The USA have attempted to remake the show on several occasions, one with Grandad as the lead character and another called This Time Next Year with the family being renamed the Flannagans. In 2010, Steve Carell who is well known for starring in the US version of the Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant sitcom The Office expressed an interest in starring as Del Boy. ABC commissioned a pilot in 2012 for an Only Fools and Horses remake entitled "King of Van Nuys", written by the same duo who created Scrubs, and most notably starred Christopher Lloyd aka Doc Brown from Back To The Future as Grandad!I'm not an "Americans can never remake a BBC sitcom!" snob. Case in point, The Office. Sanford & Son and All in the Family, to me, are miles ahead of their respective British origins (though in their defense it's mainly because they're indecipherable to my American ears.) Dear John (created & written by John Sullivan!) was a funny show I enjoyed when it was on....okay, I guess the ones that translated and were good are few and far between, but at least more successes should be POSSIBLE.
Then you see the un-aired pilot for King of Van Nuys and you wonder, why even fucking bother? It's the worst of what other countries think of American shows: loud, stupid, frantic, not funny, and on and on. Why bother "adapting" OFAH if it's not going to take anything worthy from it to build on?
All three attempts at adapting Fawlty Towers are famous disasters, the American version of The Inbetweeners was embarrassing, and there's a litter of other carcasses piled up right next to these turds. But hopefully, thanks to streaming the day of trying to adapt British shows may be over as we can just watch the originals. After all, there's a reason we tried to adapt them in the first place!
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