcom.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

cult following? south park is one of the most watched shows on tv. it's the most watched show on a wednesday night between the 18-45 male demographic.

Ruu_Old

I think some other US network tried to work with this before and it didn't happen, just leave it alone. :mad:

<voice in background>fuckin' ell!

Goldenquick

Wow!! So there he is. Risen from the dead. Like that feller.... E.T.

Oops no offence meant.

I can't see it being allowed, all the religious groups will be up in arms boycotting it.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

<voice in background>****in' ell!

that always cracks me uyp, can't believe they got away with it.

Gordon

Ruu wrote: »

<voice in background>fuckin' ell!

Probably the best line(s) in Father Ted tbh!

If it goes anything like the Fawlty Towers remake it will be embarrassingly awful. Although I'd love to see it I can't imagine that they will do it justice.

That website linked to is probably the most ad-laden site I've seen in a long while*.


*f*ckin 'ell

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

I want to see the us fawlty towers remake, and the remake of men behavind badly.. I hjeard they were just awful

Basq

Say it ain't so!

beanyb

This rumour has gone around a few times before... I'm trying to make myself believe that this one will turn out to be as false as the previous ones!

ixoy

I'd take this with a pinch of sodium chloride. There's a strike on right now so I can't see how they'd begin filming - shows, especially comedies, have last minute rewrites. The lead sounds pretty unenthusiastic too so I doubt we'll be seeing this anytime soon.

Mordeth wrote: »

cult following? south park is one of the most watched shows on tv. it's the most watched show on a wednesday night between the 18-45 male demographic.

No it's not. It's highest ever rating was 4m viewers, compared to 10m+ figures for prime time US shows. Additionally, it's highest ever episode was the highest 18-49 that night for a cable show (not mainstream network tv) and highest male 18-24/18-34 although that again was an exception to the norm.
It's a sad, but true, state of affairs that the likes of "Everyone Loves Raymond" has always got much higher ratings.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

huh..

I thought I read diffrent in a link someone posted on boards...
ah well, death to america then.

Helix

Mordeth wrote: »

that always cracks me uyp, can't believe they got away with it.

was just saying that to me mate last week

absolute genius

lucyburn

That sounds brilliant! I can't wait,Father ted is my favourite comedy show ever,i always thought Dougle was very cute (maybe a bit dim though):)

Livvie

lucyburn wrote: »

That sounds brilliant! I can't wait,Father ted is my favourite comedy show ever,i always thought Dougle was very cute (maybe a bit dim though):)

"These are small cows - those are far away*

One of my favourite bits was where Ted was trying to remind Dougal how he met Sister Assumpta, and went through various escapades including falling into a tiger's cage, which meant nothing to Dougal until Ted told him what jumper he was wearing.

It will be impossible for a remake to be anywhere near as good.

delos

Mr E wrote: »

Careful now.

(Sorry).

Can't see this working in the US. So much of the humour in the show is derived from Religion, and there are some serious fruitloops in the States who would burn the studio down if they offended God in any way.

Not too sure about this. The only person I suspect it will offend is Niall O'Dowd of the Irish Voice who finds the Simpsons and Family Guy anti-Irish. (Unless of course I've been taken in by a massive joke on his part.) The serious fruitloops tend to be of the WASP persuasion and Father Ted will only confirm their low opinions of Irish Catholics...

Outer Bongolia

Who cares if they do a 'remake', it probably won't resemble the original in any way. Cannot possibly impact on how people perceive Father Ted.

Dodge

delos wrote: »

Not too sure about this. The only person I suspect it will offend is Niall O'Dowd of the Irish Voice who finds the Simpsons and Family Guy anti-Irish. (Unless of course I've been taken in by a massive joke on his part.) The serious fruitloops tend to be of the WASP persuasion and Father Ted will only confirm their low opinions of Irish Catholics...

There are as many catholic zealots in the us as other religions.

Akrasia

why do the americans need to remake everything anyway? Its in english, and the originals are always much funnier. We dont see Irish or british remakes of classic U.S. sitcoms like cheers or even friends...

A U.S. version of Fr Ted won't make any sense in america, there isnt the same history of Church interference in all aspects of life

Karoma

Ohmehgad! They're going to kill Fr Ted!


YOU BASTARDS!

Dodge

Akrasia wrote: »

why do the americans need to remake everything anyway? Its in english, and the originals are always much funnier. We dont see Irish or british remakes of classic U.S. sitcoms like cheers or even friends...

A fair few US sitcoms remade by British tv stations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_US_television_series_remade_for_the_British_market

Not that many more than the other way round

phasers

you know how you can get mad people sectioned when they're a danger to themselves or others.....

perhaps there is some sort of law against TV shows being butchered by US "remakes"

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

Dodge wrote: »

A fair few US sitcoms remade by British tv stations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_US_television_series_remade_for_the_British_market

Not that many more than the other way round

It should be noted that the majority of this list is made of game shows or reality tv programmes, which both would require a British cast anyway.

.

Dodge

Did you see the list? A few on there.

Which is my point

Unearthly

The original Father Ted episodes will always be there and not edited, if you don't like the idea of a U.S version, then don't watch it. Simple as that

humanji

Akrasia wrote: »

A U.S. version of Fr Ted won't make any sense in america, there isnt the same history of Church interference in all aspects of life

But the americans won't get most of the jokes from the original since it's based around things that have happened over here. The fact that there isn't the same history is a reason to remake it with an american twang.

