Unpopular Question: Why was Abbie more popular than the American?
Posted by OGAtlasHugged@reddit | thegrandtour | View on Reddit | 96 comments
Okay, I understand why everyone hated the American. They didn't like his brash personality or how he took the piss out of everything that wasn't American (and even some things that were), but why did people like Abbie so much? She has zero observable personality. Maybe it picks up later in the series (admittedly, I'm only partway through season 2), but all she does is say "Alright, let's get started!" or something similar in a tone eerily similar to a GPS voiceover while Jeremy commentates over her driving. Even the Stig was more entertaining and comedic, despite not saying anything, since Jeremy gave a wacky fun fact about it before the lap began and it was usually listening to something over the car's speakers. I understand that Grand Tour is a car show and the focus should be on the cars, but it's also an entertaining and comedic show...except for this one segment, which isn't particularly entertaining (compared to any other car show, anyways) and not really comedic any more.
Deformedpye@reddit
She was basically the stig that talked. The American was a comedic introduction that people didn't find funny because, well, he wasn't funny. She suited the cast better than he did. That's basically the reason.
shewy92@reddit
She wasn't playing a character. She was just being herself. Meanwhile they made Mike Skinner act a fool
DankeSebVettel@reddit
Doing that in a Truck is wild. I attempted to drive them around in Iracing and it went very poorly
shewy92@reddit
They were at the Glen last week and it was a blast. I led for just the straightaway before the guy I was holding off all race passed me after I locked it up with 3 to go
Zombieutinsel@reddit
They tried to make him into a driving Trump is more like it and that joke has gotten old a very long time ago.
ThiccSidepods@reddit
I remember everyone hating it at the time. I’m rewatching now, and I actually found the American funny. I’m American, don’t know if that contributes. But the ‘thinks everything is communist’ bit is funny because we all know someone like that (dad, grandparent, whoever)
IronCore864@reddit
What is it that you don’t understand, a skinny girl is more popular than a fat guy? Especially for a show whose audience is mostly men? Isn’t that axiomatic?
bornfromjets03@reddit
They wrote Skinner’s character all sorts of wrong. I wish they had just let him be himself and see what his thoughts were
poolwater@reddit
Abbie was pretty and had a nice smile. Not only that she also had skills.
MadManMorbo@reddit
I'm an American. I like super cars, and I love our intrepid Trio... The last thing I wanted to see whipped round the track, and to listen to the commentary from - was a bloated has been nascar driver. I give a flying fuck about what a dude paid to make 300 miles of left turns thinks about anything.
I didn't want to listen to his obnoxious commentary, or his ridiculous drawl... Everything about that human sausage casing detracted from the experience of the show and the test drives he turned in.
Abbie at least came across as competent, and thankfully self-muted most of the time.
Breezezilla_is_here@reddit
It wasn't so much the idea of The American that was bad, it was the execution. He had to deliver his cracks to dead air without allowing for a reaction or come back. It wound up being just awkward.
OGAtlasHugged@reddit (OP)
I know the American's cracks were effectively to himself, but I think Clarkson's commentary after the fact worked well. Either the American would say something stupid or unusual, and Clarkson would act dumbfounded and put-off, or Clarkson would foolishly assume the American would actually enjoy a particular aspect, only to be immediately proven completely incorrect when it cut back to the American griping about that exact feature. For the folks like me that watch GT more for the comedy and entertainment than the raw motorhead genre, I preferred the American.
Yoda2000675@reddit
“I have literally no idea what he’s talking about”
Breezezilla_is_here@reddit
Eh, ti might have had a chance it they had followed his comment with a trio facial shot or audience reaction shot, but just the commentary after the pause...didn't work. Comedy is all about timing.
PM_ME_UR_THONG_N_ASS@reddit
I still loved his line, “BMW. British Motor Works”
Taeles@reddit
jeremy's reply to that was just as epic too :)
Jeremy : I wonder if he actually knows what he's in?
American : Driving a BMW. British. Motor. Works.
Jeremy : So, thats a no then.
GyantSpyder@reddit
Yeah, it's not really a joke that people like things from their own country more than things from other countries. You need some sort of additional twist to make it interesting - but the American was kind of vague and all over the place and didn't even get to banter. It would have needed a lot of rework to make it good which is probably why they just got rid of it.
runerx@reddit
Skinner is actually a cool dude and a great driver. They just made him look like a dick.
AviationMemesandBS@reddit
Professionalism is always better than badly written, cheap stereotype.
