Land Down Under: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''Australia is a psychotic, cold-blooded murderer that would swallow you whole if you so much as left the front door of your house.''|'''[[Badass of the Week]]''', [http://www.badassoftheweek.com/australia.html on Australia.]}}

{{quote|''It's about three quarters of a mile away from the surface of the sun. I've seen insects walking around with knee pads. It's not supposed to be inhabited, and when they're not...frying themselves outside, they all fling themselves into the sea, which is inhabited almost exclusively by things designed to kill you. Sharks, jelly fish, swimming knives, everything.''|'''Dylan Moran'''}}

== Anime & Manga ==

== Comedy ==

* Australian musical comedy duo The Scared Weird Little Guys wrote a song about <s> all</s> some of the dangerous animals to be found in Australia - "Come to Australia, you might accidentally get killed!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWFGd1nMa1A

* In his stand-up act, Greg Proops describes Australia as "Arkansas with a beach".

* Stand-up comedian Adam Hills parodied the national Anthem by [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocfiPS1CZ-s putting it to the tune of Jimmy Barnes's Working Class Man.] Most of the people who heard it honestly liked it better than real one.

* The goal of the main character Yorick throughout most of ''[[Y: The Last Man|Y the Last Man]]'' is to get to Australia to meet his girlfriend Beth, who was in Australia researching Aboriginal culture. In this universe, post-[[Gendercide]] Australia has become the single most powerful navy in the world, based on having the only female piloted submarines, and the entirety of Sydney has become a heroin addicted slum from south-east Asian pirates smuggling drugs into the country.

== Commercials ==

* Commercials for Foster's beer spread the ''shrimp on the barbie'' image, though ironically Foster's (supposedly "Australian for beer") is quite possibly the most unpopular beer in Australia... and, of course, the fact that in Australia, "shrimp" are pretty much always known as "prawns".

** [[District 9|Fookin Prawns.]]

** Nowadays, Fosters is pretty much an American beer with an iconic Australian name.

** Foster's is Australian for "Foreigner's Excuse For Aussie Piss"; its very rare to find in six-pack form in the various liquor sellers, let alone being served in an Aussie pub. If an Australian is asking for Foster's, they're not homesick, they're just trying to determine if they're in another country.

* A Chinese airline tries and screws up by advertising its new flights to Australia with a picture of a woman playing with a kangaroo on the beach.

** Not automatically an error, a few places in Queensland and NSW do have kangaroos on the beaches.

** The playing part is possible, if you define playing as brutal lacerations...

*** Followed swiftly by a bullet to the head due to an overly-twitchy Park Ranger.

* ''[[The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert|Priscilla, Queen of the Desert]]'' contrasts the sophisticated gay scene of urban Oz with the outback culture.

* ''Chasing the Sun'' involves a car race through the outback. In one scene, the protagonists are driving from Darwin to Alice Springs, and look out the window and see Ayers Rock to their left. The most glaring error, of course, is that Uluru is actually SOUTH of Alice Springs... but that's just the most glaring error. There are a good ten others.

* ''[[Point Break]]'' concludes on Bells Beach, Torquay - [[California Doubling|actually filmed in Oregon]]. The real Bells Beach is a good 2&nbsp;km from the nearest tree - and it's a eucalpyt, not a pine.

* ''Van Diemen's Land'' relates the largely true story of a convict who escaped from Macquarie Harbour (a prison on the edge of seriously inhospitable wilderness) with a number of companions, and survived his walk to more civilised parts by eating them.

* ''A Cry In The Dark'' A.K.A. ''Evil Angels'' is based on the true story of the Chamberlin family - who's daughter Azaria was taken from their tent by a dingo whilst camping at Ayers Rock. This film featured [[Meryl Streep]]'s most awful attempt at an Aussie accent (think [[Mary Poppins|Bert]]) and the infamous line 'a dingo ate my baby!'

