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" was very popular, but Eye editor Richard Ingrams eventually dropped it on account of Humphries’ drinking and missing deadlines. Ingrams said that "Humphries was at that stage a serious alcoholic".
Books
The Private Eyecomic strips were compiled into three books, The Wonderful World of Barry McKenzie, in which McKenzie travels to Britain to claim his inheritance, followed by Bazza Pulls It Off!, 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 . The first two books were published in London 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 The three books and unpublished strips were compiled for The Complete Barry McKenzie: Not so Much a Legendary Strip, More a Resonant Social HistoryPer Se, which was published in 1988 and featured a preface by Sir Les Patterson.
Films
In 1972, the film The Adventures of Barry McKenzie was released, based on the first published book. In 1974, a sequel, Barry McKenzie Holds His Own, was made. The films starred Barry Crocker as McKenzie, and chronicled the character's adventures in Britain and France respectively. In the films, McKenzie is the nephew of another of Humphries' characters, Edna Everage. Despite the banning of The Wonderful World of Barry McKenzie in Australia, the films received considerable support from the Australian government of John Gorton, becoming the first to receive funding from the Australian Film Development Commission. Australian Prime MinisterGough Whitlam appeared in Barry McKenzie Holds His Own, granting a damehood to McKenzie's aunt, Edna Everage.
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 euphemisms for bodily functions or sexual allusions, one of the most well-known being "technicolour yawn". The film popularised several Australian euphemisms and slang terms which are still used today in the Australian vernacular. Some of the sayings were invented by Humphries, while other terms were borrowed from existing Australian slang such as "chunder" and "up shit creek". Men at Worklead singerColin Hay said that the lyrics for "Down Under" were inspired by the Barry McKenzie character.
