on his death one of his friends could free his captive Aborigines : `` Let my Abos go loose , they 're of no further use , so let my Abos go loose . '' A famous Australian illustrator known as Joliffe made his fame and fortune in a long-running cartoon depicting Aborigines as dim-witted , thick browed , naked , creatures from the stone age . It is not just indigenous Australians who have borne the brunt of these so-called jokes . Watch Connick 's reaction to the ` blackface Jacksons ' '' After World War II a new wave of immigrants arrived from southern Europe . Australians unused to such foreigners with odd sounding languages and strange smelling food quickly labeled the new comers ` wogs . ' In the 1960s a popular film `` They 're A Weird Mob '' mocked one of these immigrants for his poor English and strange customs . He finally wins approval by marrying his boss ' daughter , a good Anglo Aussie , learning to swear and drink copious beers . There are just a few quick examples -- there are many , many others -- of how Australians use mockery
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- That Australia is once again defending itself against claims of racism is not surprising . Harry Connick Jr. gave the comedy skit a zero mark . That the cause of the furor is a childish , inappropriate racial ` joke ' is even less of a surprise . Australian popular culture has a long held an often embarrassing tradition of wrapping racism in supposed humor . Movie star and singer Harry Connick Jr . condemned on air an Australian television skit featuring a group of performers who wore blackface to impersonate the late pop star Michael Jackson and his brothers . Connick was a judge on the Australian variety show `` Hey Hey It 's Saturday , '' when the blackface group `` Jackson Jive '' performed `` Can You Feel It '' wearing huge black wigs , blackface and one spangled glove each . The Michael Jackson impersonator wore whiteface . In the 1950s a popular song lampooned a ` misfit ' Aborigine whose ` boomerang wo n't come back . ' Popular entertainer Rolf Harris was even less sensitive in a verse of his song `` Tie me kangaroo down sport '' proclaiming that