If not Malcolm in the Middle....

An alternate title for MitM? To me it would be just "Malcolm". Nothing more. Nothing less. It would be great identification for worldwide viewers and all, too. What would you call it?

There would HAVE to be a Reese spin-off. The theme music would have to be Metallica. (old stuff, not new stuff) And I'm stuck there...

Reese spin off sounds great, but Im leaning more towards...oh, I don't know..."Hal's Show"! With episodes featuring Hal not only at home, but his life at work and the hilarity that goes on there!

It would be so much fun to see what Hal has to put up with at work!! Hal is so good at being able to separate his work life from his personal life. I mean, we know his job sucks and he hates it but when he comes home it's always all about Lois and the boys, or at the very least the TV. That really is quite a talent.

It does sound good to see everyone in their own little world when they're not as a family. Maybe 15 minutes for each family member, for however many shorts for them.

Lois - "Life of Lois"
Hal - "The Hal Files"
Francis - "Frankly Francis"
Reese - "Wacky Reese"
Dewey - "The Dewey Chronicles"
Malcolm - "Inside Malcolm's Head"

Don't you think it'd be better to leave Malcolm's show "Malcolm in the Middle"?

Yeah, that's what I was contemplating.

"Life of Lois" would be interesting because we'd see more Craig( ;D) and the stories would be great....even though, according to Lois, since they get robbed five times every month(that averages once a week), those might get to be a little annoying... ;D

reese35 said:

Lois - "Life of Lois"
Hal - "The Hal Files"
Francis - "Frankly Francis"
Reese - "Wacky Reese"
Dewey - "The Dewey Chronicles"
Malcolm - "Inside Malcolm's Head"

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These are really good, they could even do one for Otto called "Obviously Otto"

"The Adventures of Malcolm & Malcolm?" , just got those dvd's sorry!! But Better Days might work.

Hi everyone, glad to see MITMVC is back !

reese35 said:

An alternate title for MitM? To me it would be just "Malcolm". Nothing more. Nothing less. It would be great identification for worldwide viewers and all, too. What would you call it?

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"Malcolm" is actually the title of the series in some countries (for example in France, where I live).
But I don't know why they didn't translate the entire title as they did in some other countries ("Malcolm el de en medio" in Spanish, "Malcolm mittendrin" in german, etc...)
That may be because the exact translation doesn't sound very good, or also because they just thought "Malcolm" was sufficient, as you think !

Another funny thing is to see how the episodes names have been translated. Some are the exact translation, some have no link with the original title (they refer to another storyline, or another point of view on the story, or express a different feeling).

Anyways, thinking about an alternate title for MITM, I think the name "Malcolm" should always appear.
He is not only in the middle by the fact he is the 3rd child out of 5, but also by the fact he is the one who tells us his thoughts about "his world".
MITM without a character such as Reese would certainly be way less funny, but MITM without Malcolm wouldn't be so interesting compared to other shows.
I mean the fact he speaks to the audience is one of the main thing which make MITM look different from the others sitcoms.

So basically, even if each character of the family is one of a kind and couldn't be removed, Malcolm has something more than the others which justifies he has to appear in the title!

Welcome back Nico! They actually change the episode names, too? Could you give an example of an ep whose name is totally different?

Well, one episode I know that has a different name internationally -

"Lois vs. Evil" is known as - translated and inferred - "Ma mère, ce héros" ("My Mother the Hero") in France.

Here's waht I think the logo should be if MitM had Casualty's credits - (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxbAwxVrgEg) with pics of the family interspersed, of course.


"Global broadcasts in Canada"


And if they reverted to the premise of being just "Malcolm"

reese35 said:

"Lois vs. Evil" is known as - translated and inferred - "Ma mère, ce héros" ("My Mother the Hero") in France.

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This one is a pun with a 1991 movie with Gerard Depardieu entitled "mon père, ce héros" ("My father the hero").

Here are some other examples:
s2 ep19: "Bowling" is known as "pile et face" ("heads and tails"), which highlights the fact the 2 storylines show the same story with Hal OR Lois.
s3 ep3: "Book club" is known as "feux d'artifice" (my translator says "fireworks display"). This one refers to Malcolm and Reese's storyline instead of Lois's.
s3 ep9: "Reese's job" is known as "poisson rouge" ("goldfish"), concerns Dewey's storyline instead of Reese's.
s4 ep8: "Boys at ranch" is known as "Les mystères de l'ouest", which is the french translation of "wild wild west".
s5 ep20: "Victor's other family" is known as "patrimoine et génétique" ("genotype and genetics").
s6 ep8: "Lois battles Jamie" is known as "Sévir et protéger" ("rage and protect"), a pun with "servir et protéger" ("serve and protect").
s7 ep1: "Burning man" is known as "Allumer le feu" ("make a fire"), certainly because burning man is not known here, there is no translation for it.
s7 ep5: "Jessica stays over" is known as "l'invasion de l'abeille tueuse" ("the invasion of the killing bee"). I think the french title is better here, because Hal's storyline is the best part of this episode! Bryan Cranston plays his role perfectly!

Only "Malcolm" would work too, sometimes the papers only write "Malcolm" in the tv program
(It's called "Malcolm mittendrin" over here...)
but Malcolm in the Middle is unique

Yeah. And some shows here in the U.S. shorten the name when doing promotion. I remember Unhappily Ever After was shortened to just "Unhappily..." on promos.

"Malcolm" might have been used at some affiliates, but as far as i can remember, here in los angeles they use the full name, like when doing an ad they would say "Next on Malcolm in the Middle..."

And I noticed a lot of times, that Europe tend to shorten the titles more then the U.S.

And I think Australia pretty much has a nickname for about everything, I can not think of ever hearing anyone from Australia use anything with more then 7 or 8 letters, lol.

Australia has nine letters ;D

yeah, but they call it Oz and the people Aussie lol

that's because originally, Austrailia was the growing British Empire's waste recepticle and jail. No offense to any Austrailians, if we have any, it's just History.