5 ms·
As a gent born and raised in Texas, and has never seen the show - I am pleasantly surprised to see these comments about how popular WTR was internationally. If
by czbond 6mo ago
As a gent born and raised in Texas, and has never seen the show - I am pleasantly surprised to see these comments about how popular WTR was internationally. If I had been asked to bet, I would have lost money on this one.
- pessimizer 6mo agoI've got the impression that the big US exports are ones that play into big American stereotypes, e.g WTR, Baywatch, Friends. Not even that they see these shows and get programmed with these stereotypes, but that they have these stereotypes (Texas, California, NYC) and shows like this feed their imaginations and give them detail. Exported media is weird. Like the huge proportion of British/BBC output (usually period, but also often detective in a way redolent of Christie) that is made primarily for export to foreign consumers who think of British upper-class culture as aspirational.
- VTimofeenko 6mo agoThere is US exported media that just randomly becomes popular in a specific demographic. Case in point: Adventures of Ford Fairlane, a flick with Andrew Dice Clay that got a razzie the year it came out. IIRC it got a cult following in Norway because the voice over was done by a popular radio DJ.
- quickthrowman 6mo agoWalker, Texas Ranger and Baywatch were both created by non-network studios as syndicated shows, they weren’t prime time network shows. The budgets for syndicated content is a lot lower than network produced content. The rights to air these sorts of shows are dirt cheap compared to Friends or Seinfeld, so it makes sense that cheap syndicated garbage like Walker, Texas Ranger and Baywatch were popular internationally, the rights were cheap.
- pafje 6mo agoAs others have said, WTR is very well-known in France while most people have never heard of Seinfeld. Same with Dallas and The Dukes of Hazzard.
- kelnos 6mo agoAssuming this sort of phenomenon extends further than France, this quite well explains many of the misconceptions Europeans have about the US. Thinking WTR, Dallas, or TDoH are representative of American culture is... hilarious. But I guess shows that hit the big American cultural stereotypes hard are maybe the ones that do better abroad?
- riffraff 6mo agoI think Hazard didn't sound stereotype at all, like, nobody had a clue why the car was called General Lee, or what the confederate flag meant. It was just a fun show. Magnum PI, Different Strokes, McGiver.. were just as popular.
- karel-3d 6mo agoFrom my memory from the 90s: Baywatch, X-Files, that speaking car one, Beverly Hills 90210, Ninja Turtles. Some dumb sitcom named Step by Step? edit: oh and ALF Oh and Married with Children, but it was always very late night and I was not allowed to watch it. And our teacher always played us ET on VHS. (and that dog playing basketball.) that's america for me when I was a kid
- pseudohadamard 6mo agoIf you like MwC, look up episodes of Unhappily Ever After on Youtube, it's sort of the second-generation MwC. Same sort of humour but taken even further, I can easily re-watch Unhappily but MwC is sort of a once-you've-seen-it...
- latexr 6mo ago> that speaking car one Knight Rider. > that dog playing basketball Air Bud.
- latexr 6mo ago> Thinking WTR, Dallas, or TDoH are representative of American culture is... hilarious. I’m not aware of a single person who thinks that, and neither was that the claim of your parent comment. People understand TV shows are fiction.
- MBCook 6mo agoYeah. As an American I would’ve absolutely never guessed it was that popular.
- quickthrowman 6mo agoIt was a syndicated show, the goal is to license it to as many companies as possible. It was never a network TV show like Seinfeld, those syndication rights are way more expensive than created for syndication shows like WTR.
- HauntingPin 6mo agoThe show was also incredibly popular in Germany in the 90s.