* ''Welcome to Woop Woop'' also focuses on deranged pet food factory workers. Giant Kangaroo god also makes an appearance.

* The "Swampland Trilogy" of "Swampland," "Tankworld," and "Endsville," by S.R. Martin. It's all set in Australia, and starts with a really bad flood season. Gets a bit creepy with fish girls and creatures who have been fused with bikes. Definitely one for more the "Everworld" crowd than "Animorphs." [http://teens.arapahoelibraries.org/go2.cfm?pid=11250 Here's a link to the first one's cover.] If you find it interesting, which it is actually really good, search for it and the other two.

** Also features a nice Crocodile Dundee Parody when the pair are being mugged in the states

* The best moment occurs in ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'', where a friendly [[Mook]] decides he wants to flee to Tasmania (The little island off the bottom of Australia.), before exclaiming and cocking his gun: "It's probably raining in Tasmania anyway!" * chick-chick*

** While on the subject of Star Trek, it appears that the Vulcan embassy to Earth is in Canberra. Vulcans and Australians living in close quarters could be... interesting.

*** Particularly as the depictions of Vulcan basically maker it look like depictions of Australia on steroids: Desert where everything is poisonous and actively trying to kill and eat you (including a significant portion of what plant life there is), but this is a whole PLANET of it. And ALL of the people are experts at living in the wilderness, or they don't live to see their ninth birthday.

* The "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f_p0CgPeyA Three Bruces]" sketch from ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'', with Philosophy professors from the University of Woolloomooloo Australia.

* Then of course we have Daniel Osbourne in [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]], or Oz. The name of the band he's in? ''Dingoes Ate My Baby,'' after the Azaria Chamberlain case.

* "We'll surf like they do in the U.S.A.|We'll fly down to Sydney for our holiday|On sunny Christmas Day|Australia, Australia" - [[The Kinks]]' concept album ''Arthur (Or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire)'' tells the story of a man emigrating to Australia from post-war England.

* [[Tim Minchin]]'s ''Not Perfect'': "This is my country, and I live in it; it's pretty big, and nice to walk on"

* Ben Folds is a known Australia-phile, having lived in Adelaide for several years and dated mostly Australian women. He even wrote a song about it, 'Adelaide', making sure his listeners all know that 'the beer is better in Adelaide'.

== Videogames ==

* The Sniper from ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'' is an Australian with the usual South-London accent that's never caught a whiff of the Southern Hemisphere, Wild Colonial Boy outfit, and a [[Knife Nut|really big knife]] (perfecting the 'colonial boy' image, albeit further undermining the Australianness, by being a Nepalese ''kukri''). His bio states he honed his skills hunting game in the outback, a reasonable story given that various dangerous/nuisance species (pigs and buffalo were introduced and went feral, and there are kangaroo culls of variable legality in farming areas) are frequently hunted by groups of young men with rifles (...firing from the backs of trucks. Sissies).

** The sniper also references Crocodile Dundee in one of his lines about knives.

** Probably to do with the fact that even if they conquered it they have to travel halfway across the continent to get to the nearest major city, and if we wanted to defend Sydney they have no idea how to fight in terrain that can go from ocean to city to desert to farmland in less than 50&nbsp;km's.

*** Agreed, Have you ever been to adelaide?Less than one kilometre off the beac can be desert, then some large hills, then farmland, It's absolutely mental.

* The newer [[Resident Evil]] games has the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=XA1yOCxDyGs#t=74s Black Tiger,] a giant Australian funnelweb. In real life they are that hard to kill and even deadlier, yes the T Virus makes it go through [[Badass Decay]].

* According to ''[[Irregular Webcomic]]'', Australian wildlife is ''[[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|exactly]]'' [http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/217.html this dangerous]. [http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/855.html Or this].

