Saturady Night Live is now being licensed, not just imitated, in other countries (see links): Japan, Korea, Spain, Italy, Brazil
Franchising of TV shows is nothing new, but with SNL the issue becomes whether a particular type of American humor, which is often ironic, political, and topical, can be exported or recreated. In all likelihood, only the format will be copied, while the humor will be the usual local one, but I hope some of the American style will establish itself.
Interestingly, Saturday NIght Live has only recently become known in much of the non-english speaking world. I know that in Germany, for example, most people I asked have never heard of SNL. I often have to explain that it is the most important satirical show on American television and that it has spawned many of the Hollywood stars that everyone there does know. SNL is not alone: stand up comedy, as well, has only recently come to Germany, where it is smoothly blending with what they call Kabarett, which can be extremely good. I often cringe, however, when I see the typical US style standup performance there it because it is so brazenly imitative (imagine ”Hey. How you doin’ Heidelberg?" translated in German) and many of the jokes seem merely lifted from US comedians, with the assumption that the locals won't find out. In time this situation will probably improve.
Also, believe it or not, Johnny Carson is practically unknown in Germany. This is probably different in Britain and The Netherlands, etc, where American shows are regularly shown without subtitles, but in Germany the local market is large enough that most shows are dubbed, and it would make little sense to dub Johnny Carson, Letterman or SNL. They did dub Seinfeld, which really doesn’t work very well. And, because they don’t know Carson, or Conan, or Letterman, someone like Harald Schmidt can get away with an amazingly shameless Letterman rip off (see clip starting at around 2:55).
So what has caused the delay of this kind of American comedy? I would guess that it is mostly a matter of language and market size. Obviously English speaking countries can simply air the American content. As a result, Australians and New Zealanders are extremely aware of US popular culture and its history. But, countries with a large enough local non-english speaking market like Germany and France tend to dub and thereby leave out humor-based shows because the jokes just don’t translate. Countries that are smaller, and generally more multi-lingual, like The Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, tend to air the shows in English and with or without subtitles. Another factor is the content. Sex and action and violence translate visually, which explains why Johnny Carson is much less known than David Hasselhof in Germany, and than Schwarzenegger internationally. The third factor may be the internet. In most countries it is now possible to go around the official Television lineup and view American television, but it takes a while for the older generations to adopt to this newer medium and for the younger generations to find out about older establishments (like Carson, Carlin, Bruce, Pryor, SNL).
This disparity of knowledge points to a few bumps in the image of globalized culture. On the one hand Americans who travel abroad are often surprised by locals who actually know more about the US than many Americans (on some subjects, see Jason Jones interview with Iranians), but this erroneously leads to the assumption that they know everything about the US. Instead, there is always the national “portfolio” of international culture. The local still exists. In part, it expresses itself in very unpredictable combinations of knowledge and ignorance of the foreign.
I hope the export of SNL goes well. Of all the products to be exported from the US, I would prefer humor to be one of them, because it can be very subversive, cynical, progressive.
List of American TV shows based on British TV shows
List of international standup comedians (click on the United States link to get a picture of the difference in pure quantity).
Germany voted the least funny, US the most.
