YMMV / The Simpsons S6 E16: "Bart vs. Australia"

• Broken Base: Australian fans are split about this episode. Some Aussies are most unamused by it, while others get a kick out of it.
• Designated Villain: The Australian government's anger about Bart unapologetically tricking one of their citizens was justified. The real problem with the booting was that Evan Conover didn't bother telling them about it in advance.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Tobias has become one on the Rock Bottom Facebook page with several memes depicting Tobias acting and talking like a real Australian would. Unsurprisingly, Tobias memes are popular on the Compuglobalhypermeganet Australia & New Zealand Facebook fan page.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: In-universe, the episode discussed the American fascination with Australian culture in The '80s, including such works as "Crocodile" Dundee, and Yahoo Serious' films such as Young Einstein, the latter prompting Lisa to say "I know those words, but that sign makes no sense."
• Harsher in Hindsight: Bart taunts Bruno Drundridge by saying "hey, I think I hear a dingo eating your baby!" which is a reference to the disappearance of an Australian infant, Azaria Chamberlain, in 1980, with her remains having never been found. Her parents, Michael and Lindy Chamberlain, claimed she had been snatched from a tent the family was camping in at Uluru, Northern Territory, by a dingo. The authorities did not believe the parents, and in a controversial trial, convicted Lindy of murder and Michael of being an accessory after the fact, sentencing Lindy to life imprisonment. However, in 1988, after Azaria's jacket was found near a dingo's den, all convictions against the Chamberlains were overturned and Lindy, who had been sentenced to life, was released and paid a settlement for false imprisonment. In 2012, a coroner ruled that Azaria Chamberlain had, in fact, been killed by a dingo. However, a number of TV shows and comedians of the time made "a dingo ate my baby!" a morbid joke. The Simpsons would make a similar joke in the tenth season episode, Lisa Gets an "A".
  • Furthermore, a dingo killed a nine-year-old boy on Fraser Island in 2001, prompting a change in popular beliefs about dingoes.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Homer mispronounces Uruguay as "U R Gay". Uruguay would later be the first South American country to legalise civil unions.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Pretty much every single line of dialogue said by any of the Australians has been subjected to this. Special mentions go to "Nine-hundred dollarydoos?!", the game of Knifey-Spoony, and the Prime Minister's introduction.
  • Homer pointing to Uruguay on the map and remarking, "Look at this country, it says 'U R Gay'."
  • Tobias & Bruno, and to a lesser extent, Gus and the Prime Minister Andy are extremely popular in Australian focused Simpsons fan forums & shitposting groups, commonly used by photoshopping them into other scenes with dialogue tweaked to reference events in Australia.
• Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: The episode is considered an excellent documentary in Australia, particularly for showcasing the game of Knifey-Spoony, and the Prime Minister drinking from a can of beer while lying naked on a lake in an old tire. One Australian is petitioning for the currency's name to be changed to dollarydoos. It's got over 60,000 signatures.
• Parody Displacement: There is a parody of "Crocodile" Dundee with a man going "think that's a knife? THIS is a knife". For newer viewers, the film from which the meme came is not so familiar, and therefore many people think back to this series instead.
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • The Simpsons watch a presentation about Australia on a slide projector. Today they would probably use a laptop with a computer-connected projector and a Powerpoint presentation (but then we wouldn't get the joke of the "plan B" slide that was supposed to be for an assassination plot against Fidel Castro).
  • Castro himself is an example. Fidel Castro retired as Presidente of Cuba in 2006 and was succeeded by his brother, Raul. Fidel later died in November 2016 and Raul decided to step down as leader of Cuba with the elections of 2018.
  • This episode aired in 1995, a year after the caning of Michael Fay in Singapore for vandalism, which was reported in the news way back then. Unless you grew up around the time that that was news, most people these days wouldn't even get the reference to it. It's also something many people who weren't American or Singaporean would not even know about when it happened.
  • Hitler still being alive at 105 is already pushing believability in 1995, but if he were alive today, he would be the oldest recorded person in history.
  • The primary thrust of the episode revolves around Bart running up the phone bill by calling foreign countries. Nowadays he’d probably use email or social media to contact people abroad.
  • Similarly, Bart using a globe to look up countries in the Southern Hemisphere, something he would just do a web search on if this episode was made in the 2020s.

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