Sunday 30 June 2024

Reject All Cookies

Across the 1990s, various American mass-market monthly paperback series aimed primarily at 8-to-14-year-olds hit the United Kingdom; series such as Goosebumps, Animorphs and The Baby-Sitters' Club. The British versions had their own cover art providing a different spin to the US designs, and the books were also edited to change American English to British English: principally this would just be changing "mom" to "mum", but other modifications such as replacing brand names British readers would not be familiar with, and changing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, also happened. (Amusingly, references to Dennis the Menace were left unchanged, presumably with the line of thought that readers would assume it was the Beano character.) It was all a bit odd, since the stories were clearly still taking place in America, but I suppose understandable.

Sometimes, however, they rather missed the point.

1 comment:

  1. That's just brilliant. Thanks for sharing! I really love this kind of localisation, but Biscuit Monster is the best I've ever seen!

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