‘The Good Place’ is Not Fooling Australians

There’s a fan theory doing the rounds that the ‘Australia’ depicted in the third season of The Good Place isn’t actually Australia but the after life. The basis for this theory is the accents. Australians…don’t talk like that. 

As someone who has been living in Australia for quite some time there’s a few other problems that would not even occur to an American production assistant. There’s some that is played for humour, but these are some subtle oversights.

‘Bonzer’

The first episode is named ‘Everything in Bonzer’.

It’s spelt ‘bonza’. You drongos.

Flags in the Classroom

When we see Chidi lecturing at the front of the classroom or his office you can spy a pair of flags on display in the corner or on his desk. One is the Australian national flag and the other is the nicely designed Indigenous Australian flag. I can understand why these are there, but they shouldn’t be. American’s like putting their flag in the corner of all their classrooms, so it makes sense to them that they’d have to swap it out for an Aussie one. Australian’s don’t do the flag in the classroom thing. It looks out of place. The Indigenous art in an education facility is pretty accurate though.

Peeps

My understanding is that ‘Peeps’ are some kind of marshmallow thing. We don’t have those. You’d have to go to a specialised US import store to find them. So Chidi finding a massive selection of them in the store is totally out of place. Most Australians wouldn’t know what a Peep is.

Chilli

Ditto. Not a common dish in Australia, we mostly know of it from that The Simpsons episode with Johnny Cash playing a jackal (I swear I almost typed ‘dingo’). A big display of canned chilli is also unlikely. We usually use the term to refer to the spicy plant.

Caffe Americano

Mr. Garoo’s coffee and scratchie shop (do you guys have scratchies? Do you call them something else?) sells something called ‘Caffe Americano’. This isn’t a thing. Walk into a Starbucks and try ordering one, you’ll be met with confusion. You want a ‘Long Black’.

Wait…this state doesn’t have Starbucks…

Sprinklers

During Chidi’s mental meltdown he stands in the middle of the grass even when the sprinkler’s come on. Putting your sprinklers on during the day is a bit of a no-no. The heat dries up the water, we’re encouraged to do it in the evening.

The Australian ‘Section’ in the Shops

You’re not going to find Milo, Bushell’s tea, Weet-Bix and Vegemite all in one small section at the end of aisles in the supermarket. They mostly go in different sections and definitely not shelved with scarfs and stuffed toys from souvenir shops. 

Accents

They’d just…really bad. Really, really bad.