Australia is about to come under attack in the hit cartoon show /The Simpsons/, Lisa Simpson's alter ego Yeardley Smith warned in Brisbane yesterday.

Yeardley, who does the voice of Bart's sister Lisa, is in Brisbane today agter attending Network Ten Queensland's 30th birthday celebrations yesterday.

And she was quick to distance herself from an upcoming episode of /The Simpsons/ in which bratty Bart travels down under and lampoons Australia.

"Thank heaven this episode hasn't aired here yet. I just want to say it wasn't my idea, I had nothing to do with it," Yeardley said with a laugh.

"(Bart) sticks his hand in a kangaroo pouch and apparently it's all gooey in there but then I'm told that's not true.

"So I want to see if it's all mucusy and gross. The way (the writers) told it it was full of snot.

"I just hope I'm out of the country before that one airs."

Today Yeardley is off to pat a koala and test out the kangaroos.

In person Yeardley is not unlike Lisa Simpson, the saxophone-playing, intelligent, middle child who is in constant conflict with her father Homer.

Yeardley, who turns 31 tomorrow, only has to exclaim or giggle and she sounds just like Lisa but the similarity is also mental.

"Lisa Simpson and I are quite similar," she said.

In Australia Yeardley is not just heard on the Channel Ten cartoon. Her face is known after playing the boss's secretary in the sitcom /Herman's Head/ as well as a brief scene playing a supermarket checkout operator in the film /City Slickers/.

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Photo is Yeardley Smith being hugged by a (huge!) stuffed Lisa Simpson doll (she comes up to the bottom of its eyeballs); the caption reads:

Yeardley Smith and her alter ego Lisa Simpson... `it wasn't my idea'