TGYH NBC

A couple of sites in the US are reporting that, due to poor ratings, NBC isn’t renewing the US version of Thank God You’re Here.

Everything I’d read until this morning had been positive about the viewer figures – quite the interesting turnaround.

3 Comments

  1. I think most of the positive stuff I’d been reading was coming out of Aus (As in ‘Aussie show takes the world by storm’ kind of spin). The audiences haven’t been great and the show apparently really not that good.

  2. Everything I’d read was about Americans having problems with it “not being real improv” and that sort of thing.

    Maybe it’s purely cultural.

  3. Let’s look at the recent history of TV impro in the US:

    The UK version of Whose Line is it Anyway with Clive Anderson aired in the US, until:

    Drew Carey took over at the helm – also taking Ryan Stiles, Colin Mockery and a couple of other regulars from the UK version – which enjoyed some success;

    The Drew Carey Green Screen show grew out of that success – more impro but with dynamic backgrounds.

    If Theatresports had taken off in this country, with all its Mintie tossing fun, I’m not so sure TGYH would have been filling such a gap on Australian TV. But it didn’t and it does.

    Because US audiences are accustomed to a troupe of performers that have the skills to evoke many scenes and much humour without the aid of elaborate sets, I think their expectations would have been more heightened than here in Australia and, up against WLIIA, the guest improvisers came across as a bit amateurish.

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