Television
Cruelty to sitcoms
James Delingpole
Ionce read a very exciting book called Chickenhawk which described in macabre detail what the Vietcong used to do to cap- tured US gunship pilots. I won't elaborate. Suffice to say that the Americans are threatening to do something rather similar to one of our favourite sitcoms.
The prospective victim is Absolutely Fab- ulous (BBC 1, Thursday). Those of a squeamish disposition had better skip the rest of this paragraph. First, those evil Yan- kee television people are going to rip out all the swearing; then they're going to remove its druggy connotations; and finally — oblivious to the agonised screams of Patsy and Edi — they mean to eviscerate the chain-smoking and heavy drinking. By the time they've finished, Ab Fab won't be a pretty sight. Nor, despite what the Ameri- cans may claim, will it be a laughing mat- ter. Ab Fab will not be the first to suffer such wanton cruelty. Other classics which have been readapted, rewritten and recast for American audiences include Fawlty Towers (renamed Amanda's because, believe it or not, Basil was excised and the Sybil character turned into a star) and Por- ridge (retitled On the Rocks, with the cun- ning variation that the prisoners were merely thuggish rather than roguishly sym- pathetic). Alf Garnett, meanwhile, was turned into the non-racist Archie Bunker.
For those who feel it is time we exacted our pound of flesh for all the dreadful crimes America has committed against our proud sitcom heritage, I have some very good news. We have just taken one of their funniest comedies and transformed it into something so leaden, embarrassing and spectacularly unamusing that it should probably have been vetoed by the Interna- tional Court of Human Rights as a cruel and unusual punishment. Its name is Mar- ried for Life (ITV, Tuesday). You probably won't have seen Married with Children, the American series on which it is based, because over here it tends to be broadcast at about 3 a.m. But trust me: if your comic tastes are low, puerile, sick and deeply politically incorrect, you won't begrudge the lost sleep. It's the sort of comedy series you might scarcely have believed could exist in PC America. Remember, this is the land where that saccharine, humour-free, affirmative portrait of black family life, The Cosby Show, is deemed a barrel of laughs; where you can locate a sitcom in an urban bar (Cheers) and not have a single charac- ter who smokes. Married with Children is a corrective to all these ills.
The series is set in the squalid, suburban home of the dysfunctional Bundy family. Father Al spends most of his time on the lavatory or warding off his wife's desperate sexual advances. Mother Peggy blows all the housekeeping on tarty outfits and never lifts a finger to help her perpetually ravenous family. Nymphet daughter Kelly has slept with every man in the neighbour- hood. Teenaged son Bud is prepared to lose his virginity to anything with a pulse. Because it isn't being broadcast at the moment (it's usually on ITV), I had the devil of a job getting a tape. Columbia Tri- star, which produces the series, refused to send me a copy. I can hardly blame them: they also co-produce the insipid British imitation.
Fortunately, a friend had an old record- ing of a particularly fine episode in which Peggy finds a new man, unaware that he's gay. Al, meanwhile, threatens to fall in love with the gay man's 'husband': he cooks, he likes sport and he doesn't want sex. And just when you think it's all growing unwont- edly liberal, Al brings it back down to its usual base standards with his final pay-off: `He was a homo, Peg!'
Married with Children crusades tirelessly against minority sensitivities and family val- ues. In one choice scene, Kelly tries appealing to her father's protective instincts. 'I'm going out,' she announces, eyeing him imploringly. 'I've got a date with three bikers. One of them's just out of prison. I probably won't be home till about three or four in the morning.' Have a nice time,' her father replies. When she's gone, he sneers, 'Gee, I hope that wasn't a des- perate cry for help.' As played by Ed O'Neill, Al Bundy is so resolutely vile you can't help liking him — a point which appears to have been lost on Russ Abbott, his detestably amiable counterpart in Mar- ried for Life. Where the Bundys are loath- some, their English cousins, the Butlers, are never more than mildly disagreeable. Dad can be a bit stingy, mum's a spendthrift, the daughter's quite flirty and the son's a cheeky imp, but basically they're all one happy family. Ugh!
To excise the cynicism, tastelessness and depravity from Married with Children is to remove everything that makes it amusing. It's akin to recasting One Foot in the Grave so that Victor Meldrew becomes jolly and amiable. Which, funnily enough, is not beyond the realms of possibility. In the forthcoming American version, Victor is going to be played by lovable old Bill Cosby. The transatlantic comedy war is threatening to turn very nasty indeed.
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