Germans Love David Hasselhoff/Live-Action TV

Real Life Examples
"However, the Americans would go on to produce The Simpsons and seven series of The West Wing, making it all worthwhile in the end."
 * Broadcasting U.S.-friendly newscasts into Saudi Arabia has been unsuccessful in dissuading anti-Americanism there. Broadcasting Friends, on the other hand....
 * American talk-show host Conan O Brien was so popular in Finland, allegedly due to a passing resemblance to the (female) Finnish president, he toured there to huge crowds.
 * Perhaps it is because he had almost the same haircut as Aki Kaurismaki's Leningrad Cowboys when they toured the US...
 * The interesting truth is that he is popular in Finland because he often refers to Finns in his jokes (the president thing, for example, was made up by Conan himself). Why did he start to make these jokes? A Message Board conspiracy spammed him with postcards to get Finland featured in Conan O'Brien Hates My Homeland and the quantity of mail caught his attention.
 * Of course, to start with he was the only American talk-show host on Finnish TV anyway — with any significant amount of following, at least. We still don't know who Jay Leno or David Letterman are over here, and we don't care.
 * In utter irony, of course, Conan's new show is not shown in Finland yet because of the low ratings his tenure of The Tonight Show had over here. And yet they've been airing Jay Leno's shows without any breaks for a couple of years now (sure it's on cable, but it's still there and Conan's not).
 * Kamen Rider Blade is ridiculously popular in Thailand, gaining more viewers and selling more toys over there than it ever did in Japan.
 * In fact, it is so popular, a Thai channel even made an after-school special featuring Kamen Rider Blade. In terms of quality, however, it never stood a chance against the original.
 * Kamen Rider Black was very popular in the Philippines; many a young person's face will light up at the mention of Kuya Robert.
 * Also to Indonesia. As the Gateway Series, Black, there known as Ksatria Baja Hitam, is considered the essential Kamen Rider, moreso than the original.
 * Also in Brazil. Alas, Black and its sequel Kamen Rider Black RX were the only installments of the entire Kamen Rider franchise (not counting the US adaptations) that aired there.
 * Mexican comedian Chespirito's El Chavo Del Ocho is absurdly popular in Brazil, nearly 30 years after its run in Mexico ended. Reruns are played on a particular TV channel before the afternoon's soap operas, and they often outdo the soapies in terms of audience.
 * Same in Argentina. There was a time that it could be seen in three TV stations... at the same time.
 * Also in Colombia, where the show has a everlasting impact in popular culture around here. The show is a staple of morning TV, and the actors are revered as VIPs, homaged frequently and even invited to ertain cultural forums and the like.
 * Another absurdly popular show in Brazil is Everybody Hates Chris. Despite of its small North American success, it has got a cult-like following among Brazilian youngsters, with some of its quotes being normally heard during everyday conversations. In a certain TV station, the show is aired virtually everyday, with 9 to 12 episodes in sequence. All the episodes have been aired at least twice.
 * Relatedly, Mexican telenovelas make up most of the telenovelas shown in Latin America and the United States, despite often being extremely regional in their tropes, premises and conventions.
 * They're also popular in the Balkans and the ex-USSR. A reporter for Televisa once reported that [53]&lpg=PA 53&dq=telenovelas+balkan+war&source=bl&ots=x4VOaKU1_5&sig=vWImZ2OFTqHofVogpZSyHXq0W3c&hl=es&ei=lcLlTcLfGann0QGCsYn8Cg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDMQ6AEwBDgK#v=onepage&q=telenovelas
 * The over-the-top dubbing used for Knight Rider and The A-Team in Brazil has given them quite a reputation as unintentional comedies. Several people were very disappointed when modern reruns of the show were subtitled instead.
 * To such a degree that in Portugal, the Brazilian dubs that aired only once on one channel about 15 years ago are still regularly quoted for laughs.
 * The TV show Monkey (Sayuki in its native Japan) was massively popular in Australia for years under the name "Monkey Magic." Hey, Aunty should bring it back...
 * Hogan's Heroes is popular in Germany due to massive Woolseyism in its treatment of the German characters, giving them different regional accents and adding various other cultural references which were played for comedy.
