Funny Foreigner



""Hey everybody, I am from Holland! Isn't that vierd?"

- Goldmember, Austin Powers in Goldmember

Foreigners are funny! Or so say a good number of comedy shows. The jokes practically write themselves; foreigners mangle the language (especially idioms) in funny ways, they are ignorant of customs in the show's home country, and they have their own bizarre little customs that make no sense. They will either be unsure of themselves, or (more frequently) totally oblivious to how odd everybody finds them. This is incredibly old, probably dating back to when cavemen joked about people in the cave down the road.

The Funny Foreigner is a Cyclic Trope. In the 19th and early 20th Centuries, it seems like at least half of all the English-language comedy in existence consisted of this trope (vaudeville, British music-hall performers...) Gradually, it become a Discredited Trope due to changing sensibilities. Then it became so rare that it seemed daring and forbidden, and thus became popular again. This can lead to the trope being discredited for some generations and not for others.

Old Funny Foreigner jokes tended to be stereotypes about a particular country. Modern ones do it with a wink by making up a country, choosing a real country almost at random and ignoring any actual facts about it, or simply leaving it entirely ambiguous where they're meant to be from. Part of the joke is that it doesn't really matter where in the Middle East or Latin America or Eastern Europe the character comes from—they're just "generic Latin" or "generic Slav." They can even go so far as to have the character not actually be foreign at all, or playing up their ethnicity because they can get away with it.

In Speculative Fiction, they might be visitors from a completely different world, which has the advantage of avoiding Unfortunate Implications and offense to real-world foreigners (most of the time). If the character is an otherworldly being (relative to the rest of the cast), then the trope is Amusing Alien.

If done poorly, a Funny Foreigner can turn into an Ethnic Scrappy.

Compare and contrast with But Not Too Foreign, Fun with Foreign Languages, No Social Skills, Raised by Natives and Evil Foreigner. Also see Crazy Cultural Comparison, which is when the Funny Foreigner's behavior is held against that of his host.

Anime and Manga
""I so sori, I no understand much language of this countwi! Bye bye now!""
 * A variation from Patlabor had a mechanic daydream about a trip to America. In this case, he was An Innocent Abroad, with the American setting made entirely of Japanese stereotypes of America. Do not watch while drinking - you'll spit-take all over your TV set. Oddly, one of the main characters is Hawaiian.
 * The Principal in Ranma ½ is introduced as a wacky American from Hawaii. At the end of the episode, it turns out he's a Japanese guy (not to mention Kuno's father) who had moved to the States and gone native.
 * Kate from Sketchbook is the only foreigner (a Canadian) among the Japanese cast. A lot of jokes involving her are about her misunderstandings of the Japanese language.
 * Maria in Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei is sometimes a parody of this trope and sometimes played straight. Much humor is made out of her misunderstandings of Japanese, and her illegal immigrant status. Kaede just acts like one half the time.
 * William's Indian friend Hakim from Victorian Romance Emma is very odd indeed, bringing a huge entourage and a train of elephants for an "incognito" visit. To a lesser extent, Emma's new German employers.
 * Ling Yao from Fullmetal Alchemist is this when he's first introduced as a happy-go-lucky weirdo who frequently collapses out of hunger, always tries to weasel his way out of paying, and can pop in and out of the picture without warning. While to a certain extent you could say this is a natural part of his personality, It doesn't last.


 * Pretty much everyone in Axis Powers Hetalia is a Funny Foreigner, which makes it both a prime example and a subversion at the same time. In the American dub, the Asian characters (and Russia) are particularly portrayed as being funny foreigners.

