05.31.08
What was their name again?
There’s lots of American TV on here in Italy. We can watch Lost, sometimes just a few episodes behind (and dubbed into Italian). Heroes has also been dubbed. Lots of the Law and Order shows are on. And we also get the classics. Like The Cosby Show. Except it’s not The Cosby Show here. It’s I Robinson – The Robinsons.
Side note: Why was it called The Cosby Show if their name on the show was Huxtable?
So why did they change the name of the show (and the family) in Italian? I’ve heard several theories, but the most plausible is quite simple: Huxtable would be difficult to pronounce in Italian. The “H” is always silent in Italian, and is only used to change the sound of other letters. The “X” has a “Z” sound. And almost every word in Italian ends in a vowel sound (in English it ends in a vowel, but not a vowel sound).
But if you zoom out a little bit, you see how difficult it can be to take this American show, with all of its little cultural inside jokes, and transplant it into another place. And so if the show’s theme would be difficult to translate, just take the idea and put it into an Italian context. If the name’s too difficult, just change it.
Context is everything!
Julie Cheatum said,
05.31.08 at 11:04 pm
Hey Brian! I tivo and watch the Cosby show almost every night!
Good wholesome TV!!!