 * The King of Queens is another sitcom wildly popular in Germany. It's running several times a days for years now and still manages to catch new viewers. It's safe to say that it's the most successful U.S. sitcom in Germany. Same goes for the main actor of the series, Kevin James, who gets invited to prime-time talk shows and draws a huge crowd to the cinema when he's in a movie.
 * His newest movie (Zookeeper) even has a cameo of - no, not Hasselhoff, but Thomas Gottschalk, arguably Germany's most famous show host.
 * Starsky and Hutch is more popular in France, for reasons similar to The Persuaders: a better dub.
 * In the early 1970s, The Persuaders, in a sub-titled version, was immensely popular in Sweden, so the producers let one episode partially take place there (episode 19). But they failed to do their research properly, making it odd to watch for us. Roger Moore had become a great TV star in Sweden some years previously thanks to The Saint, which may explain the success.
 * This is also the reason that we in Sweden often see him as the greatest Bond. The Man With the Golden Gun and Octopussy are often considered to be some of the lesser films in the series (TMWTG often considered to one of the worst) but remain famous here, since both of them features two Swedes (Maud Adams being one and starring in both!).
 * The American TV series JAG which was pitched to the networks as Top Gun meets A Few Good Men was going to be scrapped after only one season due to poor ratings in the United States, but when the networks found that JAG was a huge hit overseas, especially in Australia, they Un Canceled it. This Hasselhoff trope was later Averted Trope on the series when the show suddenly became popular in the United States, in part due to the September 11 attacks and The War On Terror. The show also enjoyed many years of prime-time popularity in South Africa, when it can still be found in reruns.
 * Santa Barbara is a somewhat obscure soap now in America, but was extremely popular in Russia. In Croatia, it reigned over the airwaves in the early 90s, and despite the flood of telenovelas and a thriving domestic TV industry, is still often thought of as the archetypal Soap.
 * In France, Santa Barbara was at least as famous as Dallas.
 * In South Africa, Santa Barbara and The Young and the Restless were the afternoon equivalents in popularity of Dallas in the late 1980s to mid 1990s.
 * The Bold & the Beautiful and Days of Our Lives are the most popular American soapies currently being broadcast in South Africa. Both have been on air for over 25 years in South Africa. The respective casts visit the country often, and some have made guest appearances on local shows. American soapies which have failed to find an audience in SA include All My Children, Passions, and General Hospital.
 * Many relatively short-lived American game shows have had very successful British versions, most notably Blockbusters, Catchphrase, Strike It Lucky (adaptation of the short-lived American show Strike It Rich) and Play Your Cards Right (adaptation of Card Sharks). To a lesser extent, their adaptations of Gambit, Now You See It, The Cross Wits, Childs Play and Win Lose or Draw far outlasted their American counterparts.
 * Supernatural is popular in Australia (this may have something to do with the fact that the show uses a lot of classic rock in its soundtrack, including AC/DC, the biggest band to come out of Australia—the members of AC/DC watch and enjoy the show, apparently).
 * Apparently, it's also quite popular in Japan, as it got its own anime there. The producers aren't exactly no-names either, and neither are some guest-voice actors.
 * Dinner for One. A British 18-minute sketch is a staple in every German new year's celebration, aired every year since 1963 by multiple stations and the most frequently repeated TV programme ever, always shown in the original English without subtitles. But not once on British television.
 * Similarly popular in Norway, where it airs every December 23 as "Grevinnen og Hovmesteren" ("The Countess and the Butler").
 * In Sweden it has aired every New Year's Eve (2004 excepted) since 1976.
 * In Denmark it also airs every New Year's Eve at midnight (though I can't tell since when) and the Danish comedian Casper Christensen even wrote and acted as Miss Sophie in a parody called "The 80. Birthday" ("80-års fødselsdagen").
 * Same thing in Finland; expect to see this sketch every New Year.
 * Tropical Heat, being one of the few foreign series that aired in Serbia during the 90's, has achieved cult status in Serbia. A serbian band has even made a song about Nick Slaughter, the main character of the show
 * Many, many one-season or two-season shows have cult followings in South-East Asia.
 * Choudenshi Bioman, while just another Super Sentai series in Japan, is extremely popular in France and the Phillipines.
 * Enough in the former for a kids show host to make a cameo appearance in Choujuu Sentai Liveman.
 * Two series were really liked in Brazil, Changeman and Flashman.
 * As the Gateway Series of Sentai in Indonesia, Goggle Five remains well loved there, being considered 'Indonesia's essential Sentai'.
 * Other sentai popular in the Philippines are Hikari Sentai Maskman and Chikyuu Sentai Fiveman. We also like Kamen Rider Black and Space Sheriff Shaider
 * Despite being Screwed By the Network, Disney continued to produce new Power Rangers episodes through 2009 because Jetix Europe needed them to do so. Power Rangers RPM, would not have happened if PR weren't so popular in Germany. And surely, if Saban listened exclusively to the German fanbase's demands after reclaiming PR, The Hoff would have to star.
 * Power Rangers is also hugely popular in Japan with several seasons.
 * Speaking of dubbing American adaptations back into their native language, while Kamen Rider Dragon Knight was critically well-received it suffered low ratings for its entire run. In Japan, however, the show was a monumental smash (and regarded as much better than Kamen Rider Ryuki) with merchandise created solely for Dragon Knight.
 * You Can't Do That On Television was at its peak of popularity in the United States from about 1984 to 1987; for much of that time it was actually off the air in Canada, having been cancelled by CTV in 1984. New episodes were produced for Nickelodeon after that, which were unseen in Canada until YTV was created in the late '80s.
 * When reruns of American Gladiators were run in Great Britain, the Brits liked it so much they made their own... and their version impressed the original's producers enough that they incorporated many of their ideas into the original (even more in the Revival.)
 * Beakmans World was a popular kids' science show in America... but it's even more so in Brazil and Mexico.
 * Father Ted is popular enough in the United Kingdom, but an absolute monster hit in Ireland where is endlessly re-run even a decade after it finished, occupying roughly the equivalent spot that Only Fools and Horses has in Britain. Debatably, it doesn't count — after all, it was created by Irish writers, starred an Irish cast and was actually set in Ireland. On the other hand, it was specifically created for British audiences so its popularity in Ireland wasn't intended, or at least wasn't the main aim.
 * Australian soap operas like Neighbours are very popular in the United Kingdom. There was a period in the late 1980s/early 1990s where the viewing figures for Neighbours were bigger than the population of Australia. At one point there was a (probably false) rumour in the UK that the only reason Grundy and Ten were still making the series was that The BBC were still buying it.
 * In Brazil, during 1980s/early 1990s, Japanese Metal Heroes were incredibly popular. Any Brazilian who had his childhood at that time would know about Jaspion or Jiraia. Arguably, it was their popularity that allowed the Anime Invasion of mid-1990s.
 * If you read Swedish media, you are excused if you initially thought that Alexander Skarsgard was the star of True Blood, since every article either called it "Alexander Skarsgard's new show" or commented on how Stellan Skarsgard's (one of Sweden's few international mega-stars) son has struck it big.
 * A similar thing happens with NCIS Los Angeles in Portugal: pretty much every news article about the show (as well as nearly all ads and promos) focus near exclusively on Daniela Ruah.
 * Gunther from Friends was popular abroad despite being only a minor character.
 * In the 1990s, the sitcom ALF was (and, by the way, still is) very popular in Ukraine.
 * Unrelatedly, it also was very popular in Argentina, where his Catch Phrase (¡NO HAY PROBLEMA!) is still in vogue.
 * As John C. McGinley can attest, Scrubs is far more popular in Ireland than America. In Ireland it's regular for Radio DJs to mention it, friends to mention it as their favourite sitcom, and at a time, for people with digital TV it was common for a Scrubs episode to play on more than one station at the same time. It helped that Scrubs got an extremely favorable timeslot (9 p.m. on Mondays, right in the middle of RTÉ Two's comedy night) .It's also ridiculously popular in Australia as well.
 * Possibly because the United Kingdom and Ireland share cable channels, the "more than one station" thing applies over there, too.
