Norman Lear had a whole career of converting British sitcoms to successful American sitcoms. All in the family... Til death do us part... Sanford and son... Steptoe and son... On and on.

Am American. I live in the middle of the country and Taskmaster might be the finest television ever made lol. It didn't work in america cause everyone aside from alex was miscast. That's it. Please try again Alex, we love you!

I’m American and I’m addicted to British panel shows. However, I can’t imagine watching American do it.

As an American who loves HIGNFY I can’t imagine an American version working. I forced myself to sit through a couple episodes of the US version of Ghost. It was beyond dismal

Panel shows used to be big in the US back in the day. Like mid 20th century. Wonder why they faded out.

It's odd to say there's no money to be made from DVD/VHS. The revenue stream has simply shifted with licenses sold to the streaming platforms rather than VHS distributors.

Good evening Marina, love your shirt...

I've had the misfortune to see a US WILTY episode - or rather half of one, because it was so toe-curlingly awful IMHO, that I couldn't bear to watch it all. Richard nailed it: the Americans are obsessed with scoring points and who is winning - which entirely misses the point. There was one episode of HIGNY where scores mattered for the comedy: the week when Paul and the tub of lard won.

The Bible 2. lol

As an American , loved veep probably the most successful political comedy in America because everyone could laugh at. Political debate is different over here , doesn’t happen in good nature. Americans don’t watch political comedy to laugh at politics , we listen to people who we agree with politically agree with to make us feel smart and good about our selves

I do seem to remember seeing an American version of WILTY on the internet, it was missing the quick witted humour. It was very flat.

I just don't think that a trio of presenter and team captains has been discovered that are talented enough to make a hit panel show in the states. As an example, if they did a version of have i got news for you with Jon Stewart and John Oliver as captains and someone like Craig Ferguson or even Jimmy Carr as host,would that have a chance of working? If that didn't work than i don't think anything could get them watching. It takes a very special kind of quick wit to make a panel show work and American Comedians don't seem to have it. They are great stand up comedians tho.

I lament the fact that panel shows don’t work in the U.S. I wish the British ones were at least always available to stream here. The biggies are, but I want more.

To be honest I do not feel US comics do comedy for comedy stake. The UK comics will go for any form of comedy that is funny. No matter if that is stand up or panel. Yes, they want to further their career, but being funny in the environment is the most important thing. I always think American comedy is “look at me”, I am soo funny, whoop sort of delivery. It doesn’t come across as organic.

So it turned out to be See You Next Wednesday, doesn't have the same ring but worth the wait

I hope "Have I got news from you" does better than Taskmaster. You know we Americans are not very savvy. Love Taskmaster and was sad our version was terrible. I have watched every season many times. So I hope HIGNFY will translate better.

Who's Line is unfortunately on the CW here in the US which is barely a network...

Richard what bald patch covering hair spray or shake on powder do you use for your TV appearances?

Waterworld was a childhood movie for me 😂 My Mum - to this day - has it on VHS. I remember being traumatised when he cut off her hair 😅

17:43 I don’t believe it.

Regarding HIGNFY American satire lacks subtlety It’s all F this or F that (which it love btw!) But American humour just lacks the subtlety that the English panel shows have…

I would like to commend Marina and Richard for not mentionning Taylor Swift for an entire episode...when I saw the title of this week`s episode I have to admit I was fearing the worst, but I gotta give credit where credit`s due...😉

Waterworld was Kevin Costner's Heavens Gate, or "Watergate" if you will!

Always love this pod. this was a fav episode. As a Yank I love to hear how our two entertaiment worlds cross-pollinate. shame we can't get behind panel shows. I love the UK ones on KZbin.

Holy Smokes! Susie Marr is on the rich list... Who famously said on The Apprentice "do the French like their children?" A question that even 13 years on, I still think about at least twice a day.

As a Musician (of sorts) I always have to defer to the famous suggestion, that the best way to make a million dollars in the music biz, is to start with 2 million...

Big fan of Richard discussing rap beefs although it’s UTFO rather than UTOF….

