SweetZombieJesus

Bending Unit
  
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« on: 06-27-2010 16:24 »
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I am a Canadian who has lived outside of Canada for the past eight years ranging from places in Europe, Asia, South America and so on. When I travel I try to introduce as many people to Futurama as possible if they are not familiar with the show. The one problem I run into when doing this is that I feel Futurama is very much a North American show. Almost all the pop culture, inside jokes, and story lines come from within North American. This leads many people who see Futurama who are not from North America to understand very little of the humour, inside jokes, and pop culture references. My ex-girlfriend from Hungary had no idea how baseball worked, so how was she supposed to understand the premise of Blurnsball!  Do many of you viewing from outside North America run into similar problems? If you do, do you still watch it and love it all the same?
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transgender nerd under canada

DOOP Ubersecretary
 
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There are a few of my friends who are sometimes baffled by Americansisms in Futurama and The Simpsons, I'm the guy they ask to explain them. I think I've naturally absorbed a decent understanding of American culture, modes of speech, and the differences between British and American English via The Simpsons, and to a lesser extent books by American authors. Of course, Hollywood and the internet have helped a lot, as has spending some time over there. I might not be a good example. 
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i_c_weiner

DOOP Secretary

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The change it to German being extinct.
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Svip

Administrator
DOOP Secretary

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« Reply #10 on: 06-28-2010 05:40 »
« Last Edit on: 06-28-2010 05:41 »
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<ignorant American> actually, speaking of the show being done in different languages, I've always wondered how the french version of the show works. How do the jokes about the French language no longer existing work when the characters are speaking French? Do those jokes get omitted entirely, or does the dubbed version substitute, say, English for the incomprehensible dead language? </ignorant American>
There's an Infosphere article for that. http://theinfosphere.org/Dubbinghttp://theinfosphere.org/French</Apple commercial>
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Otis P Jivefunk

DOOP Secretary

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Never had a problem with it, after all, although it's American it's in Enlglish (well futuristic American English)...
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Applepie

Crustacean

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I live in Europe (Holland) and it's not a very well known show here. It only airs twice a week, one time at saturday night at 2 am, and on Sunday night at 8 pm on Comedy Central. But i get all the jokes, actually, and i never read the Dutch subtitles because they distract me too much. Family Guy and the Simpsons are way more popular around here. Pity.
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Frisco17

DOOP Secretary

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I live in the US and I'd never heard of Pauly Shore before I saw The Cryonic Woman. I kind of wish that was still the case.
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Frisco17

DOOP Secretary

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I figured we just finally took over the world.
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Svip

Administrator
DOOP Secretary

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I think the joke with Blernsball is that it IS overly complicated, that and nobody in America cares about baseball anymore. I always pictured Futurama "Earth" to be more like America, hence the "Earthican Flag."
Uhm, duh? 'Earthican dream' ring any bells? My problem with "A Leela of Her Own" was that it made Blernsball make more sense. Sure they added stupid things at the end, but couldn't they have kept it as stupid as it was when we first met it? I figured we just finally took over the world.
Still as it seems, the UN exists and the countries of today are still represented there. I guess we are Earth when facing aliens and we are nations when facing each other. That or America is just being pretentious pricks and speaking on the rest of us' behalf without our approval. Maybe there is an episode there. Like an imposter speaking to aliens in Russia or somesuch. Nixon is going to bring him down. And while Nixon clearly is the evil one, they decide to side with him anyway. Oh wait, that's almost like "The Lesser of Two Evils". Forget I said anything.
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MatMan

Delivery Boy
 
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I live in the US and I'd never heard of Pauly Shore before I saw The Cryonic Woman. I kind of wish that was still the case.
I find it amazing you had never heard of Pauly Shore till then. Also, I'm kinda jealous
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Aki

Professor

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It's definitely more America-fixed than even The Simpsons, probably due to it being set in New York which many foreigners see as the "standard" American town. Still here in Sweden we are pretty Americanized, a lot of TV is from America et cetera. There's seldom a joke I don't get, and when it is it's mostly about Idol (Susan Boil) or something like that that I don't care for, but not because I'm not American.
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Aki

Professor

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To be honest, you're more likely to get the Susan Boil joke if you're English.
Really? Well, that just proves how interested I am in those shows.
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Svip

Administrator
DOOP Secretary

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Yeah, she appeared on Britain's Got Talent, an awful British TV show along the lines of American Idol, etc
America has an equal version called 'America's Got Talent', where do you think they got the title from? Sheesh. Hell, even Denmark has it. But in our true 'ignoring that we are a country' style, it's just called 'Talent'. We called our version of 'American Idol' for 'Idols'. Just sayin'. We ain't putting our own country in the title, for what other country is there?
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Aki

Professor

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Sweden has a show called "Idol". Wait a minute... it's almost like "American Idol"!!!111
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Aki

Professor

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Everyone rips off everyone. That's showbiz for you.
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wowbagger

Delivery Boy
 
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I'm from downunder and agree with the general leaning of this thread, US culture is so pervasive that most of it seems native. However there is the occasional joke that is obviously an American reference that passes me by. But this has been a common factor of movies & TV my whole life so I'm just used to it now. I figured we just finally took over the world.
Fry: What do we care? We live in America! Leela: America is PART of the world! Fry: Wow! I have been gone a long time. This joke works especially well for foreigners and sometimes I wonder if Americans know that much of the world think of them this way (insular and not realising the drastic control they have over world economics, politics and culture). Not trying to pick on Americans, you cool, just saying it like I see it 
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Aki

Professor

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There are so many more jokes on Futurama poking fun on Americans than foreigners, really. And I have no idea of how much truth lies in the traditional view on Americans as gun-crazy beer drinkers who loves watching commercials and go to Beverly Hills Highschool, but then again I know I don't live in mile deep snow hunting polar bears even though I live in Sweden.
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Svip

Administrator
DOOP Secretary

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Hell, even the joke about French Stereotypes pokes fun at Americans. I hope I do not need to explain why.
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Javier Lopez

Urban Legend
  
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« Reply #37 on: 08-02-2010 20:48 »
« Last Edit on: 08-02-2010 20:52 »
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The dubbing is bittersweet here in Spain , because for one side they use perfect voices (imho) and are nicelly dubbed.. but in the other side the translation is (or used to be) HORRID..
As you say there are jokes hard to understand outside of the US and many times they changed them to crappy cheesy "hit" jokes from spanish "today hits" culture.. wich results in cheesy jokes about crappy celebrities who nobody will understand the next year.. but the joke will remain there forever .
I hate it .. the worst was in seasons 1 (later half), 2 and 3 .. from season 4 on they restrained a lot and are quite aceptable now.. but i still watch the episodes in english (wich i do with all series except House).
This reminds me a funny incident back in the early 2000s , i had a web site and on it i put all my rage against the crappy translators but without going down to insults , i only said how crappy their work was , how bad the translation was and how angry it made me , just criticing .. i got one email from one woman claiming to be the Futurama translator and demanding me to stop "insulting" them because it wasnt her fault.. i ignored her , some months later i received an almost identical email from other different named woman requesting the same , that it wasnt her fault and that i should take down the critics.. i said that it was odd because i had the same email months before from a different name.. she responded me sayinh "errr that was my sister" .
Of course i ignored them and never again i received more threats.
BTW.. In "Raging Bender" , the "Foraigner" is clearly a Spaniard/Mexican bullfighter , in spain they dubbed him with russian stereotopic accent.. i simply facepalmed
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Svip

Administrator
DOOP Secretary

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I don't think 'bittersweet' means what you think it means.
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