Was this the first time we saw the Ugly American personifcation?
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richard.fuller1 — 10 years ago(September 19, 2015 07:08 PM)
I remember hearing "you Americans did it first" as tho we thought of everything or did everything there was to do that was new.
Even saw an Englishman on The Price Is Right and when Bob asked him something about the way it was done in England, the guy just replied with, you did it first.
Bob laughed.
I do recall some incredible underlying envy tho with Band Aid and Do They Know It's Christmas? that none of our big American performers were on the breakthrough song.
No matter how much money We Are the World raised, how sensationalized it was (I thought the overall song was terrible), England still had it first. -
Noddy_Comet — 10 years ago(September 22, 2015 04:29 PM)
I suppose it's really a tale of two stereotypes: the diffident Brit and the pushy American.
For me though, the episode is actually more disparaging to the British than the Americans. We see the British guests at the beginning of the episode all meekly enduring a dreadful evening with bad food and shoddy service, the point being that the British would rather die than cause a scene. Then we see the brash, confident American who knows what he wants, how he wants it, and he wants it yesterday. It's more than an incompetent like Basil can handle, customer service not really being his area.
Make tea, not war. -
deem_bastille — 10 years ago(October 25, 2015 02:53 PM)
what upset me was the fact that the wife only said 'it's not very well known here' and things like that. she wasn't doing her duty as the country's citizen and standing up for it.
srsly, waldorf salad???? come on! [ps I have tried it, the mayo is disgusting! I tried it with yogurt and it was fine.]
she was such a wimp to her husband. the way he storms into the hotel and forcefully has her take this towel or something and she just takes it and the towel? what a wimp.
she was completely fine with him giving 20L for the chef to stay for 'a half an hour' [yeah right!] like she was entitled.
she should have known how eateries were run!
that was 4:00pm and he is freaking out about 9:00.
and what if he DID have something terminal? god, a little sensitivity, please!
then he barks at basil to make the waldorf salad. if it ain't on the menu, you're not getting it! he was like that highly strung, very clever kid.
Reading the paper can really be depressing. Mr. Dithers fired Dagwood again. -
Noddy_Comet — 10 years ago(November 29, 2015 09:11 AM)
I went to London in 2001 about two weeks before 9/11 and I didn't behave like this when pubs closed between lunch and dinner.
What the hell pub did you go to?! UK pubs stopped closing between lunch and dinner back in the 1980s
Make tea, not war. -
deem_bastille — 10 years ago(December 04, 2015 04:02 PM)
idk. it was a long time ago and there were at least 4 pubs on each street, for the most part.
but the point still stands I did not freak out and demand service when the pubs were shut.
and idk if I mentioned this before, but there was a bomb threat and the area was on high alert at the time.
Reading the paper can really be depressing. Mr. Dithers fired Dagwood again. -
darryl-tahirali — 9 years ago(June 30, 2016 07:21 PM)
I suppose the final irony is that Bruce Boa, who played the "pushy American" Hamilton, was Canadian. Canadians have the reputation of being polite and non-aggressive unless you put them into a hockey rink, or so the stereotype goes.
"Here is the ice you ordered, Mr. Ismay." Titanic Captain E.J. Smith -
sambda — 9 years ago(September 14, 2016 03:54 PM)
Well, he was being a bit unreasonable when he puts the menu to one side and asks for a (non-menu) Waldorf Salad. I don't know where he thinks he is, but even the best kitchen in its class of that size is very unlikely to have on hand all the ingredients required. It's a place which seats about 20 people, FFS - it's hardly going to have grapes, walnuts and celery all in stock at once!
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Scott-101 — 9 years ago(December 10, 2016 09:41 AM)
I think that particular American was the ugliest character on the whole show, he demanded service when the kitchen was closed, didn't listen, and was highly abrasive.
I didn't like that personification of Americans at all -
GayBoi1 — 9 years ago(December 27, 2016 01:08 AM)
I think that particular American was the ugliest character on the whole show, he demanded service when the kitchen was closed, didn't listen, and was highly abrasive.
I didn't like that personification of Americans at all
I don't know, Mr. Hutchinson and Mrs. Richards are very close contenders for the ugliest character title. Both were British characters and both were very demanding and ignorant just like the American guy. Mr. Hutchinson being picky about everything and expecting a hotel restaurant to have fresh from the garden peas and screaming and causing a scene in the end and of course Mrs. Richards.