Prospect Of US ‘Kath & Kim’ Is Giving Us Horrible Nightmares In Advance
Seriously, when will “they” stop making US versions of successful international comedies? First The Office had a funnyectomy in the hands of Steve Carell and co., now the long-whispered-about US version of Kath & Kim - shifted to feature a divorced mother and her grumpy adult daughter in an American suburban wasteland - is gearing up with the announcement that Molly Shannon will take a starring role.
“I can confirm that Molly Shannon has been cast in Kath & Kim,” an NBC spokesman told The Daily Telegraph.Shannon, 43, will take on the role of suburban mother Kath, played on the local series by Jane Turner.
It seems we are now powerless to stop this horror from expanding - so, instead of fighting it, we’re embracing it.
In case any executive producers are browsing, we’re offering up a few ideas for other successful Australian comedies that could be translated to the US market, with a few suggestions for possible castmembers and the customary ‘hilarious-show-crosses-the-pond’ fiddling with of essential plot devices and genre.
Read on, cash-haemmoraging execs!
Hey Dad..! - Re-pitched as the touching, bittersweet comedy of errors as council surveyor Martin Kelly is forced to work from home and struggles to raise his family after his wife was killed in a terrorist bombing. Starring Steve Carell as Mr Kelly, Rose McGowan as Betty, Seth Green as Nudge and the fat kid from Bad Santa as Arthur McArthur.
Acropolis Now - Relocated from a Melbourne Greek café and restaurant to a Lower West Side pizza bar, this hard-hitting drama focuses on the often tense relationships between New York’s multicultural blue collar workers. Starring Steve Carell as Rick, John Leguizamo as Memo, Jamie Foxx as Jim, Dyan Cannon as Liz, and featuring special guest star Nia Vardalos as Effie.
All Together Now - Bobby Rivers was a hit on one of the smaller stages at Woodstock with his freewheeling band Still Waters, until a wrongful imprisonment for rape derailed his promising country rock career. Now an alcoholic, he has to deal with the unexpected arrival of twins Anna and Thomas, children he fathered as a sperm donor. Tracy is the rough-around-the-edges death row counsellor who brings them… all together now. Starring Alexis Bledel as Anna, Adam Brody as Thomas, Virginia Madsen as Tracy, and Steve Carell as Bobby.
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Comments
What happened with Joan Cusak being interested in playing Kim? That could have been cool, though never as good as the original.
I’m sorry, have to defend the American version of the Office. It’s really good. I loved the original, but once I got past the differences, I found it a really enjoyable, intelligent show.
I know these things have a dodgy track record but I’ve always found that Molly Shannon kinda hilarious. And I know it’s confounding that American TV execs seem to think their countrypeople can’t handle the *bizarre* accents and cultural customs of other English speaking countries (mind you, Kath & Kim is rather Oz specific), but I’d be kinda fascinated to see a big glossy US version of Kath & Kim — especially cuz our version is getting so close to jumping the shark.
Molly Shannon is da BOMB!
Kath & Kim, from its very beginning refers to an Australian civilization and culture. Kath and Kim as characters are based on sketches of the original girls that played Kath & Kim.
Transplanting the series to the US cultural context is impossible without a total and complete re-write of each episode. Each rewrite would have to be done to a point where each episode has little or nothing to do with the script that it originated from. In essence, each episode will not be Kath & Kim at all — just merely an exercise in purest forms of black propaganda broadcasting. There is no way to adapt Kath & Kim to America, as it simply cannot be done. Adapting the show to New Zealand would be far easier, and more realistic — for cultural reasons that are mostly not understood by Americans.
There is a 99% probability that the series will not get high ratings at all, as the original series was initially kept alive by the ABC TV network in Australia for Season 1 and some of Season 2. Kath & Kim, as a style of sitcom is still unique to Australasia and likely not to be duplicated in the rest of the world for some years into the future.
The network that is choosing to do this series from scratch would have been better off buying the original Kath & Kim series and running it stragit. In essence the network is just wasting people’s time and its own money.