Happy Together (2006 TV series)

Happy Together (Russian: Счастливы вместе – Sсhastlivy Vmeste) is a Russian TV series that has been broadcast in TNT since March 2006. It is a remake of an American TV series Married... with Children.

Information

The character names are: Gena Bukin (Russian: Геннадий Петрович Букин) (based on Al, played by Viktor Loginov), Dasha Bukina (Russian: Евдокия «Даша» Евкакиевна Букина) (based on Peggy, played by Natalya Bochkareva), Sveta Bukina (Russian: Светлана Геннадьевна Букина) (based on Kelly, played by Darya Sagalova), Roman Bukin (Russian: Роман Геннадьевич Букин) (based on Bud, played by Aleksandr Yakin), Elena (Russian: Елена Владимировна Полено) and Anatoliy Poleno (Russian: Анатолий Иванович Полено) (based on Marcy and Jefferson D'Arcy, played by Yulia Zaharova and Pavel Savinkov), Evgeniy Stepanov (Russian: Евгений Варфоломеевич Степанов) (based on Steve Rhoades, played by Aleksey Sekirin), Sema Bukin (Russian: Сёма Букин) (based on Seven, played by Ilya Butkovskiy), Baron Bukin (Russian: Барон Букин) (based on Buck and Lucky, played by Bayra).

Instead of living in a house, the Bukins live in a box on the top floor of a small building, and the Stepanovs/Polenos live in the box in front of theirs. Prior to the series' beginning, the Bukins could buy off a part of the building's attic for extra rooms, so apart from the lack of a cellar, the lack of a backdoor, a garage in a separate building instead of being adjacent to the house, and a balcony used instead of the yard, the layout of Bukins' flat looks like the Bundys' house. The apartment is in a mess from some fixes in the house which were never finished, and in the show's early episodes an unfortunately placed construction site outside allowed people (and Baron, the family dog) to go in and out the Bukins' apartment by the balcony.

As a major change, instead of disappearing like Seven after a few episodes, Sema stays with the Bukins until the end of the series, and the often bizarre explanations for his absence from events the whole family should attend became a running gag. Also, the family dog Baron doesn't die and reincarnate, he remains the same until the end of the series. The episode Requiem For The Dead Briard was however adapted, with Baron being sold to a rich person by Sema instead of dying.

In April 2008, the producers announced all episodes of Married... With Children have been adapted as Schastlivy Vmeste (including all the episodes from the seldom seen 11th season) and an online contest was started where fans could submit new ideas for episodes. Starting from the 31 December 2009, the show resumed its run with an initial order of 60 new episodes, the order might be doubled based on the viewers' response. According to the episodes' opening credits, some of the new episodes are co-written by original Married... With Children writers, mostly Richard Gurman and Katherine Green.

External links

• Official home page (Russian)