Comic Books

 * Freddy Merckx from Zombies that Ate the World when he uses weird sentence structures and starts comparing everything to Belgium. The Princes might qualify too.
 * Played with a little in Fin Fang Four, where Gorgilla is an immigrant who loves living in America and speaks in broken English. But his home country is on another planet and he's a giant ape. Fin Fang Foom himself is also an immigrant, from China, but he is decidedly not funny (and easily much smarter than any normal human).
 * A later story features Googam posing as an orphan so he can be adopted by a celebrity. When he does, his nanny is a goofy Bavarian stereotype (except from Latveria, naturally) of this sort.
 * Chin-Kee from American Born Chinese.
 * Who may have been inspired by Chinky from Promethea's Show Within a Show "Little Margie" strips. A buck-toothed, yellow-skinned and positively simian racist caricature, Chinky constantly makes a fool of himself and speaks complete gibberish. In the unpublished last Little Margie strip, Chinky - a native of the dream world Margie travels to - reveals that he has always been the handsome young prince Ching Ki, and speaks perfect English. But it was Margie's dream, and she wanted a funny foreigner, and Ching Ki is nothing if not accommodating.
 * The Englishman Mister "Pief" (Peeve?) from a story by Wilhelm Busch who walks around while always looking through a telescope.

Film
"Newton: Where are you from, anyway? Ben: Bakersfield, originally. Newton: No, I mean your ancestors. Ben: Oh, them. Pittsburgh."
 * Bob and Doug McKenzie, who in Strange Brew go out of their way to demonstrate just how foreign Canadians are...
 * And then there's the movie Men With Brooms...
 * Lampshade Hanging in Short Circuit: Ben, the wacky, vaguely Indian sidekick, spends the whole movie saying things like, "With excitement like this, who is needing enemas?" When another character asks him about it:


 * The character of Janosz in Ghostbusters 2 is the basis of a similar joke; he's from "De Upper Vest Side."
 * The entire Largo family from Repo! The Genetic Opera is Italian, though only Pavi has any kind of accent. He and his brother Luigi make up the main comic relief of the movie. Of course, with a movie like Repo, the comic relief duo is made up of a rapist and a murderer...
 * Hilariously Subverted Trope and lampshaded in Not Another Teen Movie -- Areola is a foreigner from "Europe" (her accent changes every line, and she dodges the question of what country she's from in a deleted scene) who openly admits that she's only in America / only exists to give nerds "pussy". Oh, and she spends the entire movie naked. Stark naked.
 * Austin Powers, from the motion picture franchise of the same name, is a Funny Foreigner, not only by virtue of his country of origin but also by his displacement in time.
 * So is his nemesis Fat Bastard.
 * So is his other nemesis Goldmember.
 * Rowan Atkinson's character from Rat Race is a perfect example of this trope.
 * Chico Marx is a holdover of the classic "dialect comedian" from vaudeville.
 * Harpo's character used to be an Irishman, before he became a comic mute.
 * Peter Sellers made an art of playing the Funny Foreigner - he inverts the trope somewhat in The Party as an Indian actor being the one centered, sympathetic guy stuck in a Hollywood crowd.
 * Tommy Wiseau both in his film, and in real life, unintentionally.
 * The Russian cosmonaut in Armageddon is this, serving as the film's Comic Relief.
 * Sixteen Candles. Long Duk Dong.
 * The Gumball Rally has several: Lapchick the Mad Hungarian, Franco Bertolli, the British Benz team.
 * Frank Eggelhoffer in Father of the Bride. His assistant Howard Weinstein also qualifies.