 * Stor I Japan, translated Big in Japan was a Swedish one-season reality show which put the Big in Japan phenomenon to the test, by sending two forgotten Swedish ex-celebrities to Tokyo for a month, with the mission to acquire nation-wide TV airing time, a record contract, live performance gigs and a fan base. The result?
 * While The Goodies were never repeated on the BBC after the series ended, simply because the BBC's main controller of the eighties didn't like them, the ABC in Australia repeated them extensively throughout the 1980s and 1990s, giving them a continuous Australian fan base since the show originally aired.
 * Thanks to digital television, they're still going.
 * According to the accompanying DVD booklet, the short-lived Fox show Profit was apparently a much bigger hit in France.
 * Crocodile Hunter, while inexplicably popular in the United States and England, is almost universally reviled in its native Australia as being exactly the image of Australians that they are working hard to dispel.
 * Ya sure ya got the right Crocodile there, mate? And the show's popularity is not at all inexplicable: it's due to the fact that he, unlike many other hosts of wildlife documentaries, actually gets visibly excited about what he's doing. It makes the show a lot more endurable than, say, a David Attenborough documentary.
 * New Zealand's The Tribe was hugely popular in Sweden, to the point where school kids painted their faces with the tribal face markings that featured in the show.
 * South Korea's historical/fantasy drama Jumong was very successful in its home country, reaching ratings of 50% for its final episodes. However, in Iran for some strange reason, it was seen by 70% of the population. One Iranian teenager reportedly attempted suicide when he couldn't meet an actress from that series and there is a documentary being made regarding the negative effects of the show on the Iranian society.
 * It's not just that. Two years prior, Jewel in the Palace was dubbed and aired, and turned out to be a huge hit after less than 10 episodes. Popularity of Korean dramas in Iran roots back to early 80s (60s in Iranian Calender), when they only could afford to purchase South Korean shows. While most of those shows faded away soon after their humble reruns, airing a South Korean show was both reminiscing and interesting for adults, leading their popularity amongst younger people.
 * Married With Children is still popular in Germany and Eastern Europe, 10 or so years after it finished. Poland had a spinoff version that was as well received (maybe more) than the original.
 * Argentina has its own version of the show running several years, as well with The Nanny.
 * On the other hand the Hungarian remake bombed no matter how popular the original was in the country.
 * As did the British version (yes, they do remakes in the UK as well, less often than in America but usually with the same result).
 * Most Americans today are unfamiliar with The Phil Silvers Show, or remember it vaguely. It's still extremely popular in the United Kingdom, thanks to reruns being constantly broadcast on the BBC. In fact, it is even considered one of the top few classic sitcom imports there. Some attribute this to the British affection for the "loveable rogue" archetype, which Bilko fits to a tee.
 * The Fresh Prince of Bel Air is also wildly popular in the UK, though it's still popular in the United States, too.
 * The British TV standby University Challenge is a direct borrowing from the U.S. General Electric College Bowl series. The American one disappeared from TV long ago, while the British version remains a national icon.
 * According to this article, American TV dramas are very popular in Japan, but not in America itself. Partly because American shows tend to be about characters who aren't students or salarymen.
 * American comedian and Saturday Night Live alum Rich Hall has, for some reason, always been infinitely more popular in the United Kingdom, even before turning up on QI, to the point that he now lives in London.
 * In the 1960s series The Green Hornet, Bruce Lee played the role of Kato, and was so popular in Hong Kong, the show was called "The Kato Show", which eventually led to Bruce Lee becoming a movie star in Asia before the United States.
 * British example: The Benny Hill Show was (and probably still is) much more popular among French and American audiences than in his native Britain, where the non-PC nature of Benny Hill's humor is poorly tolerated. Both the guy and his show were wildly popular in Communist Romania of The Eighties as well as in the early part of The Nineties. In an issue of Garth Ennis' Punisher, a British character asks an American character why this is the case.
 * The new series of Doctor Who regularly achieves ratings of over 7 million in South Korea (comparable with its UK ratings). Series 4 won an award for 'Most Popular Foreign Drama', collected by former producer Phil Collinson.
 * Spanish family sitcom Los Serrano was an unlikely hit in Finland. The show originally aired for one season during the summer, and was supposed to be dropped by Autumn, but come August, the huge demand for more made the network run the series from the beginning.
 * For more or less obvious reasons, Seinfeld is extremely popular in Israel. When the show's finale was aired in the United States, it was simultaneously aired in Israel with no subtitles at approximately 6 AM due to the time difference, a rare honor for any entertainment show that was previously reserved for world-scale events like the Olympics or the Oscars. Since the early 1990s up until around 2005, reruns of the show had been airing daily on at least one channel.
 * For some reason, The West Wing is almost more popular in Britain than it is in the United States -- while the States obviously loved the show enough to give it 19 Emmys, Britain appears to consider it one of the greatest American exports of all time, as mentioned in John O'Farrell's An Utterly Impartial History of Britain:


 * There was a noticeable spike in the uptake of digital TV when The West Wing moved from terrestrial.
 * In China, Gossip Girl enjoys an immense following. While it's popular in its homeland America, the Chinese are absolutely crazy about this show.
 * In Spain, Kyle XY is a huge ratings winner. While the final season was overlooked in America, the Spanish religiously watched every last episode and threw more of a fit when its unsatisfying cliffhanger ending aired.
 * In the Netherlands, British show Keeping Up Appearances is still enjoying reruns, with excellent ratings. Most British people either hate it or don't even know it, it seems.
 * Surprisingly, it's also fairly popular in the United States, mostly because various PBS stations (which are, aside from BBC America, the best source of BritComs in the States) have been showing reruns of it for quite some time. The result is that many American Anglophiles (even ones who enjoy shows like The Office, Father Ted, or Spaced) are quite fond of it, to the consternation of some British viewers.
 * Some vintage BritComs are still vastly popular in Poland, where they used to run on thirt channel of public television, many years after they were shot, to name Keeping Up Appearances, Yes Minister, Red Dwarf, Blackadder, The Fast Show, Open All Hours or Absolutely Fabulous. There was also time in 1990s, when (most of) Polish (younger) audience first encountered anime - namely the series Tōshō Daimos, Dashu Kappei, Tiger Mask, Majokko Megu-chan and Yattodetaman - via Italian-based station Polonia1; some of us still recall those with a trace of nostalgy.
 * According to this article, Lost is quite popular in Iran despite never actually having been released legally there.
 * The cause of the growth of basketball in Turkey can be attributed to... reruns of The White Shadow.
 * The 1970s Brazilian soap opera A escrava Isaura ("The slave Isaura"), set in late 19th-century Imperial Brazil, was a huge success in Latin America... and an insane, unbelievable hit in Eastern Europe. Legend says that at some point people (from which country varies between versions) were even saving money to buy the eponymous character's freedom.
 * Not to mention China, where it's basically synonymous with Brazil. Protagonist Lucélia Santos visited the country a few times, and won both a fan-voted award for Artist of the Year and an honor by the Chinese government.
 * The French viewers always loved German police series such as Inspector Derrick. All are stereotypically associated with old people due to their airing slots (between 1PM and 5PM).
 * Austrian cop show Inspector Rex is extremely popular in Australia. Its broadcaster, Australia's multilingual network SBS, has aired it at 7.30pm on a Thursday evening since 1997. It still has reruns of the original as well as Rex In Rome. The spinoff featuring Stockinger also briefly ran. There was even a parody on an Aussie sketch show featuring one Detective Herring.
 * Small Wonder was once so popular in India that a copycat series was produced in the Hindi language with Indian actors.
 * Played literally in Dancing With the Stars, with David Hasselhoff's introduction lampshading his popularity in Germany.
 * Sunset Beach was far more popular in Britain and Sweden than it was in the US.
 * As of 2010 Big Brother is still popular in many countries despite being cancelled in the Netherlands (it's country of origin) back in 2006.
 * The Mole was a Belgian concept that lasted for 3 years. The show had been very succesful in Belgium but the producers didn't want it to overstay its welcome. In the Netherlands, however, the show is still popular after ten series, being nominated for the yearly audience award for the best tv-program on Dutch television several times. In 2008 members of the broadcasting assocation that makes the show voted it the best program the association has made in the last 50 years.
