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Dodgy Aussies on kids tv
The kids were crook again last night (they’re bloody always crook, ever since they started day care) so I let them watch TV while they ate their dinner (one ate, the other shuffled it around his plate). Anyway on came some show called Louie, about a cartoon rabbit who draws stuff that comes to life.
In this one he drew a marmot to be the referee in a soccer game he was having with his mate. This marmot came to life and said:
“G’day my name’s Matilda. Football hey? Can I play? Marmot’s are really good at football”
Or words to that effect. Point is it was in one of those really over the top Mick Dundee Australian accents. Marmots aren’t from Australia are they? They’re some sort of rodent I thought, we don’t have rodents. Well we have a marsupial mouse but surely that’s a marsupial not a rodent. I don’t know I’m no good at taxonomy.
Anyway, back on topic. They had to draw another marmot. This time it was “G’day I’m Martin” in an equally broad accent. (Luckily he liked to whistle, so he was happy to be ref).
Why are there so many dodgy Australian-accented characters in British kids TV? Captain Mack has one from memory, and the actress plays other characters in the show with a much more natural sounding British accent.
The worst by far is the helicopter pilot in Fireman Sam. The worst line I ever saw attributed to an Australian character on foreign TV was in a political drama my parents watched in the 1980s. Might have been House of Cards, might not have been, but an Australian media proprietor is at some function where he says “Jesus where’s the beer? I’m drier than a dead dingo’s donger.” FFS.
But the helicopter pilot on Fireman Sam comes a close second, in the episode where the two good kids (I forget their names, I only remember Norman Price which just goes to show it’s the bad boys that stick with us) get stuck in a thunderstorm with the Italian café proprietor’s cat. Helicopter pilot’s comment on the weather:
“It’s blacker than a boggy billabong”
I mean, crikey, it’s all a bit much. Fair dinkum.