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What would happen if the British decided to reconquer the US

Jan 14, 2015 1:11AM PST

Since humor goes unrecognized here, this is a joke.

http://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-the-British-tried-to-reconquer-the-United-States

I particularly liked the replies by Clyde Davies and Alex Coppens that points out that it is already happening and that British actors are already a staple of American TV, even with American accents. viz. Hugh Laurie (House), and Damien Lewis (Band of Brothers and Homeland) and Jane Leeves who has been around forever. And let's not forget Elizabeth Taylor, Roddy MacDowell, and Angela Lansbury, those WW2 evacuees who stayed.

A remarkable number of the cast of Band of Brothers were British playing Americans (No ! Not David Schwimmer !). It may have been because they stand the cold better.

Ted

Discussion is locked

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I've noticed...
Jan 14, 2015 1:44AM PST

While certainly British actors appear in many an American film, don't forget why. American ventures actually pay more than anything British and they don't necessarily get sucked dry by British tax system. Sure, we complain about ours, but the Brits have gotten a heck of a way to run the country. Since, you mentioned British actors, I have noticed also many a Canadian as well. They too don't get paid as much as here in USA. However, many a production co. is located in Canada as well where costs are reduced greatly. You made also the point of WWII excavates, don't leave out the famous Jews that came as well. I mention that because they're scientific minds greatly enhanced or proceeded the making of the atomic bomb before the Nazis. We won the war because of their input but many plain Jews were left out or so dragged the US policy until the door was opened far wider than before. Let's not forget our own 1st and 2nd generation born here that returned to their forefathers homeland and provided the means to regain them. As always if brits want to reconquer the USA, it will be a bloody cost once the vail is lifted. adios -----Willy Happy

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The reason so many British actors play in American movies
Jan 14, 2015 8:27AM PST

and television is because they are so much better trained and more capable as actors, even to the point of mimicking American accents flawlessly. And they're not so wound up in their own egos that they charge the sun and the moon for lacklustre performances.

And you've already forgotten, Willy, that the whole thing is a joke! Nobody is suggesting that it should be done or could be done. It's just that the Brits and Australians are becoming more and more the go-to people for American heroic roles, as they have been the go-to people for villains for decades. They just have better chops, and better range and a bigger bag of tricks.

You want to watch a man who can act. Find a copy of the HBO series Parade's End, with Benedict Cumberbatch as the tormented repressed upper-class man who loves his faithless wife but cannot manage to unbend enough to communicate it to her and loves another woman, whom he will not court because he is true to his wife. Two competing loves, both blighted. It was the most compelling thing I've ever seen, and I hadn't been a fan of Sherlock before it. Jonny Lee Miller, despite his breakthrough playing a Yank in Hackers opposite Angelina Jolie is also a Brit as he plays in Holmes.

Oh, and an error in the first post. Jane Leeves uses her British accent, she doesn't play American. I shouldn't have included her. An awful lot of the Band of Brothers cast were British actors playing Americans. Nobody noticed.

Ted

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Huh
Jan 14, 2015 1:51AM PST

I never heard that the Brits conquered the U.S in the first place.

Digger

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No, they established the 13 colonies who later rebelled
Jan 14, 2015 8:37AM PST

hence the term re-conquer, but all that fails to recognize what I said in the first post.

IT'S A JOKE, SON, A JOKE. CAN YUH HEAH ME BOY? IS THIS THING CONNECTED? A JOKE I SAY!! Capital J small o, small k, small e. A JOKE.
DAYUM, YOU YANKEES ARE HARDER TO REACH THAN A RICH MAN'S CONSCIENCE.

Ted Percival. as Senator Claghorn, or Foghorn Leghorn, they're really the same character.

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As hollywood got trashier
Jan 14, 2015 11:24AM PST

the Brits came over. Make of it what you will.

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A typical example of extreme and thoughtless chauvinism.
Jan 14, 2015 2:43PM PST

Yeah, right. British actors were Hollywood staples from the age of sound forward because the stage in the US couldn't supply enough trained actors, and beside, as noted before the British were better trained. 90% of David Niven's career was in the US and in US movies. There are dozens more like Ronald Coleman, and that lush Erroll Flynn (from Tasmania), and Stewart Granger and ... and ... and. This isn't something which started whenever you think Hollywood got trashy (it always has been).