 * In the States, The Mole still has a cult fan base for it's own version of the show(or at least the non-celebrity versions) despite being Put On a Bus for four years and finally being cancelled in 2008.
 * Turkish television series are wildly popular in Middle Eastern countries. They are typically dubbed into Arabic. One such series is "Aşk-ı Memnu", a soap opera that plays continuesly on a number of Jordanian channels.
 * A few of them are translated to Persian too. They became more popular than Syrian and Lebonanese TV Shows dubbed to Persian.
 * Degrassi is more popular in America than it is in its home country of Canada, leading to the American channel that hosts it, Tee Nick having influence in the production of the show.
 * The Big Bang Theory is the number one comedy in Latin America. On the same vein, we love House MD.
 * The Big Bang Theory is also currently the most watched show in Canada.
 * While David Lynch's primetime crime-drama Twin Peaks is well-regarded as one of the greatest TV shows of all time in the USA, it's become something of a Cult Classic in recent years. However, the show was HUGE in Japan, spawning coffee commercials starring the shows cast, references in various Japanese media, and it even influenced the creation of The Legend of Zelda Links Awakening!
 * And later on, a cult classic based heavily upon it.
 * Although Are You Being Served was popular enough in Britain, it is well known as one of the most unexpectedly successful transatlantic transplants, being very popular in the US.
 * And in the State of New South Wales in Australia (The ONLY state!) because until quite recently, the biggest department store retailer in that state was called, you guessed it, Grace Brothers.
 * The game show Catchphrase was launched in America in late 1985 and cancelled the following January. The British version, Catchphrase, ran for eighteen series and got a spinoff, as well as a Radio 1 sort-of revival.
 * Home and Away is so popular in Ireland that it's shown twice a day AND has two omnibuses at the weekends. There are some people who actually get withdrawal symptoms if they miss any of them.
 * The Speculative Documentary The Future Is Wild is actually popular in Japan to the point that it has its own manga and a theme park was opened for a while in Japan.
 * Thanks to Generations, Turkey may be the only country in the world where Kelly Rutherford is as well-known as her Gossip Girl castmates.
 * Days of Our Lives is huge in Barbados, even though the series began to be shown there more than a decade after its debut.
 * Starsky and Hutch was definitely big in America but it was massive in Britain, with BBC1 running the series well into the 1980s (and being one of the few imported series to top the ratings), David Soul making more visits to the upper reaches of the pop charts than at home (including having two #1s), Channel 4 having a night devoted to the series in 1999 (including running the pilot and the never-before-shown-in-the-UK episode "The Fix" - omitted because of its depiction of heroin use), and the show being constantly rerun on other channels to this day.
 * Americas Funniest Home Videos is based on a segment of the Japanese show Kato-chan Ken-chan Gokigen TV, which ran for 6 years. AFV has been running for over 20 years and counting.
 * Game Shows have differing popularities too.
 * Going for Gold has faded from British TV and the revival is, according to its trope page, not that popular; the French version is here to stay, still huge.
 * The Australian series H20: Just Add Water is a big hit in Europe, mostly the UK, and Central and Eastern Europe. in fact, the 3rd season aired in the UK first before Australia by a year!
 * Sky One in the UK treated Malcolm in The Middle much better than it's American parent network, showing it just about every day in just before or in prime-time. It's still very well-loved.
 * The original US version of The Apprentice was a moderate hit in the US but the format has proven much more successful in Europe: both the British and Irish versions of the show have consistently brought in huge ratings and are proportionally far more talked about in the local media than the original is in the US.
 * Even years after it's ending, UK channels such as e4 still show two rerun episodes of Friends several times a day.
 * It got to the point that all E4 showed during one particular summer was live Big Brother and Friends reruns. Since the channel has lost the rights to both in 2011, it's content has gotten more varied and seemingly attracts less viewers.
 * I Carly is wildly popular in Australia, the UK and the Philippines, with huge amount of fans following it when aired in the country, and by internet streaming or downloading when they air in the US. If you join the iCarly fandom, you're as likely to encounter someone from these countries as you are someone from the USA or Canada.
 * The Canadian comedy series Just For Laughs is popular in Arabic countries.
 * My Babysitters a Vampire is huge in America.
