Why Australia is Important! (cont'd)

2) Rolf Harris - Watch this without smiling, I dare you...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGCiYDWGZv4&feature=related

UPDATE: In light of resent news revelations, probably less smiling...

Why Australia is Important! (cont'd)

3) Norman Lindsay - Mostly just because of this sculpture but also for other stuff I guess.

Coloring Pages for the Kids!

Coloring Pages for the Kids!

Coloring Pages for the Kids!

Were celebrating some lesser-known Australian animals:

WARNING: Redback Spiders are extremely poisonous and will attack from nowhere and with no warning. If you are bitten by a redback please call an ambulance immediately and to save time... a coroner.

Why Australia is Important! (cont'd)

4) American Products That Rip-off Australian Iconography - For instance: Outback Steakhouse is based in Tampa Florida, KangaROO Shoes was created by an American architect and "Aussie" Hair Care Products began in Australia but is now owned by Proctor & Gamble. "Put Some Roo in your Doo!"

Why Australia is Important! (cont'd)

5) EVERYTHING about this video.  Does anyone know what the hell this guy is saying because he sounds like he's singing with a mouth full of sheep presents.

Why Australia is Important! (cont'd)

6) Tim Tams - If you've never had one it's a brand of chocolate biscuit (cookie) currently manufactured by Arnott's in Australia. A Tim Tam is composed of two layers of chocolate malted biscuit, separated by a light chocolate cream filling, and coated in a thin layer of textured chocolate. According to Arnott's, around 35 million packs are sold each year: nearly 400 million biscuits, an average of approximately 1.7 packs per Australian.

Less than 2 packs per Australian per year? I think my wife missed a memo.

Why Australia is Important! (cont'd)

7) Akubra Hats - No real joke here I just love the hats! They are an Aussie tradition going back over a hundred years. Look above there's a former Australian prime minister wearing one while meeting with his cabinet!

Why Australia is Important! (cont'd)

8) Things Being Beyond Thunder Things...

Why Australia is Important! (cont'd)

9) Hollywood Actors - It's true, Australians now outnumber Americans in feature films 5 to 1. Just look on IMDB if you don't believe me. That hunky guy in the period cable drama you like? He's from Perth. That spunky redhead in that indie comedy you've been telling all your friends about? Rural Queensland. It's true and it's been going on longer than you think, the entire cast of Welcome Back Kotter are originally from Tasmania. Look it up! (don't look it up)

Why Australia is Important!

Australia really doesn't get it's due as a unique cultural force but I'm here to fix that because I'm American and I think people should listen to what I have to say. So the following posts are a list of the top ten things you would really miss if Australia never existed:

10) Architectural B-roll Footage That Instantly Signifies "World Travel" in your film orTV Montage - I think I've seen that same shot of the Sydney Opera House more times than I've seen myself in the mirror. However, I challenge all non-Australians to think of the name of one other single famous building in the whole of the continent. You can't do it can you? Even the internet is stumped, I typed "Australian Capital Building" into Google and it showed me this:

I'm not sure that's right but it seems right.

...

Little Known Australia Statistics

Put on your learning caps. Here are some cold hard stats comin' at ya.

Locally Made TV Shows
By law, free-to-air channels in Australia must show a minimum of 55 percent Australian made content.
Quality shows like Down In The Coongabongaloo and the sitcom Mumble the Punchline dominate the ratings.

Highest and Lowest Temperatures
Australia’s highest temperature, 51 degrees C (123 degrees F), was recorded at Oodnadatta, South Australia in 1960. The lowest temperature was minus 23 degrees C (minus 9 degrees F) measured high in the mountains at Charlotte Pass, New South Wales. I'm pretty sure that first one is made up because everyone who would have been there to record it would surely be a liquid now. And minus 9 is the lowest? Ever? People from Michigan would be looking for a barbecue.

Prisons and Prisoners
Despite the country's outlaw beginnings, only around 115 Australians per 100,000 of population are in jail. This compares with other 1st world countries such as: The USA 700 or The UK 141. To be fair however 81 of those UK prisoners just live in tract homes in Geelong or as the Brits call it; Cell Block G.

Fat Kids

In Australia an estimated 20-25% of Australian children are overweight or obese. The proportion of overweight or obese children in Australian is increasing at an accelerating rate. The US planned to send government appointed experts to consult on the problem but all of them are either dead of heart disease or too fat to squeeze through the airplane door.


...

The History of Australian "Cuisine": Vegemite

    I've been told that Americans are viewed as obstinate and stubborn by much of the outside world and people point to things like the refusal to embrace the metric system and the continued high TV ratings of Jay Leno as hard to refute evidence. But I submit that nothing on this planet shows so bright a light on national stubbornness as the Australian obsession with the salty black byproduct of yeast love known as Vegemite.

Following are excerpts from The History of Vegemite:

In 1922, Fred Walker (1884-1935) of Melbourne, Australia decided to try to make a special "yeast extract" that would be as delicious as it was nourishing for his Fred Walker Cheese Company to sell.

He saw what a hit MSG was and he wanted in!

 The chief scientist in the company Fred owned was Dr. Cyril P. Callister, and it was Dr. Callister who invented the first Vegemite spread. He used brewer's yeast and blended the yeast extract with a few secret ingredients to make this paste. In 1912, a national competition and a prize of 50 pounds was offered to the winner or winners to name the new product.. The name ‘Vegemite’ was finally chosen from the entries by Fred’s daughter Sheilah.

Why does it not surprise me that an Australian came up with an idea to try to make food out of the essential ingredients of beer.

With its unusual and unique flavor, Vegemite was not an immediate success and sales were slow. In 1928 Vegemite was renamed and registered as Parwill in an attempt to boost its sales and to attract customers of the rival spread Marmite (an English yeast spread that dominated the Australian market sinc 1910). "If Marmite...then Parwill" was the rationale behind Walker's strategy to carve a niche in the market for his spread.The name Parwill and Walker's play on words didn't catch on and the original name was reinstated.

I should have been an ad copywriter in the twenties "Go to Macy's; you may see fantastic savings... " these things practically write themselves!

Earlier, in 1925, Walker had arranged with the Chicago, Illinois firm of James L. Kraft to make processed cheese in Australia. A company called the Kraft Walker Cheese Co. was established alongside Fred Walker and Co. In 1935, Walker used the success of his processed cheese to launch a new campaign to revive Vegemite. The company launched 2-year coupon redemption scheme whereby a jar of Vegemite was given away with every purchase of other products in the Fred Walker Cheese Company. Australians tried the product and loved it. Vegemite was well and truly on the road to success.

So they basically had to give it away for free for 2 years before people were willing to pay for it. That just proves two things, Australians are cheep and people can get used to anything with enough exposure. I bet they would eat fried potting soil if you told them that breakfast was on you for the next two-tenths of a decade.

In 1935, the recipe and manufacturing methods was sold to Kraft Foods and has been wholly owned and made by American companies. In 1939 Vegemite received endorsement from the British Medical Association which allowed doctors to recommend it as a Vitamin B-rich, nutritionally balanced food for patients.

Ok, well if you compare Vegemite to other vitamin B rich foods it doesn't look so bad. Next to liver and fish eggs I guess a salty tar-like sandwich spread might seem like a perfectly sane and edible choice.

In World War II, soldiers, sailors, and the civilian population of Australia all had Vegemite included in their rations. Soldiers’ Vegemite came in three sizes: seven-pound tins for the platoon, eight-ounce tins for soldiers on the go, and half-ounce rations for behind enemy lines. This war-time demand meant that civilian were limited. Hence, advertisements were run to explain the situation: “Vegemite fights with the men up north! If you are one of those who don’t need Vegemite medicinally, then thousands of invalids are asking you to deny yourself of it for the time being.”

It's a good marketing strategy to evoke the health benefits for our "fighting Men" but let's not forget that cigarettes were also handed out as a staple for the soldiers. It's hard to image with today's laws but I'm sure they had a rule that smokers had to be at least 25 feet away from the entrance of the fox hole.

...

Australian place names that you wouldn't repeat in front of your mother.

Look out Dickey Junction, Arkansas; Australia has more hilarious, scatological and/or down right obscene sounding place names than any other three countries combined. Try not to giggle reading these... just try.

In no particular order:

Boing Boing, NT
Which is also the name of the town's mayor and only prostitute.

Chinkapook, VIC

Burrumbuttock, NSW

Chinaman's Knob, VIC
Racist, I forgot to mention racist!

Cockburn, WA
and after that you may need a...

Cock Wash, SA

Come By Chance, NSW
I think I saw a late night infomercial to cure that.

Delicate Nobby, NSW
See previous comment.

Humpybong, QLD

Doo Town, TAS

Goes well with...

Innaloo, WA

Smiggin Holes, NSW

Hahahahaha.

Tittybong, VIC
Sometimes it's just too easy.

Wonglepong, QLD

Mount Buggery, VIC
Oh come on...


I don't know about you but I'm planning a vacation to Smiggin Holes ASAP it still has to be better than Florida.

8 Things you didn't know were invented by Australians

Australia has a long and distinguished history of invention and innovation. At least that's what Wikipedia tells me. Here are a few examples:

1) The Box Kite - Invented by Aviation Pioneer Lawrence Hargrave in the early 1890s after noticing that his empty twelve pack seemed to catch the wind better than his previously attempted flying invention the Stubby-Glider.


2) The Sarich Engine - An orbital combustion engine invented by Perth engineer Ralph Sarich in 1972 used to make 2-stroke engines cleaner and more powerful. Not to be confused with the "Search Engine" which was invented by George Randolph Google in 1995 and is used to find hilarious videos of cats doing uncharacteristic things like playing a piano or eating a plate of spaghetti.

3) Black Box Flight Recorder - This famous device was invented in 1958 by Dr David Warren at the Aeronautical Research Laboratories in Melbourne. Despite the name, modern versions come in a range of designer colours such as "Bottom-of-the-Sea Blue" and "Mid-Air Collision Orange"

4) Hills Hoist - The rotary washing line with hoist quickly became a fixture in Australian back yards. The original design was by Gilbert Toyne in Geelong in 1912, but Lance Hill of Adelaide further developed the design from 1945 onwards and marketed it under the name of the Hills Hoist. "I want a painfully slow way for my clothes to be slightly damp, covered in possum feces and possibly floating in my neighbor's pool." I imagine he said at some point.

5) Wine Cask - The flexible bag inside a box was first developed by Thomas Angove of South Australia in 1965 and later given the now familiar tap by Penfolds Wines and brought to market by Sam Wynn of Wynnvale Wines. This design has now become almost universal for grade z wine on the bottom shelf in the back of the liquor store. 

6) Internet WiFi - Developed by an Australian team at the CSIRO headed by Dr John O'Sullivan who was some kind of pervert dissatisfied with slow loading pornography probably.

7) Feature Length Film - The Story of the Kelly Gang, made in 1906 is regarded as the first feature length film ever made. It ran for more than an hour and featured Mick Jagger at the height of his career.

8) Spray-on-skin - A treatment for burn victims developed by Dr Fiona Wood which was used to great effect after the 2002 Bali terrorist bombings and is also what keeps Nicole Kidman's face from falling off and sliding into the ocean.

Watch this spot next week. I mean if you like comedy gold.