All three programs are distributed by Sony Pictures Television International, which has created versions of them and other American programs around the world, often in partnership with local producers. "The Nanny," which was first broadcast in Russia in 2004, was such a hit that after running out of episodes to copy, Sony commissioned some of the show's original American writers to come up with 25 more episodes just for Russia, said Ron Sato, a Sony spokesman.

"Married . . . With Children," which ran from 1987 to 1997 in the United States, has been renamed "Schastlivy Vmeste," or "Happy Together." Its setting has been moved from the Chicago area to its Russian equivalent, the everyman metropolis of Yekaterinburg, in the heartland. The sniping couple, Al and Peg Bundy, have become Gena and Dasha Bukin.

Still, the thrust is the same: sending up family life as outrageously — or as vulgarly, depending upon your point of view — as possible.

A typical bit: In the living room, Gena suddenly tells Dasha to take off her clothes. Dasha is elated that Gena finally wants to have sex, and then Gena says, "No, Dasha, I'm simply dying of hunger, and hope that that will take away my appetite."

Natalya Bulgakova, a spokeswoman for the TNT channel, said the show, which had its premiere last year, is now the most popular scripted series in Russia among people ages 18 to 30. (Older Russians typically roll their eyes at mention of "Schastlivy Vmeste," as if they briefly wonder whether life under Communism was not so bad after all.)

TNT is owned by Gazprom-Media, which is controlled by Gazprom, the Russian national resources behemoth that is controlled by the government. In other words, viewers can essentially thank the Kremlin for the exploits of the Bukin family.

Asked about "Schastlivy Vmeste," Gazprom-Media said in a statement that it did not interfere in its stations' programming decisions.

While even Americans who do not speak Russian could discern the American roots in "Schastlivy Vmeste," it is fair to say that many Russian viewers might not. But even those Russians who do seem unlikely to be bothered by the show's origins. For decades, American popular culture has exerted a strong pull here, even when anti-American feelings have run high on a political level.

Russian television has come a long way from the staid, politically tinged fare of Communist times, and these days there are many channels featuring a steady diet of movies, police dramas, game shows, soap operas and reality shows — some locally produced, some imported and dubbed. Most types of entertainment programs that exist in United States are shown here, and trends from the West are readily adopted.

Television news programs, which are tightly overseen by President Vladimir V. Putin's administration, are another story. As in Soviet days, they rarely divert from the Kremlin's point of view. Barbed political satire, which thrived for a time on television after the fall of the Soviet Union, has also been suppressed under Putin.