AviationMemesandBS@reddit
And yes, I know that cheap stereotypes comprise a huge amount of the boys’ humor, but at least it’s clever and not just 100% distilled cringe.
broccoli_02@reddit
As an American I liked the American.
bluAstrid@reddit
People like Abbie because she’s a badass
CMDRgermanTHX@reddit
How the fuck is there not a single picture of here in that wiki article??
canlgetuhhhhh@reddit
even if there's tons of pictures of someone online, it can be near impossible to find one that's not copyrighted in a certain way and can thus be used on wikipedia. this is why you'll sometimes have the grainiest picture ever for super established celebrities even
Rogthgar@reddit
If you come from the many seasons of Top Gear, she is more in line with what the audience expected and wanted from 'the driver'; they do the laps, Jeremy adds the commentary, all is well.
What the American did wrong (in my eyes) was that his commentary quickly got irritating, because he often sounded like he had gotten up on the wrong side of the bed and now we had to listen to him moaning about being in something he hated... he is actually exactly the kind of character I would have thought lurked under the helmet of American Stig.
Rigret@reddit
As an American, The American was extremely unfunny and a gimmick that felt like it wasn't thought out at all. Abbie did her thing and drove like a badass.
Crowlands@reddit
You are asking two slightly different questions in the title vs your comment, why was she more popular than the american is an easy one, the segments with her on them weren't fucking irritating.
The question of why did people like her, seems like a tougher one, did they actually like her or was it simply a combination of no particular reason to dislike her and some positive feeling due to the not the american factor. She got to show her personality a bit more in later shows, but they had basically taken the approach to allow the cars to be the stars of those hot laps and not the driver after a more character-focused approach had failed so horribly.
c4ndres@reddit
I feel that it was just more akin to the stig where usually the joke would be around him but not necessarily from him. Abbie had her catchphrase but the jokes and entertainment weren't meant to come from anything but her driving.
orbital0000@reddit
American disnt bother me, some quips were OK, but it got repetetive. It's not something that had longevity. I dont think people liked Abbie, but more that she was very inoffensive, just got on with the driving, very much in a Stig style without the wacky intro.
StardustOasis@reddit
If you want to see more of Abbie being herself, watch Richard Hammond's Workshop. She appears in a few episodes of that.
DeathsPit00@reddit
Because the American was specifically chosen to be a stereotype of American Southern culture, people saw it as offensive, and bitched about it.
goooooooooooooogly@reddit
Because Abbie is a pretty girl and there's nothing wrong with liking pretty girls?
OriginalUseristaken@reddit
The Stig is owned by the BBC. He is silent and listens to weird noise while driving. They could not use the same kind of living thing. So they used someone who wouldn't shut up and was obnoxious to the nth degree. The American.
When that failed the chose Abby, who was quiet and more like the Stig, but crucially not the Stig.
And i never thought the Stig really listened to anything, instead i thought they overlayed the noise on the feed they showed.
MrIrrelevantsHypeMan@reddit
I thought the American was fired for always getting drunk with Clarkson
OriginalUseristaken@reddit
Well, that could be true as well. I don't know if either theory is true. The only thing is, he was gone after they asked the audience how to improve the show and my first imediate thought was "Get rid of the American."
OGAtlasHugged@reddit (OP)
I don't think he was actually listening to anything either, which means it was a conscious decision to add something after the fact purely as a joke.
Graciela_Palmer@reddit
I think Abbie brought a different energy to the show that many viewers found engaging. Her interactions and on-screen moments made her stand out in a positive way.
K1NG1NTHEN0RTH3@reddit
I do wish we got closure on the American as he was stalking them on the USA caravan special
MrIrrelevantsHypeMan@reddit
Some say he's still stalking them
OldDarthLefty@reddit
It just wasn’t a very good gag.
dagbrown@reddit
That was the whole point of the Stig. Race car drivers tend not to have TV star personalities because it’s not what they’ve dedicated their lives to doing. Stig avoided the whole thing by taking it to its logical extreme by not letting him have a personality. They couldn’t use a Stig for The Grand Tour so they erred maybe a little in the opposite direction by giving The American a bit too much personality. Abby turned out to be the balance they were looking for.
NeoSapien65@reddit
Also, "the opinions of all racing drivers are completely worthless" when it comes to road cars.
GivenLoud@reddit
This. They went from a driver who didn't talk to a driver that talked too much.
jasonreid1976@reddit
Funny you mention the Stug. I've been watching a lot of the videos that Ben Collins has put out on YouTube. Stuff on his own, with DriveTribe, and Tavarish.
Beahner@reddit
We had well over a decade of a driver that said nothing. Then we went to one yammering all the time. That was part of it. The other part is I just felt it was too flat. Like someone else said, maybe not the worst idea, but poorly executed.
