Sam Sam

This comedy, originally based on ''Man about the house'' (1973), is on air for about eight years now, and for Dutch understandings that's quite long. There aren't many Dutch comedy's broadcasting that many seasons (for as far as I know only ''Zeg eens AAA'' (1981-1989) did as well as ''Oppassen!!!'' (1991-present)). Therefore, Sam Sam can be called a hit. Seeing it, it's quite obvious why it's such a success.

First of all, the acting is done professional and very enthusiast. Although it must be said that the (most of the time) bigger-than-life acting by John Jones is a possible annoy-factor. Secondly the series is fast, meaning there are no really long scenes, which is probably one of the reasons the series is especially popular by younger people. There isn't much time to get bored.Besides that the writing is almost perfect (very funny and not to predictable, a trap some comedy's fall in most of the time) and a few of the characters have one-liners everybody knows and loves. Riet Brouwer (played by Bea Meulman) says ''Heb ik dat!?'' (''That's my luck!'') a lot, while her husband's (Nol, played by Jules Royaards) filler is ''Gloeiende, gloeiende.'' (''Bloody, bloody.''). And when Nol meets Jimmy, Chris, Jo or Lex, he always calls them ''Eh.Dinges'' (''Eh.What's-your-name''). And almost naturally there is the boy-girl situation. The public as well as the other characters kinda know Jimmy (John Jones) and Chris (Anne-Mieke Ruyten) belong together, but they never seem to get together properly.

With John Jones and Anne-Mieke Ruyten as each-others love-interests, Elle van Rijn as the dumb, blonde Jo and Joost Buitenweg brilliantly playing Jimmy's best friend, over-sexed, and therefore disliked by Chris and Jo, Lex; the youngsters from ''Man about the house'' are replaced without a doubt as good as (or perhaps even a little better) than the original British cast. And the Ropers, originally played by Yootha Joyce and Brian Murphy with their whole hearts, are now performed by Bea Meulman and perfectly casted Jules Royaards.

So the biggest threat to the show would be the leaving of one of the actors. Or worse, two of the actors. This is what happened in 2001 when Anne-Mieke Ruyten and Elle van Rijn left the series. Replaced by Angelique de Bruijne and Anneke Beukman the show went on (it still does) without to much damage, so it seemed. But in my opinion, the episode described in the trivia section (where Jimmy and Chris finally end up together) should be the final episode of the series, while the show was still at its peak. OK, I admit, already it was a little over its peak.

Watching the show with the new actors isn't a disaster and sometimes it's as funny as it once was, but it's obviously a copy of something we've seen before (sometimes more than once before) already. But luckily it's an enjoyable copy.

Although Sam Sam is not on television for a while (sorry, my English is good, but not perfect, so my sentences are a little different than they should be), I still am a great fan of the show. The replacements of Anne-Mieke Ruyten (Chris) and Elle van Rijn (Jo) are not much better than Ruyten and van Rijn, but they're very funny, especially Anneke as the blonde Nina. She's very sweet. It's good that Angelique de Bruijne was replaced by somebody else (I don't know her name), cause she was not a very good actress. The one in the new episodes is a bit better. John Jones does sometimes a bit overacting, but that's not so bad, it's (most of the time) funny.