I still remember watching an interview with him only after watching the entire series and how mind blowing it was to be that he was English.

Wasn’t he well known in the US before House? I mean… Blackadder?

Nah, blackadder didn’t really reach household name status here. About the only british shows that’re at that level are dr who and Monty Python. Fawlty towers, abfab, red dwarf, blackadder and others tend to be more niche. Hell, we had versions of shameless, the office, and queer as folk, and people don’t really realize they are copies (with varying degrees of similarity to the originals).

I can’t recall if blackadder was even on BBC America or not, but I don’t recall seeing it on there back when we had cable.