Americans finally watch Kath & Kim - and lose their minds

A whole new international audience just discovered the iconic Aussie comedy - and they have a lot of questions.

A whole new international audience just discovered classic Australian comedy series Kath and Kim, thanks to the hosts of a popular Netflix recap show.

Drag queens Trixie Mattel and Katya host the streaming giant’s I Like To Watch YouTube series, which sees them watch and react to snippets of shows and films available on Netflix.

Their latest half-hour episode was entirely devoted to Kath and Kim, and perhaps surprisingly given the show’s devoted LGBTQ fanbase worldwide, the two former Drag Race stars confessed they’d never seen the show and weren’t too familiar with it.

Within minutes, though, they were converted - although both struggled with the Broad Australian accents on display in Fountain Lakes.

For any Aussie who’s watched Kath and Kim more times than they care to admit over the past 20-odd years, it’s quite the trip to watch highlights from the show through an entirely new set of eyes.

This show is blowing their American minds.

Look at moi ploise.

“How did these women think of these characters?” Trixie asks at one point, mouth agape.

Both queens - no strangers to the world of wigs themselves - marvel at Jane Turner and Gina Riley’s wig work as they flit between playing Kath and Kim, Prue and Trude, and other occasional side characters.

The character’s ages baffled them, as they asked how exactly viewers are meant to believe that Kath and Kim are mother and daughter when they look about the same age (indeed, Riley and Turner were born just six months apart).

“[Are they] 42, or 70, or 35?” Katya asks. “I don’t know what their age gap is, but either could be mother or daughter.”

“I love that they’re pretending there’s enough of an age gap for that person to give birth to that person,” says Trixie.

Between the laughs, there’s a lot of confusion: “What are ‘connubials’? What is ‘piss-elegant?’ And do Australians realise how bizarre they sound to the rest of the world?

Both queens respected the extensive wig work on display.

“The Australian accent... you have to get your sea legs. It’s hitting me like a foreign language,” a bewildered Trixie says at one point.

The first appearance of yuppies Prue and Trude, cooing about Noooosa and jojoba, leaves them momentarily speechless.

“Australian people, please give me a guide to these accents. Is this a posh Australian accent?” asks Trixie.

Foxy moron Kel Knight gets a special shout-out from Trixie that will have Kath seething with jealousy: “I love men covered in body hair like that. If you look like something you’d pull out of a lint trap in a dryer, just take your clothes off and run at me full-speed.”

Katya kracks up at a Kylie kameo.

And there are gasps all around when pop icon Kylie Minogue makes her cameo as Kim’s daughter, Epponnee-Raelene Kathleen Darlene Charlene Craig (a long and preposterous name for a long and preposterous life).

By the end of the episode, both queens have called it: Kath and Kim is their new favourite show. Both are hooked on these “wonderfully weird Australian women and their hunks of spunk.”

Trixie calls it “one of the best things I’ve seen in a long time,” and Katya goes one further: “This is the best thing we’ve ever watched on this couch.”

“Jane and Gina, you are geniuses,” she says.

You can watch the full episode on YouTube, where its currently amassed more than three-quarters of a million views.

Originally published as Americans finally watch Kath & Kim - and lose their minds