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Paul Hogan’s “Crocodile Dundee” movies were popular in the U.S., but how did Australians react to it? Were they proud, embarrassed, did they find it funny, inaccurate, etc.?
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Is Yahoo Serious still popular down there?
I don’t know about the Aussies’ opinions, but Paul Hogan was very big here in the states for awhile. I loved those movies. I am a sucker for an Australian accent…(swoon!)
And Yahoo Serious, as far as I know, was like, um…not much here. Ever. The last time I remember seeing a clip for one of his movies here was when my oldest son was about 9 or 10…and that was about 10 years ago. He might still be big elsewhere, but if so, I haven’t seen or heard about it.
But don’t go by me. I haven’t watched tv in 2 years and rent videos when they are on a special. 
This is a cool OP! I’d love to know how the Ozzies felt about how their country was portrayed…
As for Yahoo, he’s got a new movie in the works. The reason you haven’t heard much about him in the last decade or so is that… well, he hasn’t done much of anything! Last one I remember was Reckless Kelly, based on the famous Australian outlaw. If you like Yahoo Serious, you’ll like the movie. Like Young Einstein, Kelly was written by Yahoo himself.
(Hmm, I wonder if he ever considered asking for royalty payments from Yahoo! Nahhhhhh…)
Paul Hogan was a fairly big name here on TV before he made Crocodile Dundee. That’s where the Tourist Bureau dragged him up from for those truly awful ‘shrimp on the barbie’ ads. He had a following already and had made a name for himself playing the quintessential ‘ocker’ Australian. One thing you can say about Australians is we have an ability to laugh at ourselves and Hogan played on this. His Crocodile Dundee character was just an extension of his standard TV personas. The movie did at least as well down here as in the states and everyone I know enjoyed it.
It wasn’t all laughing at the ‘unpolished’ Australians of course. There were quite a few sly digs at the Yanks in there as well. (He’s goes to a psychiatrist to talk? Doesn’t he have any friends?).
Basically Australia was on a bit of a jingoism kick in the mid-eighties and the movie went down well. Most people were probably proud to have a local movie make it OS. Accuracy wasn’t an issue. It was a comedy and it was assumed everyone would know that neither Australia nor America were actually as represented in the movie. They were both somewhat exagerated stereotypes though fairly accurate representations nonetheless.
There was talk about a 3rd Crocodile Dundee movie but I don’t know what happened to it.
Like Silky said Serious hasn’t been heard from for many years. He seems to keep a very low profile when he’s not promoting something.
Oh and Dan, please, it’s Aussies, not Ozzies.
Sorry, i just couldn’t resist… 
ducking flying objects and running like hell
-Dani
That Simpsons episode was shown here in Australia to a fairly receptive audience. I thought it was brilliant. As a previous poster said, Australians have a large capacity for laughing at ourselves. However, I was disappointed at the time that episode was screened here to find several shocked letters to the editors of the Sydney papers. Kinda proves we have our share of humourless idiots here as well.
Australia these days is a modern, cosmopolitan country producing great science,art, and cuisine. Unfortunately, this was not always the case. We were at one time a very small (well, smaller) unsophisticated nation, unsure of ourselves, and still clinging to Mother England.
The 80’s represented a the close of a rapid period of change between these two cultural periods. We were, at the time, very eager to promote ourselves. Back then, I liked Crocodile Dundee, and even got a few belly laughs out of it. These days, it seems very dated, and is worth a bit of a cringe. Yahoo Serious movies, on the other hand, were just as awful then as now.
Watch Paul Hogan for a laugh, but don’t expect to find much about the real Australia. We are, for example, one of the most highly urbanised countries in the world. The average Aussie is probably more likely to live in a large city than somebody living in the US, where small towns are hold a larger percentage of the people. So, few of us have ever seen a crocodile in the wild, let alone wrestled one.
And no, you won’t see kangaroos hopping across the tarmac as your plane taxis in at Sydney International Airport.
Ooopssss… sorry. 
BTW, that third Dundee movie you’ve heard about is due to be released soon. It’s called Crocodile Dundee in L.A.. I saw a preview for it recently in the theater.
Trivia note - IIRC, the first two Dundee movies were released with quotation marks around “Crocodile” because the distributors didn’t want the American public to think the movie was about a croc!
LoadedDog, you may have some humorless idiots there, but I bet we here in the States have a higher per capita! I bet we’ve cornered the market…
An understandable mistake, since you guys pronounce it “Ozzies.”
And I have often seen the Land Down Under referred to as “Oz,” at least by Kiwis.