MOSCOW — Turn on the sitcom that is the hottest television show in Russia, and it all seems so familiar. Moored to his living room couch is a shoe salesman who is more interested in watching sports than conjugal relations. His wife has shocking hair and an even more shocking mouth. A couple of ne'er-do-well teenagers round out this bawdy, bickering bunch.

In fact, the show is an authorized copy of the U.S. sitcom "Married . . . With Children," which ran in the 1980s and '90s, with a Russian cast and dialogue but scripts that hew closely to those of the original. This knockoff is such a sensation, especially among the young viewers coveted by advertisers, that its actors have become household names, and billboards are plastered around Moscow.

A drumbeat of anti-Americanism may be coming from the Kremlin these days, but across Russia people for the first time are embracing that quintessentially American genre, the television sitcom, not to mention one of its brassiest examples. And curiously enough, it is the Russian government itself that has effectively brought "Married . . . With Children" to this land.

The show's success says something not only about changing tastes here but also about Russia's improved standing as a whole. Sitcoms are typically grounded in middle-class life and poke fun at it. The popularity of the Russian version of "'Married . . . With Children" and other adaptations of American sitcoms suggests that Russia has attained enough stability and wealth in recent years that these kinds of jokes resonate.