Yo soy Betty, la fea is a popular soap opera

Telenovela

A telenovela is a limited-run serial dramatic programming popular in Latin American, Portuguese, and Spanish television programming. The word combines tele, short for televisión or televisão , and novela, a Spanish or Portuguese word for "novel"...

 filmed in Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

, written by Fernando Gaitán

Fernando Gaitán

Fernando Gaitán Salom is a Colombian TV series and telenovelas screenwriter as well as a producer.-Career highlights:Fernando Gaitán is known for weaving different histories into diverse social contexts...

 and produced between 1999 through 2001 by the Colombian network RCN (Radio Cadena Nacional)

RCN TV

RCN Televisión , is a Colombian private television network. It started as a production company in 1967...

. More than a dozen versions of the telenovela have been made in other countries. In the United States, both the comedy-drama

Comedy-drama

Comedy-drama is a genre of theatre, film and television programs which combines humorous and serious content.-Theatre:Traditional western theatre, beginning with the ancient Greeks, was divided into comedy and tragedy...

 hit Ugly Betty

Ugly Betty

Ugly Betty is an American comedy-drama television series developed by Silvio Horta, which premiered on ABC on September 28, 2006, and ended on April 14, 2010. The series revolves around the character Betty Suarez and is based on Fernando Gaitán's Colombian telenovela soap opera Yo soy Betty, la fea...

and Televisa

Televisa

Televisa is a Mexican multimedia conglomerate, the largest mass media company in Latin America and in the Spanish-speaking world. It is a major international entertainment business, with much of its programming airing in the United States on Univision, with which it has an exclusive contract...

 program La Fea Más Bella

La fea más bella

La Fea Más Bella is a Mexican telenovela produced by Televisa. It is the second Mexican version of the popular Colombian telenovela: Betty la fea...

are based on the Colombian soap opera.

Betty, la Fea re-aired on TeleFutura

TeleFutura

TeleFutura is a U.S. Spanish-language broadcast television network owned by Univision with headquarters in Miami, Florida.-Overview:TeleFutura Is America’s #2 Spanish-Language Network in prime time...

 in January 2009.