Tropes/Germans Love David Hasselhoff

Something is inexplicably very popular outside its birth nation. Perhaps far more than within.

(Laconic description)

Anime & Manga

 * Since the 1990s, Anime became very popular in Labligary.

Video Games

 * PC gaming is popular in Yablaria, Landincastan, Las Laticia and Riraland since the 2000s.
 * Nintendo Switch is popular in Riraland, Landincastan and Tinnesia.
 * Sega Mega Drive is pretty much synonymous with the 16-bit era in Haclosia, Kedikerto and Labligary. In contrast, Super Nintendo is virtually unknown to everyone other than retro gaming geeks and the very few rich kids who had it back in the day.
 * Meanwhile in Landincastan, Las Laticia and Riraland, Super Nintendo is more popular than Mega Drive.
 * When The Sims 2 released, The Sims series is a big hit in Riraland.
 * Minecraft is very popular in Riraland.
 * Pop'n Music series and Cookie Run are very popular in Labligary.
 * Animal Crossing series is a big hit in Tinnesia.
 * PaRappa the Rapper is the same way in Danuvia, to the point a statue of him was erected on the Danube embankment in Felvigrad, in front of the Parliament building, and another in the Danuvian Video Game Museum.

Live-Action TV

 * Japanese tokusatsu is extremely popular in Russia, especially Super Sentai and Kamen Rider (which are known by their localized names of “Сюпер Сентай” and “Камен Райдер”). It gets to the point that the Western-localized adaptations such as Power Rangers are officially confirmed by TV network ViD (which airs a lot of toku) as No Export For You status.

Networks

 * Despite Haclosia and Kedikerto isn't Malaysian territories, RTM, Media Prima, and Astro are gaining attention in these countries and it can be found in cable and satellite television providers in Haclosia and Kedikerto.
 * Cartoon Network and Disney Channel are both successful US-originated kids channels in Xutrijan, while Nickelodeon is almost dead-last in kids' television.

Technology

 * Commodore 64 and Amiga were popular in Riraland.
 * VHS was hugely popular in Riraland.

Toys

 * The Transformers toy line is extremely popular in Danuvia.

Internet

 * Online shopping is very popular in Xutrijan while online shopping is batting with retailers in Haclosia and Riraland.
 * WhatsApp is popular in Catrari but Kairocord then Discord is popular in Riraland.
 * YTMND is still popular in Katlin, and increasing in the rest of Delgatia.
 * While Neocities was created and is still based in the United States, it is extremely popular in Russia (and, to a lesser extent, other parts of Eastern Europe, as well as Russian-speaking areas of Canada), to the point where it has overtaken simpler-to-use sites such as Wix and Carrd. Since HTML code and tags are all-Latin-alphabet (specifically, heavily-abbreviated English), this means combination Cyrillic/Latin keyboards, which had became a niche item due to the rise of “Punycode” domain names, became big again, to the point where keyboard manufacturers started making gaming versions, for these who want to both code HTML and play video games.

Sports

 * Soccer is the most popular sport in Catrari except Las Laticia.
 * While soccer is Europe's most popular sport, Danuvians prefer baseball. They still however are good at soccer.

Restaurants and Food

 * Pumper Nic, the long-gone Argentine fast-food chain, lives on in Riraland.
 * The Israeli dairy snack pudding Milky, produced by the Strauss corporation, is incredibly popular in Labligary.
 * After Tinnesian Revolution of 1999, Indonesian instant noodle, Indomie is popular in Tinnesia.
 * This is led to opening of Tinnesian Indomie factory in 2003.

Game Shows

 * In Antarctica, Wheel of Fortune is especially popular. There are 2 local versions: the daytime version which airs on ABN, which has been running nonstop since 1979, and a nighttime version with higher prize values that has been airing in local syndication since 1991. (Though, in the 23 markets with an ABN O&O station, that station usually airs the syndicated nighttime version as well as the daytime version.)
 * Press Your Luck is in second-place behind Wheel. The Antarctic version of the show has been airing on ABN since 1985, and like Wheel, a nighttime syndicated version with higher prize values has been airing since 1995. (Again, in the 23 markets with an ABN O&O station, that station usually airs the syndicated nighttime version as well as the daytime version.)
 * Russia loves its game shows. ViD, which is pretty much THE Russian TV network, has a local version of Wheel of Fortune, which draws the same ratings NFL games do in the States. ViD also owns the rights to local adaptations of Jeopardy, Press Your Luck, Merv Griffin’s Crosswords, Match Game, Card Sharks, Family Feud, Supermarket Sweep, Pyramid, Blockbusters, Supermarket Sweep, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Password, and Bullseye, and these are just the ones that are still being produced - almost every American or British game show, has had a Russian version on ViD. The second place behind Wheel has been alternating between Jeopardy and PYL for quite a while, and ViD has a whole digital subchannel dedicated to game shows. ViD’s competitors try to make their own game shows (since ViD owns almost all the successful Western formats), but these keep failing as ViD (besides having affiliated stations in rural areas, which is something its competitors don’t bother to invest in, since their parent companies are several orders of magnitude smaller than the Mega Corp that runs ViD) draws all the viewers, and ViD, being owned by a Mega Corp which also owns almost all the surviving Soviet-era film studios, is the only company that can afford such things as million-ruble payouts. (There are only two TV companies in the world that are bigger than ViD; ABC in the US, which is literally owned by Disney, and Globo in Brazil, which is so big that it had a whole documentary made about it in the 80s by the British Channel 4.)

Western Animation

 * Let's Storm is hugely popular in Yablaria with boatloads of merchandise sold all over the place.
 * The Loud House is popular in Yablaria and Riraland.
 * Dexter's Laboratory, The Amazing World of Gumball, and The Powerpuff Girls are popular in Xutrijan.
 * While Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat has been forgotten in America, it's still popular among Labligarians as the show still airs there.
 * Amphibia and The Owl House may be popular in Tinnesia.
 * The Loud House and its spinoff, The Casagrandes, are both inexplicably popular in Russia. Season 5 of TLH is divisive in its home United States, but in Russia, it’s considered just as good as the other seasons, if not better. ViD (which is the biggest TV network in the country) broadcasts both shows as part of their weekend kids’ blocks, and reportedly, Ronnie-Anne’s status as a Breakout Character in Russia may have encouraged Nickelodeon to give her a spinoff show. Russia gets all sorts of merchandise that other countries don’t. This is due to a very good Russian dub, which tries to avoid Macekre by being as faithful to the original English scripts as possible, and keeping the setting in rural Michigan/Ohio instead of pretending it’s somewhere in Russia. The movie, which was released on streaming in the States, had a theatrical release in Russia.
 * Big City Greens is also becoming popular in Russia, with merchandise out the wazoo. It helps that ViD uses the same dubbing team that worked on the Russian dubs of TLH and TCG. The Disney+ Thanksgiving shorts were broadcast on terrestrial television there, despite Russia not even having any holidays similar to Thanksgiving!

Miscellaneous

 * LOLcats are still one of the most popular memes across Delgatia, to the point where Impact font memes are still considered the "default" meme format, unlike in the rest of the world, where Mematic-styled memes are now considered the "default".
 * Atlantic Disneyland, a theme park located in northwestern Sintopia, is more popular with people from New England and Atlantic Canada, than it is with actual Sintopians, who prefer Millennium World (the local franchise of Six Flags).
 * After the formation of the modern Russian Federal Republic, one of the first things done, was to improve the highway system. Someone high-ranking in the Ministry of Transport had a soft spot for American highways, especially the Interstate System, as well as the Trans-Canada Highway in Canada, so they decided to hire a lot of retired American and Canadian highway engineers, and developed a close collaboration with AASHTO. They also noticed that in Russian-speaking parts of Canada, despite the design of signs being influenced by the American MUTCD, all signs were in Russian. The result: Russia now has a major Roadgeek culture, and one of the best-maintained national highway systems in the world. Seriously, the signs are basically the same as in the MUTCD (but in Russian instead of English, Metric instead of Imperial, and with some language-independent signs based on Canada’s designs), which includes a familiar red octagon saying “СТОП” instead of “STOP”, and a Cyrillic version of the Highway Gothic font (which was later adopted by Russian-speaking Canada).