Creature

I wonder what the American version of Jack will say instead of feck?

jor el

Ardall O'Hanlon was just on the Ray D'Arcy show a minute ago and he said he'd heard the scripts had been bought (implying a direct re-make) or two ago, but didn't think anything would happen a year. He also said he was appalled to hear the re-make is now going ahead.

What I'd like to know, is it going to be set in the US or Ireland? If it's US based, then I don't think the scripts would make a lot of sense. If they base it in Ireland and essentially do an exact copy, then why bother?

I never heard the Fawlty Towers had been re-made, so I'll probably never hear any more of this.

Unshelved

Amusing review of Father Ted that appeared some time ago.

www.catholicleague.org/catalyst.php?year=1997&month=March&read=261

I particularly liked this bit - he was obviously never subjected to the "The All Priests' Show" on the Late Late ... the horror, the horror ...

Father Ted was principally engaged in competing—impersonating Elvis no less!—in a priests’ masquerade contest (in which a competing group of Irish priests arrive as female impersonators clad in low-cut ball gowns). If you can imagine any priests who would ever be involved in such dubious doings, then you probably have roughly the same idea of the Catholic Church that the scriptwriters of this show do

biko

jor el wrote: »

If they base it in Ireland and essentially do an exact copy, then why bother?

The yanks has a long tradition of taking a foreign movie and remaking it with yank actors, exactly the same way as before. See Nikita that used the same camera angles on both the original and the remake. This is most common with French films afaik, maybe a language thing.

Akrasia

Unshelved wrote: »

Amusing review of Father Ted that appeared some time ago.

www.catholicleague.org/catalyst.php?year=1997&month=March&read=261

I particularly liked this bit - he was obviously never subjected to the "The All Priests' Show" on the Late Late ... the horror, the horror ...

Thanks for that link.

The Catholic league seem to think that Father Ted was made by the BBC and claimed that the BBC contacted them to review it for them to see if it would be suitable for American Audiences.

If that's not a blatant lie then I don't know what it.

Dodge

Father Ted was shown in the US by BBC America

jor el wrote: »

I never heard the Fawlty Towers had been re-made, so I'll probably never hear any more of this.

One of the satellite channels in the Uk showed it. Think it was called Royal Payne. john larroquette was in it. Horrendous

Blisterman

Well, everyone was saying that the US version of The Office, would be rubbish, yet I think it's equally as good if not better.
I'll wait till I see it, before I pass any judgement.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

I've heard people say the american office was good, but I've yet to see any evidence of that.

when I saw it it just looked like a typical american mangling of an otherwise decent idea.

like the war in iraq

Helix

the us office is far better than the british one imo

beanyb

Mordeth, did you just watch the pilot episode of the US office? Because, that is just a carbon copy of the first episode of the British version. It's crap, as even the makers of the US version have since admitted.

From Season 2 on, it totally came in to its own. It's great. I prefer it to the British version.

odyssey06

Akrasia wrote: »

The Catholic league seem to think that Father Ted was made by the BBC and claimed that the BBC contacted them to review it for them to see if it would be suitable for American Audiences.
If that's not a blatant lie then I don't know what it.

I assume this refers to the fact that the original Father Ted is shown by the BBC America cable channel in the states... Several ITV and C4 shows are broadcast by BBC America and it can cause confusion.

Personally, I can't see a Father Ted remake working as a mainstream network show. If it's done for a cable channel then maybe.

steveland?

Mordeth wrote: »

I want to see the us fawlty towers remake, and the remake of men behavind badly.. I hjeard they were just awful

Have you seen the pilot for the US version of Red Dwarf? That was just attrocious...

Although they had Robert Lleywellyn or however you spell it in it playing Kryton and Daphne from Frasier playing Holly. Lister was this super-cool character which was just stupid...

The Father Ted remake idea's been knocking around for years though, at one point the rumour was that Steve Martin was going to play Ted and Graham Norton (who I think was big in the US for a while) was going to play Dougal.

I can't see a more-than-likely sub-par remake of Father Ted getting more than one season though with all the other great shows that got cancelled after one season.

Also there's a US version of the IT Crowd in production isn't there?

ashyle

sorry can someone explain the effin' hell thing to me?

Ruu_Old

ashyle wrote: »

sorry can someone explain the effin' hell thing to me?

See the episode, Chirpy Burpy Cheap Sheep (Season 3).

Dodge

Just wondering is this remake has anything to do with the WGA strike. I presume matthews/Linehan wouldn't be members of the US union and it may be a way of the networks/production companies side stepping the strike to get some product out.

slipss

Yeah the rumour of this remake has been going around for years now, don't think it will ever actually happen (hopefully). I mean for it to make any sense whatsoever half the lines and most of the story lines and plots would have to altered completely for it to work in America. If the idea is to transplant the setting to america and replace the characters with american characters then pratically all the secondary characters will have zero resonance.

Almost as much as being a send up of Catholicism, Father Ted was a send up of Ireland and the Irish. I mean Mrs Doyle standing there pestering people into drinking tea, not taking no for an awnser is a distinctly 'Irish Oul One' thing to do and there are examples like that throughout the show, the couple that run the shop, the sinead o conner send up, the holliday in the tiny mobile home in a field somewhere, the magic road, the thick ignorant gardai. Its observational comedy and observational comedy doesn't work if you haven't observed the things before.

Baffling how anyone thinks an american remake of this would work on any level whatsoever.