Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers
end hijack
Aaaaaaah. I is informed. Merci.
You don’t happen to own shirt that says “Genius at work,” do you?
And the Republicans have Bob Dole read from the Necronomican.
I’d actually join the party if that were true 
(speaking as someone who votes mostly, but not exclusivly republican, but belongs to no political party).
You mean you’ve never seen “The Big Book of British Smiles” ?!
Not quite, but your flip remark does raise certain unpleasant Grade 6 memories which I won’t go into now.
Anyhoo, this isn’t just a matter of petty nitpicking. The contradiction is between two seperate slams at Australia:
[ul][li]Tobias goes to the neighbors and has to ride over the horizon: i.e. Ozzies are rural and isolated.[/li][li]Tobias’s father, Bruno, wants to complain to his MP and just yells “Gus!” out the window, i.e. there is no formality or sophistication to Australian government. Even worse (and a lot funnier) is when “Gus” decides to “take this all the way to the Prime Minister” and walks down to a lake to yell at “Andy”, who is floating naked in an inner tube.[/ul][/li]
I can see why Ozzies might be upset at this, but I’m cracking up just remembering them.
Now, the episode where the Simpsons went to Toronto wasn’t funny at all.
This doesn’t upset me. It’s unfortunately true. The member of parliament for the seat that the tiny country town I grew up in is located is a farmer. And he’s our Deputy Prime Minister. It’s so embarrasing. I mean, a farmer!
And, well, I couldn’t see Johnny Howard floating in an inner tube in the middle of a lake, but one of our former Prime Minister’s response to being kicked out of office was to go home and eat a big steak. That’s almost Simpsonian.
Well I think the few Irish ref.'s were funny.
The Drunken poets float in the Paddy’s Day parade
The little leprechaun in one of the Treehouse of Horrors episodes
The bigger leprechaunish character who answered gramdpa’s “We kicked the Irish out in ought 8” with “A fine job ya did too” while smoking a clay pipe.
Fuck it, it’s the Simpsons.
I’m beginning to wonder whether Aussies toilets are unique. I’ve seen (well, used) systems in Singapore and Malaysia (excluding the squat-style toilets) that resemble this description you’ve given, hawthorne.
Veering back to the OP, I thought this episode of the Simpsons was incredibly offensive when I first saw it. 'Course, I’m was a overly-sensitive teenager at the time. (I’ve since gotten over myself :)) I still don’t think it’s a terribly funny episode, but it’s pretty harmless.
BTW, have any Australians seen this episode on TV in recent years? I remember the few times it did screen it caused something of a overly-sensitive-teenager-style mini outrage. I have an inkling that as a result Channel Ten doesn’t show it anymore.
I remember a certain article appearing in a TV magazine after the episode screened the first time. The reviewer was, shall we say, pissed off by the episode in question:
Bart: “Hey, I think I hear a dingo eating your baby!”*
Reviewer: “Hey, I think I hear a gunman shooting your president!”
Ireland and the UK have these types of toilets and the majority that I’ve seen in Mainland Europe.
Steering this away from dicussions of toilet flow…
Narrad, I think Channel ten has shown it quite a few times because I remember it pretty well.
I agree with rynn. I could have written more funnier stuff about Australia that was more subtle. But I like the stamps with the “30 years of electricity” on them. Because Australia Post actually had a series like that years ago with “30 years of the Cochlear implant” and stuff.
I’ve always taekn the episode to be a knock on blatant steroetypes. Tere is one part of the episode where they are in front of the Parliament building and it clearly says Austria and someone forced into it an extra ‘al’. For me that seems an indication that it was a big 'ol joke on us and not on Australia. At first I wasn’t enamored with the episode, but it has grown on me. And I personally think the scene where Homer sings God Bless America and sheds a tear at the toilet flushing the American away is the greatest scene in Simpson’s history.
No, that’s the “Now I’m in America! Now I’m in Australia!” POW “Here in America we don’t take that kind of crap SIR!” scene.
Many years later, I am here to answer your question lol. And to confirm, yes I am an Aussie.
The boot is in reference to a saying we have and use when talking about punishment “Kick in the Ass” used “Give him a Kick in the Ass!”. We say it alot, but we don’t carry it out - well most people don’t lol.
And of course there was one, less than a year after this was posted.
I remember the UK episode as very lame. It aired after the Simpson’s script rot had already started. The Aussie one, though, was very funny.
It was partially a play on KotH Returning Japanese.
That saying exists in the US, as well. I don’t necessarily connect it with stereotypical Australia, but perhaps it’s even more commonplace there.
I really hated the Frank Grimes (or Grimey, as he liked to be known) episode, until I realized…it was making fun of me. That is, people that cared too much about continuity and canon.