[James2001]

And if anyone over here does know who Jaleel White is, it will almost certainly be for playing Sonic The Hedgehog, and not Urkel!

Reading about Family Matters, it seems like a very bizarre show itself- began as a fairly straightforward family sitcom, but by the end you had stories with things like time travel, cloning and robots. Seems strange how a show can make such a change!

Quite interesting actually how many very long running US sitcoms were, as far as I can tell, never shown here, terrestrially at least (a fair amount of old US TV did turn up on early satellite and cable channels though). Though the fact ITV schedules aren't readily available in the way the BBCs are, and what was shown varied from region to region, it makes it hard to be entirely sure. It's possible some shows had short runs in 1 or 2 regions that I can't find.

For example, I can't find any evidence that The Adventures of Ozzy and Harriet and Make Room For Daddy, the first 2 US sitcoms to hit the 10 year mark (the former ran for 14- still the longest running sitcom on US TV, the latter for 11) were ever shown here terrestially (though the Lifestyle channel definitely showed the latter in the early 90s). Also can't find any evidence that The Andy Griffith show, also massive in the US, was shown here (Forces TV did show the spin-off Gomer Pyle USMC a few years back though- interesting they picked up a 50 year old spin off to a show that was never shown here). Seems unusual how shows can be such long running hits in the US but seemingly not get even short runs over here.

Though Andy Griffith himself isn't entirely unknown here, seeing as Matlock seems to have been in repeat on the CBS channels for years!

Was going to mention My Three Sons as well, which ran for 12 years, but it does seem that had a run in some ITV regions in the 60s.

[Roger Darthwell]

LWT attempted to show The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, but it was a ratings flop. Carson was upset at this failure and sometimes  mentioned it if a British guest came on.

Had no idea about this? When did that happen? I am very curious

[James2001]

Around 1981-ish, I have seen some continuity videos from that era.

[VMPhil]

Yes 1981.

"We played in England for a while and we were not, as you say, a 'big smash'"

youtu.be 

[James2001]

There was a channel on Pluto TV last year that ran nothing but old Johnny Carson Tonight shows, it's gone now though, sadly. Mostly running episodes that had big name guests.

Rather strangely though, one I saw come up a few times was one from 1990 that was listed as "Heroes of Comedy: Andy Kaufman", which confused me seeing as it was from 6 years after he died... when I actually watched it, it seemed it was someone totally different called "Andy Koffman" who had performing frogs. Some researcher clearly got the two people confused and somehow it ended up on the Pluto TV channel's running order even though there weren't any guests of note on the show (which suggests they didn't even watch the episode before putting it up!). Though whoever the researcher was should have been questioning why Andy Kaufman was appearing on an show 6 years after he died to begin with.

[Roger Darthwell]

In fact looking at the comments below this video, the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson was only aired in only went out in a few regions who bothered to take LWT's edits (Anglia, for example) and it didn't last long. Also hearing the continuity announcer, the episodes were aired a week later than in the States
www.youtube.com 

[Former Member 406]

Yes 1981.

"We played in England for a while and we were not, as you say, a 'big smash'"

youtu.be 

It may well have genuinely never gone out on Border, Channel Television, Grampian, HTV Cymru Wales, Scottish Television, or Ulster Television...

But I doubt that knowledge of that would have played any part in the use of the word "England" (as opposed to e.g. Britain/UK or similar), in that quote...

[James2001]

Not exactly uncommon for Americans to only think of the UK as "England". And that everyone lives in London.

[Jon]

Not really that different to people in this country using Netherlands and Holland interchangeably.

[Keith]

Not exactly uncommon for Americans to only think of the UK as "England". And that everyone lives in London.

That's certainly the impression you'd get from watching some American dramas where they involve British characters or scenes which are supposedly the UK.

Apparently most British still people speak in upper-class, or with East London accents. Locations also seem to often need UK flags or Underground roundels to tell American viewers this scene is in the UK (and to British viewers that it almost certainly wasn't filmed in the UK).