A Wonderful Country is portrayed as a take-no-prisoners effort in televised satire -- one that captures 60 per cent of Israel's television-viewing audience on Friday nights.

An excerpt:

 To the thumping beat of "Stayin' Alive," a super-size version of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon appears sporty in a blue jogging suit and sweatband, with no aftereffects from his recent stroke. He raises his arms in Rocky-style triumph and jogs into the studio of Israel's hit spoof news show, "A Wonderful Country."

The character playing his rival, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, appears taken aback by Mr. Sharon's recovery and mutters under his breath, "I'm going to sue the Western Wall," referring to a note to God, apparently not containing good wishes, that he had tucked into the holiest site in Judaism.

Every Friday night about one million Israelis - nearly 60 percent of the viewing audience - tune in to watch their leaders ridiculed and their country mocked. The show takes few prisoners, a reflection of Israel's own lively and aggressive political culture.

"Israelis have a need to rid themselves of stress through laughter," said Muli Segev, 33, the executive producer, trying to explain how the show works as a kind of catharsis for a nation obsessed with politics and the news.

A cartoonish version of the former far-right politician Geula Cohen, wild-haired and hysterical, recently chased her politician son, Tzachi Hanegbi, around the studio with a shoe, berating him for leaving the Likud Party for Mr. Sharon's new Kadima Party. "You had to become a leftist?" she shouted. "You couldn't just be a murderer or a homosexual?"

The show's characters and sketches have tapped into Israel's zeitgeist so well that a religious lawmaker asked the station to rebroadcast it during the week, to allow observant Jews, prohibited from watching Friday night because of the Sabbath, to join the national conversation.