Hop on for a U.S. makeover
Was there an American version of On The Buses? What other sitcoms have had U.S. make-overs?
The American version of On The Buses was called Lotsa Luck and ran for 22 episodes in 1973, starring Dom DeLuise as Stanley Belmont, a worker in the bus depot lost property office.
Most of the original characters are present — Stan’s sister, put-upon Olive, and her jobless husband Arthur; Stan’s bossy mother; and his best friend, renamed Bummy — but there’s no Blakey, the bus inspector.
Several other UK sitcoms have been given a U.S. makeover to a greater or lesser degree of success. Till Death Us Do Part was remade as All In The Family, starring Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker, the U.S. equivalent of Alf Garnett.
It produced spin-offs including Archie Bunker’s Place, where he runs a bar, and The Jeffersons, about Archie’s former neighbours, George and Louise, which ran for ten years and 253 episodes.
Man About The house was remade as Three’s Company, starring John Ritter and Suzanne Somers. Oddly, the two UK spin- offs, Robin’s Nest and George & Mildred, were also remade in the U.S. as Three’s A Crowd and The Ropers.
Steptoe And Son had a U.S. pilot made in 1965 based on the first UK episode, but this was unsuccessful. In 1972, another attempt was made, Sanford And Son, starring Redd Foxx, which ran for six years.
There have been three attempts to make an American Fawlty Towers: Chateau Snavely, a failed pilot starring harvey Korman and Betty White; Amanda’s in 1983, starring Bea Arthur, when only nine of its 13 episodes were broadcast; and Payne in 1999, starring John Larroquette, which ran for eight shows.
Dear John, starring Judd hirsch, based on John Sullivan’s Dear John, ran from 1988 to 1992 with 85 episodes.
The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin had a U.S. equivalent in 1983 called Reggie, starring Richard Mulligan, which lasted for only six episodes.
The Office, starring Steve Carell, ran from 2005 to 2013. Unsuccessful transfers Double take: Varney in On The Buses (left) and DeLuise in Lotsa Luck where only a pilot was made include Are You Being Served? (Beane’s Of Boston); Dad’s Army (The Rear Guard); and Red Dwarf, which has two pilots, the first featuring Robert Llewellyn as Kryten and a pre-Frasier Jane Leeves as holly.
The traffic hasn’t been one way. Some U.S. sitcoms have been remade for UK audiences, including Brighton Belles (a Golden Girls remake), Days Like These (That 70s Show) and Married For Life (Married . . . With Children).
The most successful was The Upper hand, starring Joe McGann, Diane Weston and honor Blackman, which ran for six years and 94 episodes. It was an adaptation of the U.S. sitcom Who’s The Boss?
Both shows concern an affluent single mother who tries to find a housekeeper and is surprised when the only applicant is a man, who is ultimately hired. Wacky high jinks ensue.
Matt McLean, Odiham, Hants.
Was George Washington asked to be king of America?
The thought of George Washington selflessly refusing the crown at the close of the Revolutionary War is so appealing to historians that it is oft repeated. however, the claim is much exaggerated.
On May 22, 1782, Washington, who was camped at Newburgh, New York, received what became known as the Newburgh letter.
This was written by Colonel Lewis Nicola, an Irish-born American soldier and scholar and admirer of the general.
he suggested that Washington should take on the mantle of a constitutional monarch: ‘Some people have so connected the ideas of tyranny and monarchy as to find it very difficult to separate them, it may, therefore, be requisite to give the head of such a constitution as I propose some title apparently more moderate, but if all other things were once adjusted I believe strong arguments might be produced for admitting the title of king, which I conceive would be attended with some material advantages.’
Washington, aware that his enemies were putting it about that he would be an American Cromwell, gave the idea short shrift. In his immediate reply, he said: ‘No occurrence in the course of the war has given me more painful sensations than your information of their being, that such ideas are existing in the army, as you expressed it.’
A chastened Nicola apologised in two letters and stated nothing had ever affected him as greatly as his reproof.
Peter Smith, Durham.
Who were the first people to be tattooed?
The practice of making designs on the skin through pricking and staining with indelible colours stretches so far back in human history that tattoos don’t have one historical origin point. The word tattoo is a modification of
Tatau, a Polynesian word used in the South Pacific island of Tahiti.
When Captain James Cook encountered heavily tattooed men and women after landing there in 1769, his findings and the tattoos his crew acquired cemented our usage of tattoo over previous words such as scarring and staining.
Tattooed mummies from around the world attest to the universality of body modification across the millennia and to the fact they were, indeed, permanent.
One mummy from the Chinchorro culture in pre-Inca Peru has a tattooed moustache. The mummy of Amunet, a priestess in Middle Kingdom egypt, features tattoos thought to symbolise sexuality and fertility.
In 1991, two German hikers stumbled across a mummified body in the mountains near the Austrian/Italian border. Otzi the Iceman was preserved for more than 5,000 years after being frozen into a glacier and is the most ancient of humans to have been discovered with tattoos.
he has 61 charcoal tattoos along his spine, behind his knees and around his ankles and left wrist.
even older than the mummies, figurines of tattooed people, as well as tools possibly used for tattooing, date back tens of thousands of years.
Emilie Lamplough, Trowbridge, Wilts.
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