We can include "Big Brother" on the list, along with the artificial kidney and splitting the bill on dates, of things for which we must thank the Dutch.

The series, in which a group of strangers are packed together in a camera-laden house for the voyeuristic pleasure of viewers, debuted on the Netherlands' Veronica network in 1999.

It was a near-instant hit and by the next year had spread to several other jurisdictions, including the U.S. In so doing, it also pioneered the reality-show-export model that would serve its producer very well.

Dutch production company Endemol is also behind other oft-exported hits such as "Fear Factor" and "Deal or No Deal," both of which also debuted in the Netherlands, though under different names.

Though it is still running strong on CBS in the U.S., "Big Brother" left the air in the Netherlands in 2006 (though it returned for a special, one-off season in 2011 before leaving again).

In fact, the American version is one of the last holdouts for the once-mighty format -- most other versions have since left the air.

The "Big Brother" concept was dreamed up by billionaire Endemol founder John de Mol. He told "Forbes" magazine that he was inspired by the Biosphere 2 experiment in 1991, which locked four men and four women into a greenhouse dome for two years. "I was hypnotized," he said.

Forbes points out, however, that MTV already had a similar series called "The Real World" on at the time.

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