A Boofhead !!!
"No, this is the year of the boofhead on screen. Any given night on television, you'll see a dim guy - bit of a loser - with a half-embarrassed look on his face in some commercial.
If it's for bourbon, he'll be approaching a bar reciting a drinks order. But when he sees a busty barmaid with a brand-name on her top, his mind turns to mush.
Then there are the two surfers who turn down a swim with two pretty girls because they've just eaten a snack bar. The guy in the cinema queue clutching a bottle of flavoured milk who is offered a child's ticket. And the swimmer who stops to punch the air in triumph ... at the halfway mark of the race.
The land of Boofheadom is having a population explosion.
There are the guys who need the help of a polar bear dropping from a tree to meet some Swedish campers; the ute owner who fantasises about hauling a tanker from a cliff-edge; the air-guitarist selling us fried chicken.
And, a personal favourite, the boofhead who thinks his girlfriend is on a diet because she has a packet labelled "slim" by her bed. She shakes her head sadly, knowing that she is sleeping with someone the Australian Museum should have in a glass case marked "Not-So-Rare Australian Boofhead".
That ad is an unusual one for being aimed at women. The rest seem to be aimed at least partly at males. Even so, the not-so-bright guy usually loses out to a female.
The rise of Homo Boofheadus is not confined to the ads. The highest-rating comic character on Australian television - if you don't count Richard Carleton on 60 Minutes - is Russell Coight in All Aussie Adventures, pictured. The outback adventurer is a direct descendent of Strop from the Paul Hogan show and Nudge from Hey Dad.
In the latest weekly ratings, All Aussie Adventures had 1.60 million viewers, which made it the country's eighth-most-popular program. What's interesting is that this episode drew almost as many viewers (1.62 million) as when it first screened in August last year. Those figures for a summery evening during daylight saving show the character's popularity.
The boofhead is also featuring in cinemas as well. Mick Molloy plays a crabby, self-interested one in the lawn bowling comedy Crackerjack and the schoolies' week comedy Blurred is full of the teenage version.
It's no surprise that females enjoy the Australian male being portrayed as a knucklehead, but what about those being lampooned? The stereotype is presumably popular because we're buying the alcohol, cars or snacks they're promoting.
Creative director Garry Horner, from DDB Sydney, says males have no problem with comic commercials featuring losers. "Humour is always based largely at the expense of someone else. There's always a loser. But humour now is not about whether it's male or female, it's about 'is it clever?'."
Horner reckons no one looks at the guy in the Cougar commercial and says, 'That's me': "You always look at jokes and go, 'That isn't me'."
So there you have it. Guys love boofheads because they're not us. And apologies for mucking up that last drinks order."