With Abby we just went back to a driver that just drives. I can’t respect the opinion that this is drab, but it just was what everyone was used to. And the American being flat to many didnt help change minds.
I always guessed this might have been an “Amazon” idea they allowed in to try S1 until they could say “that just doesn’t work, and we know what works”.
fakeguitarist4life@reddit
It’s not unpopular. The American was a terrible character
SierraPapaHotel@reddit
You should also realize that watchers (especially S1) went from The Stig who said nothing and was just a driver to The American who was the polar opposite and that whiplash didn't go over well. Abby was a good middle ground, being an actual person with more personality than The Stig but not a caricature like The American
TheHolyPapaum@reddit
Because Abbie is more like The Stig, a more professional racing driver with no obnoxious jokes who can put in a super fast lap and go home, which she did a good job at.
Duck_Person1@reddit
The Stig was a good joke. The American was a bad joke. Abbie wasn't a joke.
thelasttycho@reddit
Pretty woman drive car fast.
BinkoTheViking@reddit
I miss Sabine Schmitz…
RichLather@reddit
So say we all.
OGAtlasHugged@reddit (OP)
Hmm, good point. I wonder if that's why I like May as a presenter
Lord_of_Mars@reddit
Hello.
nikhkin@reddit
The American was an unfunny, annoying caricature.
Abbie is an actual person, not just a character spouting random "American" phrases. Let's not forget, the Stig managed to be the driver for the duration of Top Gear without saying a word. We don't need an obnoxious man spouting nonsense in the car.
mr_greenmash@reddit
The only American that should be present on the grand tour Is Richard J. Cheeseburger Hammond III.
op3l@reddit
The stig was entertaining because they worked his character into the show. He knew nothing but how to drive a car fast. Then they put him on the subway and he maintained that and it was funny.
The American was like a poor dig at the American culture. His demeanor was off putting and nothing was ever done with him besides the driving around on the track.
Abbie was basically a grey wall. No personality to speak of and wasn't worked into the show except for that one race I think in Azerbaijan... And in that she was just portrayed as a fast driver and that was it.
So you had an interesting personality, an off putting personality, and basically what equated to warm plaster... and if given choice people would like the warm plaster rather than a fat overweight middle aged man who just grunted everything.
ballsosteele@reddit
By not being the American, it's a win by default in the eyes of most.
OGAtlasHugged@reddit (OP)
True, they probably could've used a sentient fermenting garbage bag that's been left in the summer sun for a month and it would've still been better received than the American. Which is too bad really. I thought his segment on the show was entertaining and funny. Everyone has different opinions though, so I'm not really bashing people for disliking him. I just don't understand what makes Abbie a more entertaining personality.
ghrrrrowl@reddit
Watch Abbie actually be a very good racing driver in Richard Hammonds solo series “The Smallest Cog”. She saves the team so many times despite everyone else making dumb mistakes.
janesmb@reddit
He wasn't funny. It didn't work. Abbie worked because there wasn't anything to dislike. As far as her not having a personality, she did what the showrunners wanted her to do.
AlanDevonshire@reddit
He was easy to dislike. The typical brash,loud opinionated, overweight American loud mouth of all Brits nightmares. The person you pray never to sit next to on along journey. After him anyone would look good.
spacestationkru@reddit
The American was a joke that got old fast. Abbie was just there to do what she's good at.
Beeegfoothunter@reddit
I agree, seemed like they were trying to have a nega-stig, but honestlyball the drive had to do was DRIVE! The American schtick wore thin too quickly, Abby was fine, but honestly didn’t need to say anything. It’s like Stig’s African/American/Australian/Truck Driver Cousin bit. It works because of the visual, not because of actual differences/quips.
AZDawgDays@reddit
I think it's because Abbie was more Stig-like with how they used her. She might have a quick one-liner here or there, but for the most part she's gonna get in the car, set a lap time that makes viewers' heads spin, look badass doing it, and then show up for the occasional race/challenge. Didn't try to make her funny, just let her be the tame racing driver
GeoHog713@reddit
I liked the American.
danielsmith217@reddit
I linked him too, but you could tell the show did not want you to like him.
OGAtlasHugged@reddit (OP)
No, the audience was meant to dislike him, but in the same way that people dislike wrestlers (I don't know how much scripted wrestling has caught on elsewhere in the world, just look up "face and heel" to understand more). The American was an excellent heel. As someone that understood that he was meant to be a heel, I thought he was entertaining and funny and his character didn't annoy me.
jizzmaster-zer0@reddit
people dont know face and heel? yeah he played a heel. was a redneck asshole.
or then we get john cena driving and hes american and is a babyface :)
OGAtlasHugged@reddit (OP)
I did too but I know that we are in the deep minority.
