Mrs Brown's Boys Won't be Censored for the USA

The problem was the swearing. 'Fecking' is practically punctuation in some parts of Dublin, and Agnes Brown lives right there.

As the matriarch of an hilariously functional family, it's generally Mrs Brown who is the source of all chaos.

She has a heart of gold. Even standing in the epicenter of trouble, she's usually only got herself into that position while trying to help.

Willfully naive, Mrs Brown only sees what she wants to see. When her sprawling family, and extensive network of friends and neighbors, force her to confront an unforeseen reality, then the expletives fly.

Nothing too strong. After all, she is the fairly upstanding mother of a decent working class family. She says nothing that real world Irish mothers - from the same background - don't say every day. Brendan O'Carroll based her on his own mother.

Unfortunately such dialogue is against the rules of all major US network channels. Hence she hasn't been seen by Americans, outside of the army and naval bases.

Each time, the results have come in indicating pure dollar profits and a new favorite sitcom for American audiences. Every single network has approached Brendan O'Carroll with the same proposal - sell us the show and let us cut the cussing - and he's answered with a resounding 'no'.

The issue is that US television networks are bound by a law concerning expletives. Even the mild ones have to be beeped out.

Given the propensity of Mrs Brown to add a fecking or a feck off to every other sentence, that's a lot of beeping. Brendan O'Carroll (who both writes the show and stars as Agnes Brown) wasn't prepared to do that to her.

It would break the realism for a start. Something which Mrs Brown's Boys would never do. *giggle*

^{(For the benefit of US readers, Mrs Brown's Boys breaks the fourth wall so often, it's barely ever up.)}

Rory Cowan has announced that Mrs Brown's Boys will be shown in the USA.

He's a great source for solid information. As O'Carroll's agent, he was sitting right alongside Brendan when the show was conceived. The character of Rory was first based upon him, then he ended up actually playing the role!

Rory is also one of Brendan's closest friends. But it was in his capacity as agent, that the announcement was made.

HBO and PBS are both aggressively pursuing the rights to air the show - swearing and all.

Cable television channels in the US aren't constricted by the same law for beeping expletives. Where it's only done as a matter of courtesy in their shows. Hence cable bosses have been able to bid for Mrs Brown's Boys without a caveat to censor it.

Now Brendan O'Carroll is interested in talking. Now the comedy is set to go to the USA.

Rory is convinced that Mrs Brown's Boys will be a hit in the States. He told the Press Association, "I know all the US army bases get the DVDs - I don't know where they get them. We are getting fan mail from all the army bases all over America. And they get them free - they're being sent from somewhere."

In addition to the cable companies, Brendan is also talking to Netflix. As an entertainment channel based in cyber-space, it also side-steps US laws on unbeeped cussing.

Let the bidding wars begin!