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From: chas@ihuxe.UUCP (Charles Lambert)
Newsgroups: net.tv
Subject: Reggie, sit-coms and the American taste.
Message-ID: <1055@ihuxe.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 27-Feb-85 12:17:57 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxe.1055
Posted: Wed Feb 27 12:17:57 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 1-Mar-85 05:42:25 EST
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Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
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> ...                                                              As far as
> situation comedies (whatever *they* are!) go, The Fall and Rise of Reginald
> Perrin is running neck-a-neck with Fawlty Towers as the best of them all.
> ...
> Which makes it all the more befuddling as to why American TV couldn't usurp
> the idea to make a decent American TV series out of it.

Simple answer: it's not full of plastic-faced cuties with smiles like a
razor-slash in a cushion, insipid male hunks or nauseously wise brats all
mincing their way through some grossly inflated portrayal of utter inanity.

> (Actually it's not befuddling at all.  Americans want completely different
> things from TV than the British do.  And, unfortunately, that's all too often
> what we get...)

More optimistically, the popularity of PBS, Channel 66 (Chicago), and the A&E
cable channel argues otherwise.  Why, oh why, can't the mush-brains in the
broadcast networks be conviced of this?

Charlie @ the Death Star, IL. USA