Remember this Energizer battery TV commercial from back in the 80s?
That’s Mark “Jacko” Jackson, a famous (infamous, perhaps) Australian Rules Football player. I have no idea why an American company hired an unknown Aussie spokesman like Jackson, but he was such a manic, wacky character that I always loved this campaign. I may have been one of the few who did.
But that’s beside the point.
At the end of this commercial, Jackson looks into the camera and says, “Energizer! Oi!”
Jamie and I were talking about Aussie lingo today and one of us said, “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi!” We both laughed. It makes absolutely no sense to Americans, but it’s chanted at Aussie athletic events and is roughly equivalent to American sports fans chanting, “U.S.A., U.S.A.” “Oi” is the Aussie version of “Hey!”
The best is when one fan, or maybe one side of a stadium screams, “Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!”, and the rest of the crowd responds with, “Oi! Oi! Oi!”
Just another one of those odd Aussie-isms that we love.
Here. I found a YouTube video compilation of a lot of different Aussies doing the chant. So much fun.