* During the recent{{when}} Order of the Dragon arc in ''[[Fans]]'', Keith Feddyg took Australia when the Order caused worldwide chaos and rioting by literally destroying the concept of writing. As he observed, "You know how feral most of that continent is? The exotic killer wildlife will have destroyed human civilization by dinnertime. All I have to do is go back, find the leader of the survivors and melt his bowie knife." This gave him time to stab another Order member in the back and seek revenge against Ally.

* [[Bloody Urban]] (which is set in an AU version of Sydney) [http://bloodyurban.smackjeeves.com/comics/1411640/tennis/ features a strip] which depicts the Australian open as being played entirely by crocodiles. The [[Alt Text]] for the page reads 'This is nothing. You should see our football.'

== Web Originals ==

* [[Cracked.com|Cracked]] has made a [[Running Gag]] of equating Australia with [[Death World]]. So has this wiki.

* In <s>one</s> most of his video reviews, [[Zero Punctuation|Yahtzee]] takes time to complain about how much later games are released in Australia than the US. One of these reviews showed an outline of Australia, with labels in four places. One in the southwest of the map said "ME" and the other three scattered throughout said "SHEEP".

* [[Disney Animated Canon|Disney's]] ''[[The Rescuers (Disney film)|Rescuers Down Under]]'' is set in Australia and revels in stereotypes, though its Dundee analog is the villain.

** He also said shitstorm on the 6.30 news. A [[Mass Effect 2]] fan?

* There is an entire restaurant chain (Outback Steakhouse) based on this trope. Apparently, the Outback Steakhouse people have opened up some locations IN AUSTRALIA. Reactions are mixed-to-negative.

* Australia is the only country in the world to eat ''all parts of its national coat of arms'' (that are theoretically edible anyway; eating stars and crosses is rather a difficult proposition). There's Kangaroo, which is actually cheaper than Beef to buy in Australia, Emu, which tastes like gamey chicken, and the Wattle plant, whose seeds make quite a sweet flour. [[Mundane Utility|Patriotic]] ''[[Awesome but Practical|and]]'' [[Mundane Utility|tasty]].

** Also, Kangaroo is delicious and if you're Australian, much less harmful to the environment.

** Wombats. Although they can be tamed to some degree, they can reach 40&nbsp;km an hour, albeit only for a minute and a half. They're also pretty heavy, so they can knock over grown men if angered. Then they can deliver a bite through your trousers, socks, and gumboots, and still go nearly an inch into your leg. For sheer WTF value, however, there's their main defence against predators like dingos: they run down a hole and present their asses. (No, it's not [[Fartillery]]). Their backsides are heavily padded with cartilage and they have really short tails, ensuring that it takes a hell of a lot of effort to get them out of that hole. Unfortunately, this means that wombats are the one exception to the 'don't swerve to avoid an animal in the road' rule - hitting a wombat can total your car so completely you're actually better off ''swerving''. 120tonne road trains taken been out of action by hitting a wombat. Wombats can also use their butts to crush, suffocate and kill their attacker. You read that right. Cute little Australian native animals are so damn [[Badass]] [[Ass Kicks You|they can use their butts as offensive, lethal weapons.]] They also have cubical faeces.

*** Just to expand on that; the poison in question is not lethal but will make you wish it was. It results in such incredible excruciating pain that a ''lethal dose of morphine'' will not stop the pain.

*** And irukandji. There are nets at beaches to keep the box jellyfish out and fool people into thinking it's safe to swim. Except the irukandji are almost as painful and are small enough to ge through the nets. Australia, where a necessary beachside day includes [http://firstaid.about.com/od/bitesstings/ht/06_jellyfish.htm vinegar].

*** ALL foreign beer is made locally under license, beer doesn't travel well.

** This Australian troper would like to relate that he heard of two American Football players came to Australia once and watched a game of AFL. When asked if they wanted to have a shot, they basically replied with "Are you NUTS?"

* Featured prominently in Jared Diamonds book Collapse, about civilisations that ... collapse.