GeoHog713@reddit
That's how Im on the right track.
And it was funny when they brought him back to stalk Jezza
w1987g@reddit
I always took those parts of the episode as the show subtly saying, "we liked the guy, just not the character"
GeoHog713@reddit
I think THEY liked the character but audiences didnt.
He's a funny bit
thatblkman@reddit
It wasn’t just that the American was unlikable - it was that the American was an amalgamation of every British bigot’s (and the trio’s) stereotyping of Americans, and it didn’t play well when the largest proportion of the Prime audience watching was Americans.
Might play well on BBC2 to call us fat, stupid, boorish and all that - and then export the show to BBC America, but it didn’t in first-run.
So Abbie won by just not being “the American” alongside the trio making a better quality studio segment for the show.
drgnrbrn316@reddit
The American was designed to be the anti-Stig, either for legal distinction or just to distance themselves from their former work. So instead of a silent tame racing driver with no personality or distinction, they had a loud, opinionated driver with a more flamboyant suit. Jeremy and co have always been critical of America (in jest or otherwise) so they likely tried to play up the stereotypical aspects and went overboard. Abby went over better since she didn't take the focus away from the car and wasn't another overly scripted addition to the show. Season 1 had a lot of growing pains as they struggled to find their identity away from Top Gear. The American was just another product of that.
JimmyJamesv3@reddit
She was there to drive and nothing else.
AndrewCoja@reddit
If they would have just let the guy comment on the car instead of forcing cringe quips it would have been much better.
average_brazilian221@reddit
The American was funny to me because he just said shit, hahaha
haikusbot@reddit
The American
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akula17@reddit
The show was written such that we weren't meant to like the American, and were meant to like Abbie. So we did.
AsphaltGypsy89@reddit
He felt fake and the things he said felt forced and just were not funny. Abbie was serious and to me I felt the test track didn't need silly antics.
Markymarcouscous@reddit
I really don’t think she got a fair shot on the show as the only antic I can think of her being in is the race on the streets of Georgia . But I’ve seen her on YouTube and such and she seems like a fun gal.
deadtofall12@reddit
She drove a suitcase through an airport as well.
SentientDust@reddit
The American was obnoxious. Abby wasn't. That's it really.
And I agree, the quips thet dubbed in for her first season were cringe, but so was a lof of TGT content until they hit their stride in S3 (in that format). At least they were learning and adapting as they went.
OGAtlasHugged@reddit (OP)
Does she get better in S3? Like I said in the post, I haven't gotten that far yet, so I'm excited if they do improve her segment.
Shadowrend01@reddit
She’s much better in S3, but after that she doesn’t appear anymore. I can only think of one episode post S3 she appears in
Part of it was because she had an accident and couldn’t drive for an extended period, another was the change in format of the show no longer requiring a race driver to perform a lap
SentientDust@reddit
I'm not sure what you're looking for, exactly. She drives the cars.
They were deliberately not trying to create another Stig.
OGAtlasHugged@reddit (OP)
And yet Abbie is closer to the Stig than the American was. I think the show was deliberately trying to avoid another Stig (for obvious reasons), but the audience was specifically looking for another Stig.
Doc891@reddit
Skinner (The American) just didnt bring the heat with his jokes, and because of how Clarkson reacted to them, it didnt seem like he was supposed to be that vocal in the first place. The jokes just seemed to fall flat because of it. Abbie being a no nonsense driver was appealing on two fronts. One, she just was badass, and two being she was the direct opposite of the three it is funny when she shows them up.
Myusername468@reddit
Maybe it's just me, or because I'm American, but I thought he was great
Chance5e@reddit
She didn’t try to make jokes, and Clarkson didn’t comment on every bad joke she made.
doyu@reddit
I think the only reason she talks at all is because silent race driver was too close to the stig, which BBC owns.
The American was fucking awful.
KashiofWavecrest@reddit
While I did think the American was funny, I don't think it's a joke that has much replay value and it started to wear thin.
furchetta@reddit
I don't think it was Abbie's choice to not say anything on the show. They wanted a driver and not a personality 🤷♀️ Abbie is a really cool gal and a fantastic driver and I was always excited to see her on the show.
chaosunleashed@reddit
They liked her because she had zero personality. Because they made her have zero personality. Her first one or two runs, she made sounds. After that they made her the stig with female features.
Zamboni4201@reddit
There was some talk years back, I think it might have been in an interview with Jeremy, the producers made a mess of how they wanted Mike Skinner to act on screen, and it wasn’t funny.
I seem to recall they compared it to Celebrity Brain-whatever from season 1.