Literature

 * Otto Chriek, a vampire from the Discworld novels is an example, playing upon stereotypes of both Eastern Europeans and vampirism. He is similar to Poirot in that his Funny Foreigner persona is to some extent Obfuscating Stupidity used to stop humans from hating and fearing him. This is demonstrated in the novel Thud!!, where he is able to take pictures at an anti-vampire protest without being molested by the angry mob.
 * Twoflower, however, is classic funny foreigner on vacation.
 * 71-Hour Ahmed in Jingo makes this trope work for him, in similar ways to Otto Chriek. He plays up Klatchian stereotypes when in Ankh-Morpork, but since he went to school in Ankh-Morpork, he acts Morporkian in Klatch. He tells Vimes "I find it helpful to be a little bit foreign wherever I go."
 * Kung Fu Tzu in Michael Moorcock's novel The Chinese Agent is an exaggerated Fu Manchu knockoff. Much Hilarity Ensues.
 * Mister Bobo, the old man in the upstairs flat in Neil Gaiman's Coraline, described as being "Romanian or Slovenian or Livonian, or one of those countries" by Miss Spink. The film version gives him the slightly more believable name Bobinsky and makes him an even more obvious example of this trope.
 * It's Bobinsky in the book, too, you just don't learn it until the last couple pages.
 * In The Way of Kings there are quite a few instances of Funny Foreigners. Most notable are Rock's people, (referred to as Horneaters by most), who calls everyone "airsick lowlanders".
 * In Wicked, Fiyero would be the Funny Foreigner, since no one's ever seen a Winkie (someone from the Vinkus) before. However the humor really only shows up in his first appearance and is at his expense (he's attacked by a pair of antlers that have come alive, and winds up shrieking in his native tongue). He's even wearing clothing that the main characters consider weird and assume is some sort of traditional outfit. It's memorable though, as it's one of the only (if not the only) humorous scenes in the book. He also offers to sing them some kind of traditional song (but he doesn't). The rest of his customs and behaviour are perfectly normal, though he does seem shy, was betrothed at a young age, and his section of the book uses a lot of hunting metaphors.
 * Avaric embarrasses Boq by kissing him on both cheeks, a custom from his homeland.
 * Animorphs has Ax, the Andalite (alien) ignorant of human cultures and customs, often reacting hilariously to new scenarios he encounters.

