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Brief review of "Payne" (America's adaptation of "Fawlty Towers") !!!
Glen here...
ANASTASIA wrote in with some news about a forthcoming CBS sticom called
Payne. Whether or not she's the real Anastasia is, of course, the subject of some
cotroversey.
None the less, her news about Payne (the Americanized version of the British comedy
Fawlty Towers) is all that really matters for the moment.
Here's what Anastasia had to say about it:
Anastasia wrote:
Just a short note about the new CBS sitcom, "Payne." It debuts in March and
will be the 8:00 Wednesday show for several weeks. ("The Nanny" will be
bumped back a half-hour, and "Maggie Winters" sails into oblivion.)
It is intended to be an American version of the Brit classic "Fawlty
Towers." John Larroquette (sp?) stars in the John Cleese role, and JoBeth
Williams plays his wife.
In place of Manuel, the dimwitted bell-boy from Barcelona, is a character
named "Mo." A running gag on the show is that they never say which country
"Mo" comes from, but "Mo" is a common nickname for "Mohammed." Plus, the
actor playing this role uses a bad Indian accent. Anyone with brains will
figure out that this is guy is supposed to be Indian or Pakistani. It is a
rather insulting stereotype.
As for the show itself - Do you really think an American tv show could ever
duplicate the brilliance of "Fawlty Towers"? "Payne" falls far short of the
mark. The new show's humor is extremely juvenile, with too many
stupid sex jokes.
Wonder how long it will last?
Glen here again...
Glen
Or call:
(512) 347-1992
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+ Expand All
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I can't believe they're doing this. I just can't believe it.
Makes me sick,
Brimley -
Real pathetic, guys. I hope the rest of the continental U.S. follows CA into the sea. I'll escape to Canadia, though! "You see, I speak English! I learned it from a book!" I hope Laroquette takes a bullet from a prop gun that was supposed to have only blanks. And no one could ever put the fear into me like Prunella Scales.
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What's really sad about this is that they already tried it once! They did a summer replacement series back in the late 70s or early 80s (I forget which) called "Amanda's" with Bea Arthur in the John Cleese role. It was wretched (of course), even with a seasoned pro like Bea Arthur in the lead. But I guess you can't blame them for trying -- "Sanford & Son," "All in the Family," and "Three's Company" were all based on British shows and became megahits. The problem is, there were only 12 "Fawlty Towers" episodes, each one a perfect gem. Where do you go once you've used those 12 scripts? Down, down, down, that's where.
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Let me first just say that I love British comedy. It is completely different from American comedy. Far more experimental, surrealist, and willing to push the boundaries. And not just in the form of crude humor, which unfortunately is how the studios in the States have interpreted it. What makes their humor so great is the fact that they are willing to base shows around the most awful characters imaginable. Look at some of the classics: "The Young Ones", "Blackadder", "Absolutely Fabulous", "The Dangerous Brothers", any number of characters in Monty Python, and of course, "Fawlty Towers". These people were so morally, ethically, and socially reprehensible that the idea that such people could even exist is what made it funny in the first place. I despair that American television programmers could ever have the inventiveness to come up with characters like Rik and Vyvian, or any of the Blackadder incarnations. They have tried before, and failed miserably. Look at the horendous "Men Behaving Badly" (the original British series is pretty much banned from American TV) and "Cybill" which was a horrible interpretation of the somewhat grating "Ab Fab". The closest America has ever come is maybe George or Elaine from "Seinfeld", and even they are only comparable to the lighter British comedic fare such as "Chef". If American networks really want to emulate the same successful British shows, just import them! Even "Ab Fab" was a big boost to Comedy Central, and as I implied earlier, that one got really old really quick. "Fawlty Towers" has a very dear place in my heart. I got hooked on that show pretty soon after I first discovered Monty Python. Don't ruin it by making a bad American knockoff substituting fart jokes for the true callousness and social retardation that embodied the character of Basil Fawlty.
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Don't let them do this please, it's starting to get insulting.
Why not re-run the original 12 shows? I gaurantee you'll laugh a lot more.
Will they never learn? Silly sods! -
I had my doubts when I saw "Payne" highlighted in TV Guide a few months ago, and there didn't seem a point to bringing this up then, but now? *Big cringe* I'll try to with hold judgement until I see it, but it just doesn't seem to me that the Fawlty Towers concept would work here in the US. As a previous poster noted, the characters are too reprehensible. Gee... would the Nazi episode get past the American censors? I think not. Also, who cast this? John Larroquette? JoBeth Williams? Manuel is Mo? Huh? Larroquette is great - Dan Fielding was a classic character. However, he just doesn't strike me as Basil Fawlty, and I'm not to sure Williams can do comedy convincingly. Glen... get me a review copy, PLEASE!!!
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"Whatever you do, don't mention the WAR! I did once, but I think I got away with it!"
