Modern Family’s Australian Episode Was Just A Bunch Of Corny Aussie Jokes. Surprise!

Spoiler alert: This article deals with an episode of Modern Family that is not airing in Australia until Sunday night. Not heaps happens in it, but still. 

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Modern Family’s much anticipated Australian episode aired overnight in the USA, and crikey mate, it was a bit of a plonker. From the moment the Dunphy-Pritchett-Tucker family arrived in Sydney, the episode was thick with cringeworthy Aussie slang, corny jokes about the land down under, and awkward references to Hugh Jackman’s penis.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge Modern Family fan. At its best, as in this season’s ‘Las Vegas’ and ‘iSpy’, the show displays killer gag writing, and an ability to escalate comic tension to breaking point and beyond. At its worst, it tends to fall back on corny jokes and lazy plotting.

‘Australia’, unfortunately, is one of the latter episodes.

As with most Modern Family episodes, ‘Australia’ sends the characters spinning off into their own sub-plots fairly quickly. Luke and Manny want to see some boobs on BondiBeach; Cam and Mitch meet an old friend; Jay and Claire have their heads stuck back in the office; while Phil realises every animal in Australia is trying to kill him.

Add several other sub-plots for the various kids, and ‘Australia’ is about as stuffed with story as any 22-minute sitcom episode can be. In the end, though, most of the jokes come down to old clichés about the idea of Australia as an upside-down land full of deadly wildlife and people who talk funny.

Obvious jokes include:

#1: Everything In Australia Wants To Kill And Eat You

Apparently anything that flies, crawls, swims or hops in the land down under wants to maim or kill you, and Modern Family uses this as its main running gag. It’s not the most original source of jokes, but Ty Burrell, who is easily the show’s funniest cast member at this point, does a lot with the material he’s given.

Over the course of the episode, various native creatures turn on Phil. “The mosquitos are really going after my jellyfish bites,” he says forlornly at one point, shortly before he is punched in the face by a kangaroo. The episode even takes time to set up a pretty clever joke about dingoes taking babies, and I groaned at myself for not spotting it sooner than I did.

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#2: Crikey Mate, Aussies Talk Funny

Modern Family’s trip down under definitely gets a lot of mileage out of cringeworthy Australian-isms. Mitch and Cam titter at phrases like “bush” and “penal colony”, Gloria tries and fails to wrap her head around the word “Vegemite”, while Phil ‘Crocodile’ Dunphy reels off one awkward “g’day mate” after another.

In general, it’s pretty corny stuff; the kind of thing that makes you put your head in your hands and wonder if Australians actually do sound this idiotic to the rest of the world.

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#3: Australia And New Zealand Are The Same Thing

To the rest of the world, there’s not a whole lot to distinguish Australia and New Zealand – they have Hobbits and we have kangaroos, but aside from that, we’re all pretty much just the one nation of funny-talking sheep shaggers. ‘Australia’ plays on this with guest star Rhys Darby (Flight Of The Conchords), playing an obnoxious Kiwi friend of Mitch and Cam.

Darby is a funny guy, but his character is weirdly ill-defined. He awkwardly drops the word “bogan”, carries a meat pie on his person at all times, and says the word ‘deck’ so it sounds an awful lot like something else. It seems like the writers came up with that stuff first, and then tried awkwardly to fit a character around it.

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#4: Australia Is The Land Of Product Placement

Okay, so I don’t think this was a common down under stereotype before Modern Family came along, but now everyone’s going to be thinking it. ‘Australia’ is thick with company logos. I clocked some very awkward appearances from Optus and AussieBum, as well as Qantas, who underwrote the Dunhpy family’s Aussie adventure.

Good on the cast of Modern Family for scoring a free trip to Australia, but as blatant product placement goes, this episode probably ties with ‘Express Christmas’ — otherwise known as ‘The One Where Hayley And Claire Go To Target’.

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Miscellaneous Observations

References to Men At Work’s ‘Land Down Under’: One.

Gratuitous shots of the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge: Dozens.

Pixelated Bondi Beach boobs: Two.

Great Barrier Reef montages: One.

Shrimps thrown on the barbie: None, weirdly enough.

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Modern Family’s ‘Australia’ episode airs on Sunday April 27 at 7.30pm, on Channel 10.

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Alasdair Duncan is an author and freelance writer who has had work published in Crikey, The Drum, The Brag, Beat, Rip It Up, The Music Network, Rave Magazine, AXN Cult and Star Observer.