The Persuaders

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1971 comedy/adventure series starring Tony Curtis and Roger Moore.

Lord Brett Sinclair, a British gentleman and aristocrat and Danny Wilde, a Nouveau Riche American Self-Made Man, are a pair of Brilliant but Lazy playboys. Thanks to the machinations of ex-judge Fulton who wants to give their lives a new sense of purpose, they wind up as best friends and rivals who go on various adventures and take on criminal cases on an odd-job basis. Much of the humor of the series comes from the witty banter between the two characters as they constantly criticize each other's habits and lifestyle.

While the series did only moderately well on the home British/American market (which should not be too much of a surprise, considering that the protagonist are based on their blatant national stereotypes) it has done significantly better abroad, and is widely remembered and cited in many European countries.

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Tropes used in The Persuaders include:

• Drink Order: No particular one for either, but several very fancy ones show up, frequently with arguing over seemingly-quibbling details of the recipe.
• Excited Show Title!
• Gentleman Snarker / Upper Class Wit
• Girl of the Week
• Heterosexual Life Partners
• Gag Dub: Thanks to Rainer Brandt, the German dub borders on this and became a much bigger hit than the original.
• Redubbing: In order to increase the popularity of the show in English-speaking countries, the dialog style of the German dub was applied to the English version.
• They Fight Crime
• Tone Shift: The Persuaders started out as a comparatively boring and thus successless crime show. Rainer Brandt's (in)famous German dub, however, turned it into a wacky, pun-laden comedy. As a consequence, the English original was re-dubbed in a similar style.
• A Worldwide Punomenon: Led by the German dub.