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The sad thing is that a shitty actor like john Larroquette is likely getting more money from just the pilot than a genius like John Cleese ever made on the series. He wrote and acted in it for small change, you know.
Please end this travesty. -
First off, I think John Larroquette is a fantastic comic actor as evidenced by most of his run on Night Court and occasionally allowed to shine on his eponymous follow-up. Add to that his brilliant turns on The Practice. There's one problem; he's not John Cleese, does not have the scripts John Cleese had for Fawlty (just bastardized and Americanized watered-downs) and must find a way to make lightning strike twice. It can't be done this time. Times are different and the necessary venom that would make this adaptation really cook would never get under CBS's radar (CBS stands for Completely Beyond Sterile, ya know). Sadly, this will be one more negative to add to Larroquette's canon, something that shouldn't be for such a fine actor. I am not related to John Larroquette, I swear.
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Isn't Cosby based on a british TV show too...It's allright but only because it's Bill Cosby I mean comeon...However ido think that Cosby has moved away from it's orignial concept of a crugdemudduon and has moved into familar Bill Terratory. just random thoughts
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This will be the SECOND U.S. remake of "Fatty Owls", not the first. In 1983 there was a U.S. version of this show called "Amanda's" starring Bea Arthur.
http://us.imdb.com/Trivia?%22Amanda%27s%22+(1983) -
The concept cannot be done better
than the original. CANNOT.
Fawlty Towers may not be one of
the of best comedies ever, even
in BBC history, but for what it
did, it was perfect. The fact
that there are a limited number
of episodes underscores their
unique quality.
The fact that these "projects" are
proceeding to the production stage only illustrates a) the insulation of people "greenlighting" and b) there are
no better screenplays available.
(Although my 10 year old niece has
written better stuff than anything
Akiva Goldsman has done.)
Point is, we all know b is not true. Why aren't the good scripts
going forward and the bums getting
thrown out on their asses?
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What I'd pay my cable bill for would be an all BBC comedy showcase...Brits may be accused of many things but they sure know (or maybe knew, back in the late 60's thru 70's) how to make me laugh my arse off! Basil is probably fuming in his grave.(I'm willing to bet he died of a simultaneous stroke and heart attack years ago, the poor lovable beast.)
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And boy did it stink. Johnny boy's a good, solid actor, but only when he gets to be VERY smart and VERY dark. I thought anyone could have walked through his stuff on NIGHT COURT, but his last show was GREAT stuff. PAYNE is crap - I was lucky enough to sneak into a test screening of the pilot and boy was it BAD - as in dumb and lame. I say I was "lucky" to sneak into a screening of it because I also got paid $60! Unless you're offered $60 to sit through this porker, I'd watch something else! As for decent TV in the US? Look for stuff that isn't a remake, rehash or based on something else and you'll probably end up with a pretty good show. (SPORTS NIGHT anyone?) And in case you didn't notice, Hollywood usually only produces what has been done before. I.e. remakes, rehashes and stuff based on other stuff. I think I'm going to try to pitch a remake of last year's PSYCHO remake. I think the studios would go for it, don't you?
-peteski@spinninghead.com -
Oh dear. Here we go again. I'm Australian. Down here we get a pretty good viewpoint of both British and American comedy styles. I've spent my life collecting comedy. And I have never seen a good American ripoff sitcom yet. For the person who enquired above,yes, Cosby is a "niced-up" theft of a show called "One Foot in the Grave". Fortunately the Rosanne/ Sharon Stone direct transfer of AbFab never got made (too RISKY, y'know!). Fawlty Towers has already been tried twice. The one with Bea Arthur in it, and again later, a show produced by Mel Brooks of all people!, called "The Nutt House" (only a loose cloning, but the essence of the characters was the same). There are countless other ripoffs, some of which are mentioned in here. ALL OF THEM SUCK. "Payne" will not be any different. The Networks are all too pissweak to be funny. And all these hundreds of "comedy writers" they have working for them know and care nothing about their artform - it's just a job to them. Did no-one tell them how long and hard Cleese worked on condensing those 12 episodes, and that he persistently turned down the begging BBC to make more? I suggest that anyone found to be responsible for the production of Payne (at any stage of development) be burned alive while "recorded before a live studio audience". You don't mess with the greatest comedy series of all time and expect to get away with it, let alone profit from it.
P.S. "The Simpsons" is the only show on American Network TV worth watching. It is excepted from all my spleen and slander I give now, or in the future. -
Not ever no how no way and CETAINLY not by any dumb US TV network. The pathetic, sanitised, watered down shite that they will inevitably try and palm the viewers off with will never, repeat never hold a candle to Cleese's magnum opus. One example: in the original Fawlty Towers, the Major tells Basil how he once took a woman to see India. "India?" Basil enquires, interested that this halfwit could ever have had a girlfriend. "At the Oval," replies the Major (which is a cricket ground in London, by the way.) "The funny thing was," continues the Major, "throughout the day she kept referring to the Indians as niggers. No, no, no I said, niggers are the West Indians. These people are wogs!" Any chance whatsoever of PC-obsessed America reproducing this gag (which actually shows what a bigoted old fool the major is, and is also very funny). No, none.
