Barry McKenzie (full name: Barrington Bradman Bing McKenzie)Rebecca Coyle and Michael Hannan

,

La Trobe University La Trobe University is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Its main campus is located in the suburb of Bundoora. The university was established in 1964, becoming the third university in the state of Victoria a ...

, 2005 is a

fictional character In fiction, a character (or speaker, in poetry) is a person or other being in a narrative (such as a novel, play, radio or television series, music, film, or video game). The character may be entirely fictional or based on a real-life perso ...

created in 1964 by the

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

comedian A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting foolish (as in slapstick), or employing prop comedy. A comedian who addresses an audienc ...

Barry Humphries John Barry Humphries (born 17 February 1934) is an Australian comedian, actor, author and satirist. He is best known for writing and playing his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson. He is also a film pr ...

(but suggested by

Peter Cook Peter Edward Cook (17 November 1937 – 9 January 1995) was an English actor, comedian, satirist, playwright and screenwriter. He was the leading figure of the British satire boom of the 1960s, and he was associated with the anti-establishme ...

) for a

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics ter ...

, written by Humphries and drawn by

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...

artist

Nicholas Garland Nicholas Withycombe Garland OBE (born 1 September 1935) is a British political cartoonist. Early life Garland was born in Hampstead, London. His father was a doctor and his mother a sculptor. He was the second of six children: he had three broth ...

in the British satirical magazine ''

Private Eye ''Private Eye'' is a British fortnightly satirical and current affairs news magazine, founded in 1961. It is published in London and has been edited by Ian Hislop since 1986. The publication is widely recognised for its prominent critici ...

''.Macnab, Geoffrey
Bazza turns 30
''

The Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...

'', 23 March 2003 He was subsequently portrayed by Australian singer

Barry Crocker Barry Hugh Crocker (born 4 November 1935
Official Barry Crocker website) is an Australian character actor, televisio ...

in two films in the 1970s.

Background

One of Humphries' early stage characters was a surfer named Buster Thompson, who served as a prototype for Barry McKenzie. Humphries has noted that after Peter Cook heard a recording of Thompson in New York in 1962, he invited him to devise a similar character for ''Private Eye''. The comic strip about a "randy, boozy Australian rampaging through

Swinging London The Swinging Sixties was a youth-driven cultural revolution that took place in the United Kingdom during the mid-to-late 1960s, emphasising modernity and fun-loving hedonism, with Swinging London as its centre. It saw a flourishing in art, mu ...

" was very popular, but Eye editor

Richard Ingrams Richard Reid Ingrams (born 19 August 1937 in Chelsea, London) is an English journalist, a co-founder and second editor of the British satirical magazine ''Private Eye'', and founding editor of '' The Oldie'' magazine. He left the latter job at ...

eventually dropped it on account of Humphries’ drinking and missing deadlines (Ingrams gave up alcohol in the 1960s, as did Humphries in the 1970s). Ingrams said that "Humphries was at that stage a serious alcoholic".

Books

The ''Private Eye'' comic strips were compiled into three books, ''The Wonderful World of Barry McKenzie'' (1968), in which McKenzie travels to Britain to claim his inheritance, followed by ''Bazza Pulls It Off!'' (1971), and later, ''Bazza Comes Into His Own: The Final Fescennine Farago of Barry McKenzie, Australia's First Working-Class Hero—With Learned and Scholarly Appendices and a New Enlarged Glossary '' (1979). The first two books were published in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and initially banned in Australia with the Minister for Customs and Excise stating the comic "relied on indecency for its humour". The three books and unpublished strips were compiled for ''The Complete Barry McKenzie: Not so Much a Legendary Strip, More a Resonant Social History Per Se'', which was published in 1988 and featured a preface by

Sir Les Patterson Sir Leslie Colin "Les" Patterson (born 1 April 1942) is a fictional character created and portrayed by Australian comedian Barry Humphries. Obese, lecherous and offensive, Patterson is Dame Edna Everage's exact opposite: she is female, refined, Pr ...

Films

In 1972, the film ''

The Adventures of Barry McKenzie ''The Adventures of Barry McKenzie'' is a 1972 Australian comedy film directed by Bruce Beresford and starring Barry Crocker, telling the story of an Australian ' yobbo' on his travels to the United Kingdom. Barry McKenzie was originally a chara ...

'' was released, based on the first published book. In 1974, a sequel, ''

Barry McKenzie Holds His Own ''Barry McKenzie Holds His Own'' is the 1974 sequel to the 1972 Australian comedy film '' The Adventures of Barry McKenzie''. Returning from the original film is Barry Crocker in the title role, as well as Barry Humphries in the role of Barry ...