Live-Action TV

 * Desi Arnaz's character Ricky Ricardo from I Love Lucy may have been the original Funny Foreigner.
 * Borat from Da Ali G Show, pretty much the very embodiment of this trope, is supposedly from Kazakhstan. While that is a real country (in Central Asia, to be exact), it's probably not that ridiculously backwater.
 * Bruno, hailing from Austria, also qualifies.
 * Mohfaz the Depressed Persian Tow Truck Man from Mad TV is your basic Deadpan Snarker plus poor English ("they are...how do you say...hala....A-holes. Always A-holes.")
 * Latka from Taxi is a refugee from a generic Eastern Communist country, with all kinds of jokes based on obscure customs, etc. This makes sense, as Latka was basically Andy Kaufman's "Foreign Man" character given a name, job, and backstory.
 * Balki from Perfect Strangers and his famous Mypos Dance of Joy.
 * Bronson Pinchot played another Funny Foreigner as Jean-Luc on Step by Step.
 * And yet another as Serge in the Beverly Hills Cop movies.
 * Let's just say Bronson Pinchot built a career out of playing funny foreigners.
 * Science fiction example: the two Benzite aliens from Star Trek: The Next Generation (played by the same actor) were essentially generic stage foreigners painted blue.
 * Borderline case: Manuel the Barcelonan waiter from Fawlty Towers. Most of the humor revolves around him being just plain stupid, instead of weird and foreign, and his poor English consists not of mangling the language, but of incomprehensibly asking "Que?" every few sentences. (When the show was broadcast in Spain, the Spanish producers made him an Italian.)
 * Fes (a nickname which stands for "Foreign Exchange Student") from That '70s Show, who eventually gave rise to much Lampshade Hanging over the fact that we never learn his country of origin. His real name is not given, but we're told that it's simply too long and funny-sounding for regular use.
 * In one of the later episodes, we meet a friend of his from the "Old Country": a white guy with a British accent. Apparently his friend is from the west side of the island.
 * The Czechoslovakian "Wild and Crazy Guys" played by Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd on Saturday Night Live.
 * And lest we forget, their spiritual descendants the Butabi Brothers as portrayed by Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan—in one memorable episode of SNL, joined by Martin Short as an Afghan goat herder who travels to the US to join Will and Chris as the third member of the duo.
 * In the British comedy The League of Gentlemen, the German character Herr Lipp is a Funny Foreigner—he unwittingly says things that make him sound like a pedophile, which is ultimately revealed to be true. Things like "You are still erect" to mean "You are still awake".
 * Royal Canadian Air Farce had a set of characters that exclusively used this trope: "English As A Second Language News", with the anchors Heiki Flergenpootz and Svetlana, who began their broadcast with "Goodnight" (and, less subtly, ended it with "Hello"). There were also several correspondents attached to the skits, such as the Espresso-Drinking Greek (who would calmly sip his espresso and then energetically shriek out his views on a given story).
 * Further, the Foreign Taxi Driver, who would drive around (poorly) in front of a bad bluescreen with a customer who could barely follow what he was saying as he snarked with an accent about recent news events. He usually dropped people off at the wrong stop, and said, "You pay Vy-sa, I kill you."
 * And then there was Roger Abbott's impersonation of Jean Chretien who is not, technically speaking, a foreigner, but whose linguistic idiosyncrasies got him portrayed like one anyway.
 * Ziva David in NCIS mangles at least one English idiom per episode.
 * Dr. Luka Kovac on ER with his so called lukaisms. "You've got an insect up your anus." "It's bug up my ass, Luka."
 * Omi on Xiaolin Showdown does this, too.
 * A series of sketches in Nickelodeon's All That feature Ishboo, a foreign exchange student from "A Foreign Land." No, really, that was his country's name.
 * The joke with Ishboo is that he was a prankster who would make up customs on the spot, and his exchange family would feel compelled to "make him feel at home" by playing along, much to his amusement.
 * The Disney Channel show So Random recently put out a very similar sketch, about a class clown named Oscar, who gets expelled, but returns disguised as "Olaf, the Fake Foreign Exchange Student."
 * Antonio, on Wings.
 * Nescobar Aloplop from My Name Is Earl
 * Rajesh "Raj" Koothrappali from The Big Bang Theory.
 * The king of the Burgundians in Kaamelott: he can't speak...well, whatever language French stands for in this, only shouting sentences apparently taken from etiquette books and bad poems and which he obviously doesn't understand; has very poor table manners; and almost gets swindled out of his kingdom by his own interpreter.
 * SCTV had Yosh and Stan Schmenge from the East European country of Leutonia, and Perini Scleroso from...well, from somewhere.
 * Disney Channel just loves this trope. If a foreign character appears on one of their shows expect it to be ridiculously over the top.
 * Jessie seems to the exception. There are three kids adopted from foreign lands (a Hispanic country, India, and an African country). Only the Indian acts foreign and a lot of his ethnic traits are more informative than played for laughs.
 * Some of the customers in Are You Being Served? fit this trope.
 * In one episode, an Arab Oil Sheikh visits the store and attempts to buy a pair of trousers in exchange for a goat...When the goat is refused by the sales assistants, the sheik then tries to trade a beautiful woman.
 * In another episode, it's a Japanese Tourist with his "Cledit Caa" (Sooooooo!). Captain Peacock's attempts to communicate with him are at least as hilarious as the tourist himself ("You wanty buy?" "Whaty-wanty?")
 * Also, a cranky German couple in "German Week", and Japanese businessmen looking to take over the store in "Monkey Business". Also, short-lived regular Mr. Grossman could qualify as a Funny Foreigner.
 * In Black Books, Fran tracks down some long lost relatives that fit this trope, hailing from what would appear to be somewhere in Eastern Europe.
 * Some talk show hosts like to have funny foreigner sidekicks or recurring sketch characters. Jimmy Kimmel has Guillermo the security guard, and Conan O'Brien has band member La Bamba.
 * While certainly not the first Funny Foreigner on American TV, José Jiménez (portrayed by Bill Dana) was one of the most famous, and arguably most beloved. He was certainly a Trope Codifier, and was one of the few Funny Foreigners to actually be spun off into their own show (The Bill Dana Show, 1963-1965).

Newspaper Comics

 * The inhabitants of the fictional country Elbonia in Dilbert exist specifically to play this role; Scott Adams said he wanted foreigners he could deride and abuse without being criticized, so he made up his own, based, in his words, on a perception of how Americans view any country without cable. The concept of an entire country of idiots also amused him.
 * Of course, Adams also portrays the U.S. itself as being a country composed (almost) entirely of idiots. The only real difference is in the kind of idiocy involved.
 * In general Adams shows everyone in the world as idiots, evil, or evil idiots. Except small dogs. And even they're sort OF evil.
 * What did you expect when you have characters as Catbert, the Evil Director of Human Resources?
 * Mac Manc Mcmanx from Get Fuzzy.

Professional Wrestling

 * This shows up a lot in pro wrestling, often with Unfortunate Implications. One of the more well-known examples in the US is hapless, Engrish-speaking Smackdown! wrestler Funaki.
 * INDEED.
 * Most foreign characters in American Professional Wrestling who aren't Evil Foreigners are Funny Foreigners, unless they're Canadian or British, especially in the WWE. Yoshihiro Tajiri and Super Crazy are among the more recent examples that spring to mind.
 * And, of course, Santino Marella.
 * The Japanese promotion Dragon Gate did a legitimately hilarious version, though: constant losers Raimu Mishima and Taku Iwasa took a sabbatical to refine their craft in the US. They returned as full-fledged residents of Eagle Land Type 2: their hair bleached blonde and their wrestling attire consisting entirely of reds, whites, and blues. They took the names Michael and Daniel and used loads of Gratuitous English in their promos and theme songs, all while using the sort of cheating tactics that are more common in US wrestling than its Japanese counterpart. They proceeded to go on a huge winning streak - winning every match by disqualification. The result was pretty hilarious.
 * The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers in The Eighties and Kenzo Suzuki in The Naughties tried to be Evil Foreigners, but ended up becoming Funny Foreigners because of how ineffective they were.
 * Kenzo Suzuki deserves special mention here, debuted as Funny Foreigner trying to play an All-American Face after promos that made him seem like an evil one. The fact that he didn't speak a word of English, and his wife had to translate everything he said, didn't deter him from this plan in the slightest. Didn't even turn face but remained cheerful.

Radio

 * The title character, and several other characters, on the '40s radio sitcom Life with Luigi.
 * Mr. Kitzel in The Jack Benny Show
 * Mrs. Nussbaum in The Fred Allen Show - Allen's alley.
 * The Mad Russian in The Eddie Cantor Show
 * Professor Colonna in The Bob Hope Show
 * Grischa Petrovitch in Foreign Affairs
 * The Brungundians in The Navy Lark

Theatre
""The bleends! Close the bleends!"
 * In a one-act play of The Thirty-Nine Steps, pretty much every character was one of these. Especially Annabella, who has a ridiculous German accent.


 * The scandal-mongering Italian-accented duo of Valzacchi and Annina in Der Rosenkavalier are somewhat menacing at times, but fall short of being Evil Foreigners since more Hilarity Ensues from their schemes than tragedy.
 * The musical Phantom of the Opera has Italian opera singers Carlotta Guidicelli and Ubaldo Piangi, the former a prissy diva and the latter short and overweight, among the other characters who are mostly French.
 * Funny Foreigners were already a stock source of humour in ancient Greek and Roman comedy. One such example is Triballos from Aristophanes's The Birds, a "barbarian god" that is part of the embassy of the Gods to Cloudcuckooland, where his lacking grasp of the Greek language results in the Birds hornswoggling the Gods.
 * Greek tycoon Kriakos in On A Clear Day You Can See Forever.

