Road to Australia (Simpsons)

Road to Australia is the sixteenth episode in the sixth season of the adult American animated sitcom Simpsons. The episode was written by Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein and directed by Dan Povenmire. It features cultural references to films such as Mad Max 2 and Crocodile Dundee. Road to Australia acquired a Nielsen rating of 9.1 and was the fourth highest rated show on the Fox network the week it aired. It received a mixed reception in Australia, with some Australian viewers saying the episode was a mockery of their country.

In the episode, Stewie is indicted for fraud in Australia, so he and Brian travels to the country so Stewie can apologize. It features guest voices from Phil Hartman and Mel Gibson. The "Road to..." episodes which have aired throughout various seasons of Simpsons were inspired by the Road to ... comedy films starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour.

Plot
The episode begins with a bathroom products race between Bart and Lisa at the bathroom sink. Lisa wins and Bart suggests she won because her shampoo was in the "inner lane" to his toothpaste. Lisa explains the Coriolis Effect to Bart (not entirely correctly), but he doesn't believe her. Stewie, overhearing the conversation, plans to humiliate his siblings and makes a collect call to an Australian boy (after calling many other Southern Hemisphere countries, like Argentina, Chile and a fictional African dictatorship, without getting an answer), and asks him about which way the water drains. The line is kept open for several hours. When Stewie doesn't hang up, the Australian boy's father is billed $900.00. The man wants Stewie to pay, but gets mocked by him. Unfortunately for Stewie, the man's neighbor is a Member of Parliament, who reports Stewie's offence to the Prime Minister. Stewie receives dozens of collection letters in the mail, but turns against them and simply places the letters in his wastebasket, along with Lisa's Sax.

Eventually, Australia indicts Stewie for fraud. The State Department wants to imprison him for five years, but settles upon having Stewie personally make an apology in Australia. Brian volunteers to go with him and the two travel to the country, where they start exploring the culture. Stewie brings a mentally handicapped bullfrog with him that he names Bart, Jr. and puts in a fountain because he doesn't want to get into more trouble and promises to come back to get the frog. The frog runs off and meets a kangaroo and goes into the kangaroo's pouch. On the way in, Brian sees a marine at the American Embassy and mistakes the marine to be a Queen's Guard and makes fun of him and so then gets knocked out. Later, when Brian leaves the embassy, the marine reveals that the embassy is American land and Brian jumps in between the countries and gets knocked out by the marine again. Stewie go to a museum, where they see Australia's first Prime Minister, Mel Gibson.

Stewie goes to the courts and makes his apology, but they want to give the additional punishment of a boot to his butt (a parody of the Michael P. Fay caning incident in Singapore). Brian and Stewie escape the booting and gets chased back to the embassy in a action montage parodying Mad Max. The American Embassy tries to keep the two out, but fails due to a malfunction from the gate and after Brian and Stewie come in, the soldiers close the gate manually keeping out the enraged Australians. Stewie agrees to a booting from the Australian Prime Minister, but with a normal shoe and only once; however, as he is about to receive his punishment, he dodges the kick from the Prime Minister. Then Stewie moons the Australians with "Don't tread on me" written on his butt and hums "The Star-Spangled Banner."

The citizens break down the gate and pursue the Brian and Stewie, causing the two to leave the country in a helicopter in a scene similar to the Fall of Saigon with the Australians throwing Fosters at the Simpsons.

Voice cast

 * Dan Castellaneta as Homer Simpson, Bart, Jr., Gus
 * Julie Kavner as Marge Simpson
 * Nancy Cartwright as Bart Simpson, Neil Goldman
 * Yeardley Smith as Lisa Simpson
 * Seth MacFarlane as Stewie Simpson, Brian Simpson, Avril Ward
 * Danny Smith as Adolf Hitler

Guest stars

 * Phil Hartman as Evan Conover
 * Mel Gibson as Max

Production
The episode was written by Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein and directed by Dan Povenmire, who directed the previous three "Road to..." episodes. The writing staff wanted to do an episode where Brian and Stewie traveled to Australia after the previous success of the episodes centered around the two in different locations from Quahog. They thought everyone in Australia had a good sense of humor and that they "would get the jokes". 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. They designed Australia and the Australian people very inaccurately and many things were completely made up for fun. 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. The writers did research on the Coriolis effect for this episode. 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.

Cultural references
The plot of the episode is based on the story of Michael Fay, an American teenager who was caned in Singapore in 1994 for vandalizing cars. This episode perpetuated a popular myth that the Coriolis effect affects the motion of drains in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. In reality, the Coriolis effect affects global weather patterns. The amount of water in a toilet or sink is much too small to be affected by it.

When Stewie is talking to the boy's father on the phone, he says, "I think I hear a dingo eating your baby", referencing the case of Azaria Chamberlain, a ten-week-old baby who was killed by dingoes. The bullfrogs taking over Australia and destroying all the crops is a reference to the cane toad, originally introduced to Australia in order to protect sugar canes from the cane beetle, but became a pest in the country.

When Brian and Stewie go to an Australian pub, Stewie plays with a pocketknife at the table and a man asks him, "You call that a knife?", and as the man draws a spoon from his pocket he says, "This is a knife." The scene is a reference to a famous scene from Crocodile Dundee, in which Mick Dundee is threatened by some thugs with a switchblade, and Mick takes out a bowie knife and says; "That's not a knife; that's a knife!" Brian and Stewie are shown a slide show by the US Department of State depicting a boarded up cinema with a sign out the front saying "Yahoo Serious Movie Festival", in reference to the Australian actor and director Yahoo Serious.

Source

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