 * Merlin is also extremely popular in America.
 * The American anthology show Beyond Belief Fact or Fiction is apparently(or at least was) fairly popular in Germany.
 * Street Hawk (a.k.a. Knight Rider on two wheels, was launched in India in the late 1980s, and ultimately proved a big hit in the country. GI Joe Snake-eyes and Rapid Action Motorcycle toys were retooled and launched as a Street Hawk package, and several bike and bike tyre ads imitated elements of the show ("The Man...the machine...the tyre...MRF Nylogrip", night shots, black bikes, black suits). Knight Rider, when launched in the 1990s, was barely promoted and ultimately ended up as "a show like Street Hawk", and the franchise has never reached the popularity of Street Hawk in the late 1980s or early 1990s, despite being the longer-running and more successful franchise.
 * Ask any Australian who was a kid in the mid-60's what their favorite program was, they'll probably answer The Samurai.
 * MST3K ("El Misterio En El Espacio") was quite the rage with young children in Spain, to the extent that it aired on CLAN long after the US stopped broadcasting episodes. (For those of you wondering how they dubbed the show, they used Spanish prints of the films and redubbed the dialogue of our theater-goers.)
 * Lost in Space also experienced the same popularity, to the extent that The Robot's catchphrase "¡PELIGRO! ¡PELIGRO!" is still in vogue.
 * Many Brit Coms are very popular in Australia.
 * Famously Baywatch was cancelled after one series due to poor ratings. However Britain's LWT network stepped in with a group of other international channels to save the show. The show went on for several more series and it is estimated that over one Billion people across the globe watched it at some point. Never underestimate the international language of Pamela Anderson running in a swimsuit.

In-Universe Examples

 * In an episode of Slings and Arrows, Jack, an American movie actor playing Hamlet in a Canadian theatre festival, gets mobbed by Japanese tourists as he exits a showing of a movie he's in. He remarks, "I'm huge in Japan."
 * Entourage made use of this trope in-universe, when Vinnie Chase starts to run out of money, prior to being cast as Aquaman (which would go on to be the highest-grossing film of all time). He's only done a couple of small films at this point, but still garners some ungodly sum of money to do a commercial in Japan, because they love him there.
 * Directly referenced in the How I Met Your Mother episode "Field Trip" when Ted tries to take his new architecture class on a field trip and somehow picks up a German family. Barney notices the diversity of his group of students and decides to make them a focus group for their debates. One question Ted asks is "Who thinks David Hasselhoff is awesome?" When only the German family raises their hands, Ted says "Hm, it's true."
 * In one episode of Full House, Fake Band leader Jesse got "big in Japan". He was eventually forced to make a Friend or Idol Decision on whether or not to leave his family behind and go on a pan-Asian tour.
 * In one episode of The Kids in The Hall, Kevin, after being shut out of a group conversation, tries to sell the viewer on the idea that "they love me in France." Cue a documentary about the beloved comedian "Le Poopie"... but by the end of it the narrator realizes that he has the wrong script and Kevin isn't popular in France.
 * News Radio ran a subplot one episode about Jimmy James' new book of business tactics, an unmitigated disaster in the US due to its Blind Idiot Translation from the original Japanese (It Makes Sense in Context), but popular enough in the Rising Sun that the credits roll over a scene of him deplaning in Tokyo to be greeted by a crowd of cheering admirers waving giant paper-mache replicas of his smiling face from the book's cover.
 * In the Monk tie-in novel Mr. Monk Is Miserable, The Randy Disher Project is big in France (at least among the police, with the exception of the Inspector who, as their boss, is the "man" in the "stick-it-to-the-man-itiveness" of the RDP's only song).
 * In one episode of Friends Joey makes a commercial for, of all things, a blue lipstick for men in a "big in Japan" version of the trope.
 * On Thirty Rock, Jenna Maroney has a "dance pop techno hybrid" called "Muffin Top" (literally about her muffin top and she tries to make this "sexy"), which is popular in Israel and Belgium.
 * And according to "Reaganing", she's also had a single that was Big in Japan.
 * In Nümberwang, the German export of Numberwang, the grand prize is a stein of beer and a signed photo of David Hasselhoff.