What's Happening


Ununnilium: Examples I've heard of, but not seen myself: Man About The House (UK)/Three's Company (US), Steptoe & Son (UK)/Sanford and Son (US).

Ununnilium: We need to establish a difference between this and Multi National Shows. American Idol/Pop Idol seems to go over there instead.

Gus: Interesting, that all of these are UK->US. If there aren't an examples that go the other way (BtVs->Hexed, maybe?), then these are just a subset of Americanization that share a common reason for translation.

Chrome Newfie: The U.S. is the biggest "offender", but given the size and history of the television history in North America, this may not be that unexpected. American programming is so established that it may just be easier to import the original show and translate. Plus, most of us here are, for the most part, familiar only with that market. However, for counter-examples, how about Big Brother (origin: Netherlands), Ugly Betty (Columbian), Cybersix (Argentinean comic book -> Canadian animation), and the nebulous connections between Cold Squad (Canada}, Waking the Dead (UK), and Cold Case.

Gus: All imports to the US, still, no? Sometime with a stop elsewhere. It still seems Americanization is the big concept. Netherlands->UK->US seems to be a special case.

Chrome Newfie: No. Cybersix went to Canada. Ugly Betty and Big Brother, as I understand it (I could certainly be wrong) were intended or remarketed to be internationally franchised... which of course includes the U.S. but doesn't make them the motivating force for it. And these are only the examples of the shows I know off the top of my head. If you want an example in the other direction, how about Sesame Street, which, when it went to Canada, had French lessons instead of Spanish, and eventually got renamed to Sesame Park?

Silent Hunter: Just in the news today- The Vicarof Dibley is to be remade in the US as "The Minister of Divine". It's only going to be a pilot ATM, with a decision on a full series to follow. Link:

Update- this was not ordered to full series. According to The Futon Critic, the pilot was rubbish.

webrunner: Is there an equivalent trope for non cross-Atlantic equivalence shows? Like "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (Canadian Edition)" and "Canadian Idol"?

Silent Hunter: Same thing. This needs a re-name.

Unknown Troper: Agreed with Silent Hunter. This and Americanitis needs to be renamed. In the case of Trans Atlantic Equivalent we ought to group together all shows that have a show based off of its premise in another country—after all, we've got Iron Chef in Japan, and Iron Chef America which is a sort of sequel to its predecessor. The Prisoner in Australia had been re-versioned in Britain as Bad Girls, Hinter Gittern - Der Frauenknast in Germany, and Dangerous Women in the United States (in addition to the original Australian soap opera being shown in those countries).

Americanitis needs to be renamed for similar reasons; the United States isn't the only country whose companies tend to "localize" shows, removing foreign cultural references. However, the people who came up with that trope (and the people contributing to that trope) like pushing the idea that Americans are ickly xenophobes who can't stand having something un-American in their television shows—and they love slipping in as many Take Thats as they can.

Something like Localizitis would be a lot better.
Daibhid C: Pulled this:

1) describes any sitcom that isn't about a family and 2) simply isn't the case.