'', was made. The films starred Barry Crocker as McKenzie, and chronicled the character's adventures in Britain and

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

respectively. In the films, McKenzie is the

nephew In the lineal kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a niece or nephew is a child of the subject's sibling or sibling-in-law. The converse relationship, the relationship from the niece or nephew's perspective, is that of ...

of another of Humphries' characters,

Edna Everage Dame Edna Everage, often known simply as Dame Edna, is a character created and performed by Australian comedian Barry Humphries, known for her lilac-coloured ("wisteria hue") hair and cat eye glasses ("face furniture"); her favourite flower, th ...

. Despite the banning of ''The Wonderful World of Barry McKenzie'' in Australia, the films received considerable support from the Australian government of

John Gorton Sir John Grey Gorton (9 September 1911 – 19 May 2002) was an Australian politician who served as the nineteenth Prime Minister of Australia, in office from 1968 to 1971. He led the Liberal Party during that time, having previously been a l ...

, becoming the first to receive funding from the

Australian Film Development Commission The Australian Film Commission (AFC) was an Australian government agency was founded in 1975 with a mandate to promote the creation and distribution of films in Australia as well as to preserve the country's film history. It also had a producti ...

. Australian Prime Minister

Gough Whitlam Edward Gough Whitlam (11 July 191621 October 2014) was the 21st prime minister of Australia, serving from 1972 to 1975. The longest-serving federal leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 1967 to 1977, he was notable for being the h ...

appeared in ''Barry McKenzie Holds His Own'', granting a damehood to McKenzie's aunt,

Character

The character was a parody of the boorish Australian overseas, particularly those residing in Britain – ignorant, loud, crude, drunk, and pugnacious – although McKenzie also proved popular with Australians because he embodied some of their positive characteristics: he was friendly, forthright, and straightforward with his British hosts, who themselves were often portrayed as stereotypes of pompous, arrogant, devious colonialists. McKenzie frequently employs

euphemism A euphemism () is an innocuous word or expression used in place of one that is deemed offensive or suggests something unpleasant. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, inoffensive terms for concepts that the user wishes ...

s for bodily functions or sexual allusions, one of the most well-known being "technicolour yawn" (

vomiting Vomiting (also known as emesis and throwing up) is the involuntary, forceful expulsion of the contents of one's stomach through the mouth and sometimes the nose. Vomiting can be the result of ailments like food poisoning, gastroenter ...

). The film popularised several Australian euphemisms and slang terms which are still used today in the Australian vernacular (such as "point Percy at the porcelain", "sink the sausage" and "flash the nasty"). Some of the sayings were invented by Humphries, while other terms were borrowed from existing

Australian slang Australian English is a major variety of the English language spoken throughout Australia. Most of the vocabulary of Australian English is shared with British English, though there are notable differences. The vocabulary of Australia is drawn ...

such as "chunder" and "up shit creek" (adopted by the Australian poetry magazine ''

Shit Creek Review ''The Shit Creek Review'' is an online literary and art magazine (webzine or e-zine). Its content is mostly related to poetry, and includes work belonging the differing styles of formalism and free verse by established authors and new writers. It ...

'').

Men at Work Men at Work are an Australian rock band formed in Melbourne in 1978 and best known for breakthrough hits such as " Down Under", "Who Can It Be Now?", " Be Good Johnny", " Overkill", and " It's a Mistake". Its founding member and frontman is C ...

lead singer

Colin Hay Colin James Hay (born 29 June 1953) is a Scottish-Australian musician, singer, songwriter, and actor. He came to prominence as the lead vocalist and the sole continuous member of the band Men at Work, and later as a solo artist. Hay's music ha ...

said that the lyrics for "

Down Under The term ''Down Under'' is a colloquialism which is differently construed to refer to Australia and New Zealand, or Pacific Island countries collectively.Oxford English Dictionary (Electronic), Version 4.0, entry fordown under. The dictionary r ...

" were inspired by the Barry McKenzie character. Down Under song information
Songfacts; Retrieved 27 January 2009

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mckenzie, Barry Comedy theatre characters Comedy film characters Ethnic humour

Barry McKenzie Barry McKenzie (full name: Barrington Bradman Bing McKenzie)Rebecca Coyle and Michael Hannan, La Trobe University, 2005 is a fictional character created in 1964 by the Australian comedian Barry Humphries (but suggested by Peter Cook) for a comic ...

Australian comics characters

Comics characters introduced in 1964 Theatre characters introduced in 1964 Private Eye Fictional Australian people Male characters in comics Male characters in theatre Male characters in film

Background

Books

Films

Character

See also

References