I suspect that if you talk very Australian-sounding Italian you'll probably get made fun of as well.

Possibly it's because some accents just don't go with some languages. I suspect that Germans who speak French with strong German accents probably get laughed at as well. Whereas French with an Italian or Spanish accent probably sounds more natural.

French-accented anything sounds sophisticated, though, because the French are sophisticated!

Al (yes, I'm a bit of a Francophile)