The name Freddie Frinton popped up in a conversation between myself and my German boss. I said something like
"I'm sure you won't have heard of him but there was an English actor called Freddie Frinton who was famous for playing archetypal drunks".
To which my boss replied
"Freddie Frinton is one of the most famous English actors in Germany - everyone in Germany knows Freddie Frinton".
To which I replied
"EH!!!"
It turns out that Frinton playing the manservant in the sketch "Dinner for One" is shown every New Years Eve on German TV; it has become a veritable, unmissable institution.
https://www.comedy.co.uk/features/comedy_chronicles/freddie-frinton-dinner-for-one/
@Paulos_the_fog yes bizzare isn't it? I can't remember where I learned this, maybe QI. Likewise Norman Wisdom in Albania.
@postman @Paulos_the_fog I'm sure I saw a Paul Merton documentary about the history of comedy where he talked about this.
...or the fact that the Benny Hill Show was far more popular in France than it ever was in Britain! On French TV, it was unmissable!
@Paulos_the_fog I've watched Dinner For One. I found it online. Very funny.
Oddly, Freddie Frinton was never a drunk in real life; he was in fact a teetotaller!