Video Games

 * Played with in Fahrenheit (known as Indigo Prophecy in the States), when one of the detectives goes to a book shop to find out if there's anything useful to be determined from an old book that was left at the scene of a murder. The owner is a little old Chinese man in stereotypical little-old-Chinese-man dress and with a high-pitched, English-mangling accent, who asks you to find a book for him while there because he's forgotten where he's placed everything. This turns out to be a test to mess with customers because he doesn't like selling to stupid people, and once you pass it he straightens up, gaining a few inches of height, and turns out to have a deep Bronx accent with a voice like he's been smoking since he was born.
 * Punch-Out!! Wii... oh where to begin... Quicker to name which boxers AREN'T an example of this trope, who are Disco Kid and Mr. Sandman - and those two are pretty goofy as it is. Everyone else is a Funny Foreigner. From Glass Joe to Von Kaiser to King Hippo to Bear Hugger to Don Flamenco to Great Tiger to Aran Ryan to Soda Popinski, Punch-Out's boxers span the entire Hollywood Atlas!
 * Outside the US perspective, Super Macho Man is one as well because of his Eagle Land attitude.
 * Super Punch Out! gave us Mad Clown (a sadistic Italian Monster Clown), Bob Charlie (a laid-back Jamaican who fights according to "the rhythm"), Heike Kagero (an effeminate Japanese kabuki actor), Gabby Jay (a French Expy of Glass Joe and feeble old man), Dragon Chan (A Hong Kong native Bruce Lee Clone), Hoy Quarlow (a rude Chinese Old Master), Narcis Prince (The Fighting Narcissist from Britain), and Masked Muscle (A Mexican Masked Luchador who fights dirty). It also had Piston Hurricane from Cuba and the Bruiser brothers from Parts Unknown, but neither of them have any traits that are very funny.
 * In Fur Fighters you have a strange French cat (that is in no way similar to Andy Warhol) a dumb Australian kangaroo, bizarre little Russian meerkats, and many others.
 * Horst Fedders from Freddi Fish 3: The Case of the Stolen Conch Shell, mostly due to Freddi's foreign language phrase book.

Web Comics

 * Maurice Kinski from A Game of Fools is a combination of this and Lethal Chef, with a few helpings of Complete Monster.
 * Boku De Mai Tai from Carried By the Wind.
 * The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob once had a pair of "rogue Canadian scientists," dressed in heavy winter gear, one of whom said "eh!" a lot and the other spoke French.
 * The Finn-lander Konsta from Plus EV.

Western Animation
"The Foreigner: I’m not from here!! I have my own customs!! Look at my crazy passport!"
 * Many of the original Looney Tunes shorts have stock foreigners, including Christopher Columbus as a manic stage Italian ("The world-a, it's-a-round!"). The two most famous of these are Mexican mouse Speedy Gonzales, a perfectly competent hero who speaks in Gratuitous Spanish, and French skunk Pepe Le Pew, a Stalker with a Crush who speaks in romantic French.
 * Rolf from Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy, who comes up with odd traditions (many of which involve fish) and sayings ("Do not burn the candle at both ends, as it leads to the life of a hairdresser") from his home country in nearly every episode.
 * "You have broken the celery stalk on the back of a sea urchin!"
 * Another science fiction example: Dr. Zoidberg from Futurama gradually became a Shout-Out to vaudeville Funny Foreigner jokes.
 * And one robot in the Ultimate Robot Fighting League, “The Foreigner”:

"Stewie: Brian, this is painful. It's like listening to those two foreign guys down at the coffee shop who've been living in the US almost long enough to sound American. Scene cuts to coffee shop. Guy #1: Oh man, what a good bunch of partying at that discotheque. They played one of my audience requests. Guy #2: Way awesome! I myself drank like five liters of beer. Any more and I would have ended up in hospital, man. Guy #1: Oh, you said it, friend, but I wanted to stay, because I almost had sex on this girl. Guy #2: Oh yeah, but it was so expensive. Each drink was like six dollars forty!"
 * The Simpsons uses a few characters like this. There's Apu, the stereotypical Indian convenience store clerk ("Thank you, come again!"), Groundskeeper Willie, the stereotypical angry Scotsman, Luigi, the stereotypical Italian chef, and Uter, the stereotypical fat, jolly German kid.
 * And let's not forget Bumblebee Man, the stereotypical... Mexican man in a bumblebee costume.
 * He's supposed to be a parody of El Chapul?Colorado, a goofy superhero show on mexican TV.
 * Springfield even has a bowling team called The Stereotypes. They have begged Apu to join.
 * Toki Wartooth and Skwisgaar Skwisgelf of Metalocalypse frequently mangle the English Language.
 * Of course, the entire cast just isn't that bright. "Don't just get booze! That ain't food!"
 * Family Guy has Peter's colleague Fouad, who finds sarcasm hilarious and is willing to explain it every time just in case you didn't get it. "Oh hohhh! He say "Nice day," but he covered with rain!"
 * There's also this gem from The Former Life of Brian