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Damn. Can't believe it is happening. Heading out to the States and almost tempted to head back home to England (where the history comes from, as Eddie Izzard says) if this is true. Anyroad, to the previous poster Cosby Show was shown out here well before One Foot in the Grave started - unless good old Bill is now crotchety Bill and the kids have moved out, and the Cosby Show has got very dark indeed. If you guys out there get the chance check out the best comedy shows out here; The Fast Show (Python on speed), Big Train (Python on speed squared) and best of all Father Ted (a situation comedy about three Catholic priests on the Irish Craggy Island). All very funny indeed and with absolutely no potential of a high gloss US makeover (I hope). BTW, half the population here still watches Friends and Fraiser but they never got Seinfeld - hidden in TV backwaters late at night on minority channels. Best of all, the comedy on BBC does not have adverts (result!).
Take care. -
There already HAS been an "American Fawlty Towers"... in a sense. It was called "Newhart" and starred Bob Newhart, of course. It was about a guy who owned a country inn where everyone was just a little... okay A LOT... eccentric. It was the same basic concept, but wholly original and was usually pretty funny. The final moments or the farewell episode were hilarious and absolutely classic.
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Boy, this sounds like another Godzilla: Americanizing greatness and trampling it with stilletto heels in the process.
Didn't anyone learn from the Red Dwarf (which never ran) or Doctor Who (which did ran, was Ok but went up against Rosanne when John whatzhisname was suppose to be leaving the show or something).
Thank the maker that I have my four tape collection of the original on Wed. nights -
Why must we try this? I thought that The Kids in the Hall had proved that only Canadians and people close to the Mother Country could try to rip off famous British comedies. Americans simply can't do the same things with comedy that they do. Why, you ask? Because we are already seen as stupid and not classy. The British are not, so when they act like idiots, they are hilarious. We can't do that.
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If this idea actually makes it on the air, I am going to pull the nearest tree out of the ground and give those studio heads a DAMN GOOD THRASHING! Gems like Fawlty Tower, whose 12 eps are still fresh & funny, can only truely happen once. Not rehashed or Americanized(bastardized) twenty five years later. Why does the TV and movie industry constantly dip into the remake a classic barrel (PSYCHO anyone?) It sure seems like these days 100 network executives given 100 typewriters and an infinite amount of time still can't come up with an original interesting idea. Do they really think American viewers are stupid enough to believe this is original material? ....well I guess that is a rhetorical question. Do they ever wonder why nastalgia programming like Nick at Nite's TV Land are so popular? Maybe because some of those shows are actually well written, sometimes thought provoking, and always entertaining.
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This sort of thing has been done many times in the last 15 years (both ways) we used to get "Who's the Boss?" (if that's the one with Tony Danza) in England at about 5.30 pm on a weekday on ITV. It never really took off but was remade lock stock and barrel as "The Upper Hand" with Honor Blackman as the sex mad mother, and was very popular (though still unfunny). ITV also tried a rip off, sorry remake of "The Golden Girls" (very popular here, as "Brighton Belles" which was a dismal failure (probably because British audiences were so familiar with the original. Another ITV programme, "Home to Roost" was remade in the States as was John Sullivans, "Dear John" this last all of these programmes refilmed the scripts used in the originals with minor adjustments to Americanize or Anglicize for the new audiences. The main problem for me is that once you do that the humour travels even worse especially with "Dear John" when they ran out of the original series to replicate they started writing their own scripts and took the series in a completely different direction and lost any of the originals charm and humour.
Undeterred, premiering on Channel 4 tonight (the channel which shows Friends and Frasier though thankfully not Seinfeld) is "Days like these" a remade, anglicised version of "That Seventies show". We'll see how that goes down..........
ps was the previous poster winding us up about not knowing about the difference between "Cosby" and "The Cosby show"?.
pps Seinfeld. What the bloody hell is that all about? -
re: the above idea for remaking the remake of "Psycho". If it is successful, I've got a brilliant idea for a remake, It involves the proprieter of a small hotel, who is outwardly reserved but harbours violent tendencies and might be a bit mad. He is plagued by the voice of a dominant woman. The opening credits would feature an exterior shot of the hotel where the sign has been jumbled around to create an anagram eg. "SO LET ME BAT". I would lighten the tone of the script somewhat with a lot more jokes than the previous three films. I might also make it as a tv series rather than a one off film and could probably squeeze about 12 episodes out of it. I would also probably change the setting to somewhere like Torquey. Any networks want to take me up on it?
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The BBC has carried this important announcement from Tony Blair. Standing outside No 10 Downing street, the Prime Minister said "As a result of thi
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