Production
The episode was written by Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, and directed by Wes Archer. The writing staff wanted to do an episode where the Simpsons family traveled to Australia, because 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 American 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 amount of water in a toilet or sink is much too small to be affected by it.
In 1999, Fox Studios Australia in Sydney used a different version of "Bart vs. Australia" as part of their 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. The episode was re-edited and re-animated for the ride and new scenes were included. The attraction featured motion capture technology, allowing audience members faces and expressions to be transformed into moving cartoon characters.
Read more about this topic: Bart Vs. Australia
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“Just as modern mass production requires the standardization of commodities, so the social process requires standardization of man, and this standardization is called equality.”
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—Debbie Taylor (20th century)