Germans Love David Hasselhoff / Puppet Shows

• The Muppets: While eventually becoming an international phenomenon, the Muppets were originally rejected by all TV stations in the USA, because nobody thought this show would ever become a hit with adults. ITV was willing to take the risk, so the first episodes of The Muppet Show were broadcast there and then shipped to other countries. As it turned out, the British adored the series, more than in other countries, and Jim Henson's company is still grateful to ITV for giving them this chance. Due to the show’s format, the Muppets even got to make some UK exclusive content for each episode, too.
  • The assorted Muppet movies are also all very popular in the UK, especially The Muppet Christmas Carol, which often receives theatrical screenings around Christmas.
  • There were several other especially successful dubs of The Muppet Show. It was probably most popular in Germany and France, where the voice casts featured a number of their most famous voice actors (Roger Carel, who was the French voice of Kermit, is considered "the French Mel Blanc," and also did the French voices for characters like Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, and C-3PO). Such was its popularity in the respective countries that local material was made for the German production by the Muppet team (including a guest appearance by popular German singer Mary Roos), and a brief revival of the show called Muppets TV was produced in France in 2006, with a cast of French comedians doing the voices.
  • The various Muppet projects and Sesame Street are all popular in New Zealand, helped by Flight of the Conchords member Bret McKenzie co-writing the music for the two recent films and organizing a concert with characters from all the major franchises (the former two plus Fraggle Rock) in New Zealand.
• Sesame Street:
  • Nobody's saying mainstays Ernie and Bert aren't popular in the United States. They still appear a lot and are considered two of the show's most beloved characters. However, since the '80s, their presence has dwindled down to mostly appearing in segments (most of which don't even air anymore) while other characters like Elmo and Abby Cadabby have become kid favorites^note Although beginning around 2017, when regular Sesame puppeteer Peter Linz assumed the role of Ernie, the duo have been appearing much more often in new street stories and promo appearances.. In the Netherlands (Sesamstraat) and Germany (Sesamstraße), Ernie and Bert are HUGE - far and away the most popular American Muppets, and perhaps even more popular than the local Muppets; Kevin Clash, in Germany to train some novice puppeteers for the show, discovered that many Germans assume the duo were created there. It's gotten to the point that each country has developed local material with the duo: the Netherlands had a series of wildly successful LPs with original material created by voice actors Wim T. Schippers (Ernie) and Paul Haenen (Bert), both of whom are popular Dutch comedians and writers (even Jim Henson himself expressed his approval), and recently have had local puppet segments made as well. In Germany, they became so popular that they began appearing in newly-made local segments with German puppeteers, and still appear on the show more than any of the other American Muppets (though characters like Elmo, Grover, and Cookie Monster also appear locally now). Perhaps the ultimate European seal of approval for Ernie and Bert: in 2011, Eurovision Song Contest champion Lena stopped by to perform a Bert-themed parody of her winning song "Satellite."
  • The show itself (or its local co-productions) have found great success all over the world. Besides the Netherlands and Germany, there have also been wildly successful versions in Spain, Mexico, Israel, Norway, and Brazil, among many others (versions of the show have been aired in over 120 countries). In particular, Japanese TV station NHK aired a successful dub of the American series for many years, which is often credited for helping Japanese people (adults and children!) learn more English. Their attempt at a local version was significantly less successful.
    • While the popularity of their local versions is sometimes downplayed, Poland, Portugal, Russia, and Turkey still have large Sesame fanbases, and clips from their versions are uploaded to YouTube frequently.
    • The show was so popular in Spain that when it was announced that Sesame spin-off Play with Me Sesame (a package series of new interactive Muppet segments and classic American segments) would begin airing on Spanish TV, it was greeted with the same level of enthusiasm as if the original show was coming back.
    • Most revivals of international co-productions are either completely revamped or just smaller-scale spin-offs, but the local characters were popular enough in Israel (Rechov Sumsum) and the Arabic-speaking world (Iftah Ya Simsim, originally made in Kuwait but revived in the United Arab Emirates) that no revival was made without at least two members of the original Muppet cast (in Israel, it's especially the case for Moishe Oofnik, Israel's answer to Oscar the Grouch).
    • In fact, Rechov Sumsum is a rare example of this trope circling around on itself: thanks to Shalom Sesame, a series of videos aimed at Jewish-American children introducing them to Israel and Jewish holidays, local Muppets Kippi ben Kippod (a large hedgehog, essentially the Israeli equivalent of Big Bird) and Moishe Oofnik have a lot of fans among Jewish-American Sesame fans who grew up on the videos.
