After being under the impression that just about anything from pop media culture that is global in scale and top-tier in recognition and popularity would come straight from the United States or North America, I also notice that other notable countries like Japan, Britain, and Western Europe have their own pop culture icons and commercialized creations of entertainment that are revered across the planet like the Belgian comic TinTin, the Japanese anime/manga Doraemon, Belgian comic Asterix and Obelix, the British comic Rupert the Bear, etc. yet for some reason they have never been too popular in my country or continent.
What are things in visual media or the entertainment industry or hell anything at all within the past 100+ years or so, that are or have been popular and widely known throughout the whole world, except for the United States or Canada?
And if possible, what do you think are reasons that they have never been so big in the United States, despite being prominent in the Eastern Hemisphere?