Ah Richard I really love your "Thursday Murder Club" books, I have all of them - but why spoil it putting them on film or tv with such miscasting? The characters are all brilliant, but Pierce Brosnan and Celia Imrie? They are NOT the people I have in my head as Ron and Joyce. Love Helen Mirren but that's not how Elizabeth looks in my head. I won't be watching either the movie or tv show. So sad. My question: why spoil a good book?

oi, i tell you what; they made a lot of bloody episodes of Ghosts US, didn't they! I started watching and it's not repulsive, it's actually rather good! It's just a lot of episodes so I'm saving that for my next illness

I'm a bit baffled as to why Richard's response to the news that JK Rowling donates so much money to charity that she's no longer a billionarie is "Clever, clever".

Wait, KOSTNER IS SINGLE AGAIN? 😃

I can't see HIGNFY ever working in the US. A key feature of it in the UK is that it is politically neutral and makes fun of politicians on both sides equally. Political neutrality just isn't a thing in the US. I've spoken to Americans that refuse to even believe it is possible. An American version of HIGNFY would either need to be on one side of the political aisle or it would need to have a team captain from each side. Either way, that's a completely different show to HIGNFY.

Every week on this show they gush over how awesome modern tv is, and full of talented people and hilarious shows. Why then does virtually everyone in the real world say it's shit all the time and most of the formats terrible also?

Finally a podcast with sound financial advice.

American comedians are just awful. And agreed on them being selfish comedy-wise.

So glad you mentioned Inside No 9, its just brilliant and pulls career best performances from people involved. One of the most moving episodes was the 12 Days Of Christine, Sheridan Smith gave a brilliantly, heartbreaking performance. It's also audacious, look at the Quiz show episode in the last series. I like to think I'm quite tv literate but it had me momentarily fooled because it was played so straight initially. Of course what got me to stick with it was the realisation that 9pm was a weird time to launch something which was so obviously more suited to the afternoon. All the publicity beforehand was trailing a spoof On The Buses parody which they'd even made a poster for. I'm sure there were many people around the country choking on their tea after the 'explosive' finale. This is supposed to be the final series and it deserves to be in the pantheon of classic tv.

Zucker and NBC were basically in triage after the Leno/O'Brian debacle.

What happened to Tuesday? CUNW?

re Coppola's vinyards. He once got Robert De Niro Snr in to design a label for the wine, and then never paid him.

Minor correction: Life on Mars was adapted by ABC for 1 season - it was kind of what you would expect as being a bit dumbed down.. the ending in particular was ridiculous in comparison to the BBC version. It did star Harvey Keitel though :)

Van Jones put it best on twitter when he said that Kendrick didn't just hate Drake, he holds him as the villain of the culture. He doesn't just hate the idea that Drake is Drake, he hates the idea that the material conditions of the world allowed anyone to become Drake. "He wants no more Drakes forever."

"I don't want to denigrate your Tuscan estate" is a phrase I'm going to try to work into daily conversation.

I'd argue we have similar panel type shows that have worked in the US. The problem with a lot of the big UK ones being transferred over to the US, like WILTY or Taskmaster, is that they play on smaller networks with small budgets. To even get recognizable names or comics to do either of them, they really need to be on Fox, CBS, ABC, or NBC. The whole point of panel shows is getting recognizable names to draw people in and that can't happen on small networks. Again, panel shows can work here. For example, I'd say the recent version of To Tell the Truth is a good example. It was on a big network where you could decent names for every episode. The issue is getting airtime on those big networks because the time is so valuable. Ideally, they would be able to run a show like Taskmaster or WILTY in the summer where more variety and less sitcoms already happen. I actually think them being on in the summer would be perfect to get people to watch.

The new @Midnight program on CBS is a good reintroduction of panel shows to the US market. It's a bit like Mock The Week, if MTW had no regular panelists and no satire or topical subjects. They even had Nish Kumar on. I do hope HIGNFYUS has a few UK comics on to set the correct tone. Maybe Zaltzman. Or even Oliver.

Yessss, you mentioned inside number 9, its incredible ❤

Yanks ruined "Taskmaster"!!!!

Nobody owes Francis Ford Gropela anything

The US version of ghosts is far better IMO, the British one watches like an amateur pantomime whenever there's a ghost on screen.

In entertainment know how to take (risks)! You have to make moves in a risky business. reply

Let's be honest HIGNFY has become so comically bad and stale. It feels a little desperate at this point.