As noted in the comment below, his Australian sketch comedy show ran on PBS after Benny Hill. Granted, I don't know if this was exactly before or after the movie came out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm9QvM9eVnc&lc=UgzFbpWdh8ZJUxCyRq54AaABAg
But I still get the sense that to a selected group of people, it wasn't like he just came out of nowhere when Crocodile Dundee was released.
He was doing Australian tourism commercials for the USA before Crocodile Dundee. That's what got him noticed.
shareI'd never heard of him.
shareHis son Hulk is much more popular
shareSon? Aren't they around the same age?
Or did they just both appear on my radar around the same time.
I think his comedy sketch show was a cult hit in Australia, and was showing on Channel 4 in the UK, prior to the 1986 release of Crocodile Dundee. There was also a series of comedy Fosters (Aussie beer) ads featuring Paul Hogan taking a light-hearted crack at British traditions which screened in the UK around the same time as the film's initial theatrical release, and which I suspect may have contributed to its mega-success in the UK (the film was the biggest theatrical hit in the UK for the entire 1980s, even beating out E.T.)
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