  • Elmo is the most popular character on the show, but in Japan, his popularity is even bigger. There's tons of Elmo merchandise in UFO catchers and stores, and he has a big prominence at Universal Studios, which made a new friend for him named "Moppy" who's just as popular as Elmo. Julia is also popular in Japan, to the point where she gets exclusive merchandise and got to sing a song that was part of an NHK campaign.
  • Sesame Street is huge in Australia, having been a mainstay of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's children's programming schedules for a long time. Australia even got some of the Sesame Street Live tours. The Sesame Muppets have actually made appearances in Australia several times because of that, most notably a well-received series of interviews with Elmo on Rove Live.
  • It may not always be perceived as huge in the United Kingdom compared to The Muppet Show or Fraggle Rock, but many Brits still hold fond memories of Sesame Street. The debut of local spin-off The Furchester Hotel led to a resurgence of fondness for the original show, and back in 1992, a remix of the theme song called "Sesame's Treet" charted all the way at #2 on the UK Singles Chart!
• Star Fleet: This obscure Japanese puppet show wasn't popular in its homeland, but became very beloved in the United Kingdom, because it reminded people of Thunderbirds. Even Brian May (Queen) and Van Halen recorded a EP as a tribute to the series: Star Fleet Project.
• Thunderbirds were so huge in Japan that have two Japan-only games (SNES and Game Boy) and their own toyline produced by Bandai. The UglyDolls themed after the series were only available in Japan as well.
• The Noddy Shop:
  • While the show has faded into obscurity in most parts of the world, it's well-remembered in Poland because the dub was high-quality and used actors from Disney and Pixar movies. In fact, a few Polish episodes were the first to appear on YouTube, before any episodes of the original English version showed up on there.
  • The Noddy Shop also has a following in Portugal and was the country's first introduction to the Noddy franchise, with many preferring it to later animated Noddy works. TVP even reran it when Make Way For Noddy became a craze in the country.
  • In Guam, this show, as well as The Puzzle Place and Tots TV, were so big that they ran on their PBS affiliate until 2004.
• Polka Dot Shorts was bigger in the UK than it was in its' native Canada, and is fondly remembered by BBC viewers. It says something when the show aired daily reruns until 2004 on CBeebies, when at that point TV Ontario had phased the series out. There was even a live show that toured the UK!
• Fraggle Rock was huge in Spain, generating exclusive merchandise all over the place. There's even an alternative rock group that named themselves "Los Fraguels" after the Castilian Spanish title of the show. Some original Fraggle puppets were even donated to the Museu Internacional de Titelles de Albaida in Valencia.
  • Part of Fraggle Rock's appeal was that, in order to fulfill Jim Henson's ideal of creating a truly "international series," local segments were made for several productions (typically only the Doc and Sprocket and Uncle Traveling Matt segments). Therefore, there's a lot of love for it in the UK, Germany, and France, all of which got their own local material. (Although the UK was the only market that kept making it until the end of the series.)
    • Fraggle Rock was voted the best kids show of all time in a UK poll, beating out actual British shows such as Sooty. Those different wraparound segments probably helped its status.
    • Additionally, by virtue of it being filmed in Toronto and main character Gobo Fraggle's noticeable Canadian accent, Canada is quite fond of Fraggle Rock as well.
• Fur TV is considered a Cult Classic in Latin America (known there as TV de Ciertopelo) thanks to its Superlative Dubbing. Similar to Drawn Together, there are more videos in Latin American Spanish in YouTube than videos in English about the show.
• Play With Me Sesame was a modest success in the United States mainland, but it didn't make as big of a splash as Sesame Street did. But in the overseas military regions of the country, the show still aired on American Forces Network and aired in two hour-long blocks each week.
• Bear in the Big Blue House had a notable following in its home of the US, but in the UK, the following was massively larger. Not only did it consistently top preschool programming polls in the years it was running, it received a kiddie ride release in the country, and home video releases continued long after the show had stopped airing. In the United States, several of the VHS releases from Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment were re-released by said distributor on DVD. However, Disney didn't even bother doing the same.
• Jack's Big Music Show isn't as well-known as other Nick Jr. shows in the United States, but it has a significant French fanbase.
• in Sweden, the Dutch series De Fabeltjeskrant (Fablernas Varld) was just about as popular as it was in it's native Netherlands.

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