I actually watched the American version for a couple of seasons before I watched this. The US one was, well, OK for the most part, but just not a real "keeper". The Brit version absolutely runs circles around it's US counterpart. Every character is fuller and more complete, not to mention MUCH funnier. All parallel characters are better from the Brit show. I like the viking from the US show, but the caveman is just funnier. The writing is also much funnier than the US version, which, like all American shows now, spends WAY too much time trying to be fully PC-compliant. The only US character that was really funny was "Nancy", the who came up from the basement for a couple of episodes. She was hilarious - they would have done well to give her a bigger role.