Are they the same? No. Of course a British person can appreciate American humour and an American person appreciate British humour. However, sometimes humour can be so distinct it's best not to tamper with it. British and American cultures have similarities, but they're very different, too, and because of that it's not always easy for someone from another country to understand your style of humour, your slang, your references, your kind of life, etc. Often a typical British sense of humour imprinted in a popular TV series isn't always carried over into America successfully. The US pilot of Red Dwarf seems much more focused on adding canned laughter in reaction to lines of unfunny dialogue. A British viewer making that observation clearly shows that both the UK and America find different things funny. Some people "get it" and others do not. We also have differing boundaries. American TV is more censored, whereas British TV could probably get away with a lot more. This is why some comedies aren't considered as funny as others. Some are considered too nice or too safe or sensible. Culture shifts mean differing levels of irony, sarcasm, parody, slapstick and various other categories of comedy. There is also a difference in how we portray or deal with types of humour. As Simon Pegg stated in his piece in The Guardian: "Americans can fully appreciate irony. They just don't feel entirely comfortable using it on each other, in case it causes damage." US remakes, in every aspect, will always face a dilemma: If you copy the original too much it defeats the point of adapting it in the first place, but if you go too much in the other direction you could risk taking away all that's good about the original show. The best way to avoid this would be not to bother remaking at all and start from scratch with a fresh idea or let people discover the original work. You can't recreate something that is so loved and classic and expect it to be anywhere near as good.
