Melbourne Too Does Not Lack the Big Things

This send-up of poor quality tourist infomercials is superficially disparaging of Melbourne, but actually manages to affectionately capture a sense of the everyday, humdrum life of the city.

It would be an interesting exhibit in a discussion of whether Melbourne (or any city) has its own distinctive ethos, an issue discussed by Alan Davies here.

As I suggested in comments to that post, another video dripping in “Melbourne-ness” is this classic bit from The Late Show, which looks at the actual tourist attractions in Melbourne but highlights their pissiness. Interestingly, nearly twenty years on it has added interest as a time capsule of early 90s Melbourne, suggesting how quickly film and television can start to have value as a form of urban preservation (an issue I discussed here).