Spoons paddles the Atlantic

UK comedy Spoons is crossing the Atlantic in a deal between Endemol International and BBC America, with other agreements being struck elsewhere in Europe and Australia.

The six-part comedy sketch show, produced by Endemol-owned Zeppotron, has gone to the US as tape, with other countries vying for the comedy as both a finished show and scripted format.

ProSieben in Germany has taken the format as well as ordering two additional specially written episodes, while TV2 in Denmark and MTV in Finland have snapped up the original six episodes as finished shows.

Endemol International is also in talks with companies in Norway, Sweden, New Zealand, Australia and across eastern Europe to decide whether the show will be made locally or taken as a completed series.

Caroline Torrance, Endemol International’s director of scripted programming and distribution, says the reason for Spoons’ international appeal is very simple. “It’s about relationships and it’s funny,” she said. “The whole world knows what it means to be in love; to want sex; to be rejected; to make a mess of a date; to have an affair; to meet the in-laws. And the whole world likes to laugh about these situations.”

The show is set in the world of 20- and 30-somethings, featuring characters such as the Keeping Tabs Boyfriend, with his all-consuming paranoia about his once philandering girlfriend, and the Blind Date Man, who doesn’t see anything wrong in taking a girl he’s never met before to a cockfight.

The deals follow a run of worldwide and UK successes for another Zeppotron creation, 8 out of 10 Cats. The comedy quiz show format has just been commissioned for a fourth series on Channel 4 in the UK, and has also been sold to Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Norway, with other territories including the US looking set to follow.