 * Danny Phantom: Gregor the exotic Hungarian in the episode "Double Cross My Heart". Apparently, white is the new black in Europe! He also gives us the only instance of boys kissing on this show, because he called it a common greeting where he is from. Subverted in that
 * Someone from Witch pretended to be French and fluent in Russian. Irma actually was so saw through this deception.
 * Sanjay on The Fairly OddParents is an Indian boy who talks with such a weird voice that it attracts cats. Most of the jokes involving him center on the fact that he's way too into Timmy.
 * Dexter's Laboratory had a character in the episode "The Bus Boy" where Dexter's pencil is knocked into the uninhabited, dark back of the bus. A German boy in lederhosen is one of the kids to describe their account of why they fear to go back there. His story involved him dancing around eating food and lamenting how good it was.
 * "Hot coco. Mmmmmmmm."
 * From Codename: Kids Next Door:
 * Recurring villain Heinrech von Marzipon, your typical chubby German kid. A villain, yes, but Laughably Evil.
 * Moosk from "Operation: N.E.C.K.T.I.E." was an overly-friendly Husky Russkie.
 * Da Vindow Viper in Animaniacs. Funnier if you watch the whole skit.

Real Life

 * AHHHHHH-nold. 'Nuff said.
 * He even goes to a speech therapist to keep his accent.
 * And let's not forget Yakov Smirnoff. In Soviet Russia, Yakov Smirnoff forgets you.
 * Going out to eat at an American restaurant, an attendant asks him how many people are in his party. Smirnoff replies "100 million".
 * Former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien was foreign absolutely everywhere, speaking neither French nor English very well.
 * This was exacerbated by a defect in his mouth that made him look like he always talked out of the side of it.
 * Specifically, he got an attack of Bell's palsy when he was young, permanently leaving the left side of his face partially paralyzed.
 * To quote the man himself: "It is true I speak on one side of my mouth. I am not a Tory, I don't speak on both sides of my mouth.
 * This is the origin of the word "barbarian". To the ancient Romans, anyone who didn't speak Latin was a silly person who went around saying "bar bar bar" all day.
 * That's the root of the Greek version (Barbaros), which is earlier than the Roman version. The Roman one was more specific, referring to their beards (Coming for "Barba", beard in latin), making this a Bilingual Bonus.
 * This gives an interesting new spin on the name Barbara - either way, Barbie loses.
 * Interestingly, there is a Chinese term which is essentially equivalent to the Roman term "Barbarian". There are several ethnic groups who are called the Miao, although the most common are the Hmong. Although spelled differently than the English word, it's no coincidence that the word sounds like "meow"- the idea is that those groups' languages were being compared by the Chinese to animal noises (specifically the way a cat sounds).
 * Americans, particularly in Canada, Mexico and Europe.
 * Canadians and Europeans, particularly in the United States.
 * Polish tourists tend to be seen as these throughout Europe, mainly thanks to unusual customs like wearing socks with sandals or clapping on planes.
 * This Cracked.com article show us the case of George Psalmanazar, a Frenchman that in 1703 pretended to be Formosian and Japanese at Italy and England. Using Obfuscating Stupidity he pretended to be a Funny Foreigner that talked in Poirot Speak and had a lot of Crazy Cultural Comparison, playing with the Values Dissonance and Unfortunate Implications of Englishmen confirming that all foreigners were idiots.