If you hate the US Kath and Kim there is a good chance you'd love the original. And vice versa.

Stiull can't think of a single case where this kind of thing has happened in reverse. I suppose it must be to do with market size - there's so much American stuff produced and exported in all media that people overseas get used to American accents and dialect.

The sad ending happy ending things would I imnagine be where there were two endings made, and the American distributors insisted on the happy ending. Rather the way the version of Romeo and Juiet whoich was generally played for a couple of centuries had a happy ending - and that was in England.