Friday, April 25, 2008

Bloody Gibberish


There are many puzzling questions that I have that may never be answered. Vexing conundrums that will always plague my natural curiosity.

Such as;

Did Lee Harvey Oswald really act alone to kill President Kennedy?

Is Elvis really still alive and making appearances at the local Burger King?

How did Dr. Phil get away with publishing a book on weight loss and fitness? Maybe Pac Man Jones should write a book about handgun safety.

But here is one that I find quite vexing; Do other countries use American or British sounding gibberish?

Let me explain.

In Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen is not speaking Kazakh. It’s some Hebrew and mostly nonsense covered with a thick Eastern European accent. We were none the wiser. Bill Hader has a recurring SNL character named Vinny Vedecci, an Italian chat show host that interviews people that don’t speak Italian. It’s brilliant, but Bill doesn’t speak Italian. It sounds like Italian though. Or how about John Belushi screaming “Japanese” when he was the Samurai in all his different occupations.

Good comedians or performers can sound like are speaking French, Spanish, Hindi, Japanese, Chinese or Russian. I imagine that native speakers of those tongues hear the performances and cringe. Maybe become angry, I don’t know.

With that being said, are there sketch comedy shows in Germany that people perform a dumb American speaking incomprehensible prattle that the viewing audience thinks sounds like a Texan? Or a Japanese game show (those are freaking hilarious) where a guy sounds British?

One problem could be that so many in other countries, especially in Europe, can speak at least some English. Maybe too many have a grasp on basic English so you can’t do British gibberish in a French sit-com.

I can’t find any examples of reverse English gobbledygook. It has to exist though. It would make my day to hear it.

Man, I really need to bring a book on the subway. My mind wanders after two stops into ridiculousness.

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