If you read the auto blogs, you’ll know that the BBC’s Top Gear show is a bit of an international hit. The show that’s been around for a while now features a number of guys who’ve been around for a bit longer who act like they’ve just passed their driving test. The Indie reports that Jeremy Clarkson and his co-hosts are reacting to this popularity by launching a US version of the show featuring Jeremy Clarkson and his co-hosts.
BBC chiefs are attempting to broker a multimillion-pound deal with major American networks to make “Top Gear USA”. The show could make a stateside star of Jeremy Clarkson, the motormouth who presents the BBC2 programme, along with his co-presenters Richard Hammond and James May
…In its current guise, Top Gear, a Bafta and Emmy award- winning series, is being shown in the US on the Discovery Channel. The programme is estimated to have more than 350 million viewers worldwide, including eight million in the UK.
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Gonna be fascinating to see how the boys’ insults play out in the States, which is far less used to outright rudeness on the part of its TV hosts.
Not to mention that Top Gear frequently calls out specific makes and models as ‘crap’ or worse. Jeremy called the Golf GT FSI “one of the five worst cars I’ve ever driven” (albeit in print) … that stuff does NOT go over with the PR departments of the automakers here. Wonder whether they’ll actually get any press loaners?
Or maybe it’ll be a badge of honor to be insulted by them? But I strongly doubt it.
Brit humor, meet American humorlessness.
April 11th, 2007 at 6:06 am
and it’s already got a number of episodes on joost…
April 11th, 2007 at 9:58 am
I agree, it would be impossible to air a show that honest on American TV. At least on a Network station. However if they can get the show on cable, hopefully -cross your fingers- something like HBO, the show would be unbelievably great. Jokes in poor taste, cursing, nudity…
Everyone over here ripping them a new one. You can’t beat it.
May 14th, 2007 at 12:58 pm