What is new is Mel Gibson playing Lt. Col Hal Moore, a real person and an American, or Damien Lewis who is very disorienting when you speaking with his slightly Welsh accent after the American roles he's done.

And to say it once more, "Since humor goes unrecognized here, this is a joke." But despite that opening sentence two of you have slipped your moorings and treated it as enough of a "threat" to get all defensive and attack mode-y rather than to go, "Oh yeah, and Russell Brand really sounds like an American!" or simply to in the words of Thumper, "Don't say nothin' at all."

And to think Canadians and the British and the French and lots of others think Americans have no sense of humor. You do of course, but it is channeled in very narrow canals, often requires a drum roll and rim shot, and certainly requires a laugh track so you know when something is funny. That wasn't my idea when I wrote the first bit of this (and truthfully I didn't write all that much, most of the joke was written by others, some of them Americans if you read the link), but this reaction has certainly proved that there is very little sense of humor here. I'm not baiting anyone, I'm just reflecting back what you're giving out. Dour, humorless, and very, very touchy. And let's not forget incredibly, narrowly conservative. I was hoping for a more varied response. Doesn't anyone but (sorry I'll have to look this up) JP Bill have a sense of humor Doncha get out the ball and throw it around a little rather than treating it like "It's My Ball and you all have to play by My Rules !! And the left side of the field is Out of Bounds." Jeez Louise, self-absorbed, much?

Ted

Ted.
.

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(NT) A book of ramblings....so familiar
Jan 14, 2015 7:54PM PST
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Oh, as expected, you took it wrong
Jan 15, 2015 3:08AM PST

I was talking about Americans making Hollywood a trashier place, requiring talent that didn't exist among them to be replaced by those who actually had some talent. I think your insecurities are showing a bit too much. Of course many British are actually only half British, being from "war babies" the Americans left behind in British females who seemed to prefer them.

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RE:"war babies" the Americans left behind in British females
Jan 15, 2015 3:41AM PST
"war babies" the Americans left behind in British females who seemed to prefer them.

That's something to be proud of?

Helping make a child then leaving?

I guess American military "prefer having sex" without the responsibility.

The women must have been shell shocked, there was a lot of bombing of civilians and the didn't realize what they were doing.

Of course I could be "taking it wrong", and you're probably saying that the reason you think the Brits are trashy is because there is a good chance they have some American Blood running through their veins.
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research it yourself
Jan 15, 2015 5:41AM PST
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Do you think they thought
Jan 15, 2015 5:53AM PST

they were firing blanks at the Nazis also?

I also have my doubts as to all the sex being consensual.

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Me too!
Jan 15, 2015 3:18PM PST

I heard our boys had those fast British girls tossing themselves at them. Maybe they thought it would get them to America away from the war?

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The Yanks fought and lost to a bunch of women?
Jan 15, 2015 7:53PM PST

Tsk, tsk, tsk.....I guess they didn't have the motivation to win.

Beaten by people that wear panties.

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I wonder if there were any "war babies"
Jan 15, 2015 4:05AM PST

born during/after American Revolutionary War (1775-1783)

YOU could be a Limey(have a bit of Lime Juice in your veins) , not that there is anything wrong with that.

The term is thought to have originated in the 1850s as "lime-juicer",[3] and was later shortened to "limey".[4] It was originally used as a derogatory word for sailors in the Royal Navy, because of the Royal Navy's practice since the beginning of the 19th century of adding lemon juice or lime juice to the sailors' daily ration of watered-down rum (known as grog), in order to make stored, stagnant, water more palatable. Doctors thought that lime juice would work better because it has more acid than lemon juice, so they substituted lime juice for lemon juice on the English Royal Navy ships. This ration of grog helped make these sailors some of the healthiest at the time due to the ascorbic acid's ability to prevent scurvy.[2][5]

Eventually the term lost its naval connection and was used to denote British people in general.