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Complete Barry McKenzie
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
21 people want to read
About the author
Barry Humphries
47 books19 followersJohn Barry Humphries was an Australian comedian, satirist, dadaist, artist, author and character actor, best known for his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage, a Melbourne housewife and "gigastar", and Sir Les Patterson, Australia's foul-mouthed cultural attaché to the Court of St. James's. He was a film producer and script writer, a star of London's West End musical theatre, an award-winning writer and an accomplished landscape painter.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 6, 2012
Prurient, scatological, disgusting, demented, sexist, nauseating and very, very funny. Brilliant satire from the man who introduced Dame Edna and Sir Les Patterson to the world. Great stuff for those with a strong stomach who enjoy sick humor. It's a lot smarter than it pretends to be and a lot better than the movies it spawned. Prepare to be thoroughly offended...
August 8, 2015
Brilliant Bazza! As good as it got in the sixties, yet still funny today.
December 24, 2023
I first came across Bazza McKenzie in book form when I was a kid and my father had a copy of the first compilation volume of cartoon strips that forms part of this omnibus edition. As it was a rather 'naughty' book and in no small part to it being filled with naughty words, and not usually on display at home, I often tried to take a peek at it. Dad kept it with his imported US Playboy mags...it was in his very 'adult' stash of stuff a little boy of 8 or so shouldn't look at.
Come forward a few more years into the early 80s and I was all over Bazza. I'd seen the first movie adaptation, picked up a copy of the third volume of strips (that also forms part of this book) and had a mate who even had the Bazza McKenzie LP. Barry Humphries's iconic innocent Australian abroad was well on my radar. I had a good working knowledge, memory of all the crude slang terms and found the references to chundering, featuring and nudging the turps very funny indeed.
Now, having re-read this book (which I think I purchased in the early 90s) I have to say that my perspective on the work as a whole, and on Humphries's comic vision has diminished a little. To be blunt, 'The Complete Barry McKenzie' is not very funny now except in a nostalgic, 'this is pretty off' kind of way. Now that's not necessarily a fair criticism of the text; it hasn't changed. No, what has changed is me and the amount of time that has passed.
Perhaps what is the most worthy aspect of 'The Complete Barry McKenzie' is that it is a very useful cultural artefact of Australian social history (and by association Britain in the 1960s). To read Bazza now is not to go trawling for crude and lewd guffaws provoked by a broad-drimmed hat wearing Antipodean Candide. No; it's all about seeing how one of Australia's most energetic, perceptive and controversial cultural icons of the last 60 years deconstructed and satirised what it meant to be Australian. There is an article where one critic of the film says that McKenzie is all about Humphries showing up how crass and rubbish 'old' Britain was with the mirror of the crass and rubbish 'new' Australia. I think that just about nails the book too.
If I was going to recommend this book it would be primarily to those who enjoy Humphries's work. Then, the next audience will be those wanting to get a handle on popular culture and comedic writing in Britain and Australia in the late 1960s. Finally, it is worth a look for those who want to know a bit about how much we have changed since the Barry McKenzie comic strips were published.
Come forward a few more years into the early 80s and I was all over Bazza. I'd seen the first movie adaptation, picked up a copy of the third volume of strips (that also forms part of this book) and had a mate who even had the Bazza McKenzie LP. Barry Humphries's iconic innocent Australian abroad was well on my radar. I had a good working knowledge, memory of all the crude slang terms and found the references to chundering, featuring and nudging the turps very funny indeed.
Now, having re-read this book (which I think I purchased in the early 90s) I have to say that my perspective on the work as a whole, and on Humphries's comic vision has diminished a little. To be blunt, 'The Complete Barry McKenzie' is not very funny now except in a nostalgic, 'this is pretty off' kind of way. Now that's not necessarily a fair criticism of the text; it hasn't changed. No, what has changed is me and the amount of time that has passed.
Perhaps what is the most worthy aspect of 'The Complete Barry McKenzie' is that it is a very useful cultural artefact of Australian social history (and by association Britain in the 1960s). To read Bazza now is not to go trawling for crude and lewd guffaws provoked by a broad-drimmed hat wearing Antipodean Candide. No; it's all about seeing how one of Australia's most energetic, perceptive and controversial cultural icons of the last 60 years deconstructed and satirised what it meant to be Australian. There is an article where one critic of the film says that McKenzie is all about Humphries showing up how crass and rubbish 'old' Britain was with the mirror of the crass and rubbish 'new' Australia. I think that just about nails the book too.
If I was going to recommend this book it would be primarily to those who enjoy Humphries's work. Then, the next audience will be those wanting to get a handle on popular culture and comedic writing in Britain and Australia in the late 1960s. Finally, it is worth a look for those who want to know a bit about how much we have changed since the Barry McKenzie comic strips were published.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews