Favourite funny foreigner from a fully fictional fatherland

Cafe Society
1
  • Latka Gravas from Taxi
  • Balki Bartokomous from Perfect Strangers
  • Miss Swan from Mad TV
  • Fez from That '70s Show
  • Some other character whom I will champion in the comments

0 voters

There’s a trope in sketch and sitcom comedy of the “funny foreigner”. You know the one:

  • hails from a faraway land that no one has ever heard of, or whose name is never disclosed
  • speaks in a heavy but unplaceable accent
  • prone to uttering hilarious malapropisms
  • known for a famous catchphrase
  • has huge gaps in their understanding of local norms and customs

Which such character gave you the most laughs? (To keep things simple, let’s make the first bullet point a hard requirement. Balki and Miss Swan are in because their homelands of Mypos and Kuvaria, respectively, are entirely fictional; Latka and Fez are in because we never find out where they’re from. Characters like Borat and the Swedish Chef are out because Kazakhstan and Sweden are real places, even if the writers take some liberties with how they’re depicted.)

2

My vote goes to Stan and Yosh Schmenge of Leutonia (not Lutonia, which is a real place,) played on SCTV by John Candy and Eugene Levy! “Christmas in Leutonia” is required yuletide viewing in the House of Nine.

3

Yortuk and Georg Festrunk from Saturday Night Live, back when it was funny.

What? you say. They’re from Czechoslovakia? Show me that country on a (current) map.

4

Martin Short playing the wedding caterer in Father of the Bride. “And now for wadding kek.” Country never identified.

Bronson Pinchot as Serge in Beverly Hills Cop.

5

Borat from Kazakhstan

6

Well it is actually Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan and the OP has ruled him out.
Which I dispute, because Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is, of course, entirely fictional.
Still I would suggest not a single foreigner, but the whole country: Molwanien, in english probably Molwania. I fear the book was never translated, which is a pity for you all, because it his hilarious. Everything is true! Made up, yes, but still deeply true.

7

My vote actually goes to Carol Kane as Simka Grava from Taxi. She took the basic Gravas concept and not only imitated it, but built on it. I read somewhere that Andy Kaufman “auditioned” Kane by taking her out to dinner and making the two converse the entire evening in the language of the old country.

8

Does the far-away land have to be on Earth? Not, for instance, Ork or Melmac? (Of couse, they probably fail on the “accent” criterion.)

9

Jerzy Baloski? (or one of his relatives) A bit dubious as its strongly implied he’s Russian (not to mention being revealed as not being foreign at all in one episode).

10

I voted Balki.

But just for the sake of completeness, would the Elbonians from Dilbert count? Or does it have to be a single identifiable character?

11

TONY: You know anything about bisexuals?

LATKA: Of course. They are very popular in my country.

TONY: They are?

LATKA: Oh yes. Almost everybody have them. And one of our favorite sports is racing them. And when we are not using them we have special racks where we chain them up at night.

TONY: Latka! I’m not talking about bicycles! I’m talking about bisexuals!

LATKA: So am I.

12

He wouldn’t be my pick, but just to add another one to the list there’s Viktor Navorski, Tom Hanks’ character in The Terminal, from the fictional country of Krakozhia.

13

You’re wrong – the book was originally in English (Molvanîa: A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry), and I’m now kicking myself for not including Molvanîa’s most famous celebrity, Zladko Vladcik, in the poll:

14

Huh, I always assumed Balki was Greek and Mypos was just the name of a fictional Greek island, not a nation of its own.

15

I was wrong and you kick yourself? OK, fair enough :slight_smile: I would never have thought that such a book was translated, cool, cheers for the author, the publishers and the translator!

16

I wanted to vote for Manuel from Fawlty Towers but he is known to be from Spain. So after that I have to go with Latka.

17

My vote would go to Rufus T. Firefly, if bullet one is the only hard requirement.

18

Oh, damn! That’s a very strong pick. I would switch my vote, but I do wonder… Rufus isn’t noticeably “foreign,” he’s still Groucho doing his usual Jewish-American Groucho schtick. Duck Soup is political satire, but I think it’s pretty pointedly American political satire - the foriegn-ness is a lampshade, not the source of the humor.

19

Not a television example, but the first one who came to my mind was Twoflower from the Discworld novels.

20

I’d have to vote for Hercule Poirot.

I’ve never met an actual Belgian, so I’m unconvinced that country actually exists, especially after having been invaded by marching men so many times.