The depiction of Jesus in things like Jesus Christ Superstar, South Park, and numerous sketch comedy series is interesting to me from a historical angle. Namely because I've never heard of similar depictions occurring in majority Muslim countries for Muhammad (despite there being a recent Iranian movie I'm unsure how well it actually depicted Muhammad's life), similarly with Hindu or Buddhist nations in the depiction of their main prophets/deities. Is this purely an American/European phenomena?
I think this is a flawed premise. I can write more about depictions of Buddha and Buddhism in modern media later, but he (as well as Buddhist dieties) Is depicted in popular fiction pretty close to as often as Jesus. Hindu deities are depicted similarly often in India, though more often through Avatars. Just look at the amount of adaptations of the Ramayana! The exception is Islam due to a strong taboo against depictions of God or the prophets, but even then they are not exempt from literature and folklore completely.