His rise to fame was swift and inexorable; by the early 1990s he was reportedly more recognisable to US children than Mickey Mouse.
Such was the character's popularity that, according to one study, he was more recognisable to US children than Mickey Mouse or Abraham Lincoln.
The techniques he used were recognisable to us – the cut-up method for lyrics, the theatricality of his performances, the use of mime.
They, too, starred big-name actors recognisable to US audiences, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Damian Lewis, and their success on both sides of the Atlantic paved the way for the BBC and other British broadcasters to continue to invest in original drama over the past year.
What is most remarkable about The Days of Abandonment is its lucid portrait of a woman slowly losing touch with any coherent sense of self, while remaining entirely recognisable to us.
The hero, Berenger, is alternately frightened, defiant, desperate, frustrated, impotent, self-loathing, envious and ultimately completely unhinged by the "epidemic" in a way that is immediately recognisable to us.
Its inexorable unspooling – minute by minute, death by death – is recounted in a way that captures the lightning speed and agonising slow motion of disaster, the way in which it is simultaneously filmically recognisable to us and utterly aberrant.
Still, Lewis has an advantage over his predecessor, who was largely unknown outside the UK when he took the role: the British actor's starring role in the first three seasons of Homeland – along with his current blockbusting turn in Showtime's Billions – means he's perfectly recognisable to US audiences, even if he doesn't exactly have movie star cachet.
Unlike many prehistoric rhinos, woolly rhinos would be quite recognisable to us.
'Yeah, it's not great but it's recognisable as us, and Diana can see what we're wearing, why?' 'Before emailing it, you need to study it more closely.'.
