Bart vs. Australia
"Bart vs. Australia" is the sixteenth episode of the sixth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on February 19, 1995. In the episode, Bart is indicted for fraud in Australia, and the family travels to the country so Bart can apologize.
"Bart vs. Australia"
Season 6
Episode 16
2F13
February 19, 1995
"I will not hang donuts on my person"[2]
The living room floor is a body of water and the Simpsons swim their way to the couch.
David Mirkin
Bill Oakley
Josh Weinstein
Wes Archer
The episode was written by Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein and directed by Wes Archer. It features cultural references to films such as Mad Max 2 and Crocodile Dundee. "Bart vs. Australia" acquired a Nielsen rating of 9.1 and was the fourth-highest-rated show on Fox the week it aired.
Plot[edit]
Bart notices that the water in the bathroom sink always drains counter-clockwise. Lisa explains (incorrectly) that water only drains clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere due to the Coriolis effect. Bart makes phone calls to various countries in the Southern Hemisphere to confirm this, such as a research station in Antarctica, Buenos Aires, Santiago and Burkina Faso. When Lisa points out how expensive overseas calls are, Bart instead makes a collect call to Australia, where a boy named Tobias Drundridge answers the phone. Bart impersonates an adult bureaucrat and is told the sink and toilet are both draining clockwise. Frustrated, Bart asks Tobias to check his neighbors' toilets. The call takes six hours to complete, since Tobias lives in the rural locality of Squatter's Crag and Bart fails to hang up the phone.
Three weeks later, Tobias's father Bruno is billed $900 for the phone call. An enraged Bruno calls Bart and demands payment, but Bart only taunts him. However, Bruno's neighbor Gus is a federal Member of Parliament, who reports the matter to the Prime Minister. After Bart ignores several letters from the Prime Minister and the Solicitor-General, the government of Australia indicts him for fraud. A U.S. State Department official arrives and explains that Bart has worsened already acrimonious Australia–United States relations. When Marge refuses to allow the State Department to imprison Bart for five years to placate Australia, the State Department settles on having Bart publicly apologize in Australia.
The Simpsons arrive in Australia and stay in the U.S. Embassy in Canberra. When Bart sees a sign prohibiting foreign visitors from bringing in invasive species, he leaves his pet bullfrog at the airport. A kangaroo puts the frog in its marsupial pouch, introducing it into the wild. Bart makes his public apology, but an unsatisfied Parliament demands Bart receive a "booting" — a kick on the buttocks with an oversize boot — as corporal punishment. Desperate, Bart and Homer escape and the family flees to the embassy, chased by a large, angry mob. After a stand-off, the two governments propose a compromise: one kick from the Prime Minister, through the gate of the embassy, with a regular wing-tip shoe. Marge protests, but Bart agrees to the punishment. However, Bart dodges the kick, moons the Australians with the words "Don't tread on me" written on his buttocks, and hums "The Star-Spangled Banner". The outraged mob storms the embassy, and the Simpsons and the embassy staff are evacuated by helicopter. From the air, the Simpsons notice that Bart's bullfrog has reproduced, and its offspring are wreaking havoc on Australia's ecosystem and farms. They gleefully laugh, unaware a koala has stowed away aboard their helicopter and may inadvertently be introduced to U.S. territories.
Production[edit]
The episode was written by Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, and directed by Wes Archer.[3] The writing staff wanted to do an episode where the Simpson family traveled to Australia, because they thought everyone in Australia had a good sense of humor and that they "would get the jokes".[4] The staff had previously poked fun at several American institutions on the show, and they thought it would be interesting to poke fun at a whole nation.[5] They designed Australia and the Australian people very inaccurately and many things were completely made up for fun.[3] The animators, however, got two Australian tourist guides to help them out with the design of the Australian landscape and buildings, as well as the US Embassy.[5] The writers did research on the Coriolis effect for this episode.[3] Lisa's explanation of the effect is incorrect; it affects global weather patterns and is caused by the spinning of the globe on its axis. The distances involved when a toilet or sink drains are much too small to be affected by it.[6]
In 1999, Fox Studios Australia in Sydney used a different version of "Bart vs. Australia" as part of their The Simpsons attraction, called The Simpsons Down Under. They had contacted the Simpsons writing staff and asked if they would write the screenplay for a ride in their attraction, based on this episode.[5] The episode was re-edited and re-animated for the ride and new scenes were included.[5] The attraction featured motion capture technology, allowing audience members' faces and expressions to be transformed into moving cartoon characters.[7][8]