Doesn’t sound like the Australian accent I’m familiar with, but Australia’s a big country…
Sounds like (heh!) he suffers from being *too *genuine, just like my uncle might be pegged as a fake if he was doing voice-overs for some sort of “Deep South” product. Very much real, having talked like that all his life, but to the unaware, he sounds like a caricature.
He may be either subconsciously or encouraged to exaggerate the accent for American/foreign audiences to enhance and accentuate the Australian-ness of the theme.
I’ve always thought it was fake, so annoyingly fake that it’s one of three ads that I always mute. (The others are Montel Williams and QuiBids.)
It does sound exaggerated.
True, I’ve heard stories of Hollywood casting directors turning down Australian actors for Australian parts because their accents they weren’t " believable". Same deal with Britons playing Britons and Southerners playing Southerners.
Just watched the ad, expecting to hear another painful travesty of an attempt at an Australian accent, but no, that’s completely legit. That’s what people here actually sound like. I mean, it’s a stronger accent than mine, but I’m a big poof.
I don’t think it’s even that exaggerated - if it is, it’s seems more like it’s just over enthusiastically enunciating everything in that huge TV ad way, than faking any part of the accent. It certainly sounds just like the kind of big, over-the-top voice-over you’d hear on a TV ad here that was trying to sell you on how wonderful and exciting something was.
It’s way more legit than the actual menu at an Outback Steakhouse. I’d never heard of a Bloomin’ Onion till I went there.
No, the fake Australian accent in an Outback commercial would be any of the ones done by Jemaine Clement from Flight of the Conchords
What about the Fosters Lager ads?
I concur - genuine accent, exaggerated delivery, like you’d often hear in a radio advert.
Sounds dinkum to me, bit more like my dad than me but I am a city boy and he was a country bloke…
I’d always assumed it was fake since I’ve never before heard an Australian whose accent irritated me. The way he says “jeesy stayk” makes me want to punch a koala (not really, but it makes me want to beat him over his head with a didgeridoo).
That’s about my thought on it too. It’s funny the longer the ad went the more I was starting to think It’s a damn good attempt, just a tiniest bit off. But I suppose it’s just the over the top ad effect.
Feel free to punch a koala, stinking little animals they are but leave the didge alone man! :mad:
Slightly over enthusiastic advertising tone … but the accent isn’t fake to my Australian ears.
Given that the food at Outback Steakhouses isn’t really like Australian food, it’s surprising that they even bothered to make the accents correct on the commercials.
Well here’s a question, what would you classify as Australian food?
Sucking coffee through a timtam?
My Perth-born buddy grills a mean steak, and his favorite meal tends to be grilled steak, baked potato, a salad and an american style ice tea. He has confessed to grilling prawns as well but he really doesn’t like them. Fosters is roo piss.
I’m Australian and I don’t even know what Australian food is.
Anyway, the accent is genuine, but slightly exaggerated. As others have said, you’d hear the same accent on something like a theme park ad.
Australian cuisine:
Outback Steakhouse menu:
http://www.outback.com/menu/menudescriptions.aspx
Occasionally they overlap, but there’s no item on the Outback menu that doesn’t appear in other American steakhouses. There was no consultation with Australians on the food they served. The creators of Outback just decided to have a typical American steakhouse with Australian names for many things. They weren’t even consistent about using Australian names. For instance, they use the American term “shrimp” instead of the Australian term “prawn.” An example of how non-Australian the food is is that the blooming onion is an American dish that’s unknown in Australia: