He was one of several North Americans who broke into the business in that triumphalist era, when Japan’s economic challenge to the United States created a demand among producers for Caucasians who fit a growing public perception of white people as no longer as dominating and powerful as they once had been.

Instead, the gaijin tarento were chosen for their ability to appear friendly, even clownish — and to add to the overall style of rollicking, slapstick humor found on Japanese television.

TIMES have changed, and a diminished but also more mature Japan seems less obsessed with its standing versus the Western world. Foreign talents these days are just as likely to hail from Iran or Ghana, though they are still called on to provide the occasional laugh at their own expense by tripping up in Japan’s demanding language or culture. While all this can make Mr. Spector appear like a relic from a bygone era, he has also achieved a status that no other foreign talent can match.

“I’ve earned my stripes just by outliving everybody,” Mr. Spector said in an interview in his office with its own small TV studio in central Tokyo. “I have gone beyond the gaijin category. I’m part of the furniture now in Japanese pop culture. I am still a door to the West, but one that is familiar enough to be in their own living room.”

That role of social translator between two cultures is evident in Mr. Spector’s office, where he and his Japanese wife, Kyoko, run a talent agency for Japanese and foreigners. An entire wall is filled with photographs of him hobnobbing with international celebrities — among others, Lady Gaga, Johnny Depp and Caroline Kennedy, the American ambassador to Japan, whose actions have become a regular part of his commentary.