Flags of the world

December 7, 2006 4:07 PM

Flags of the world... with client comments. Oh, Canada :( flash video
posted by boo_radley (32 comments total)

Everything's funnier with completely inappropriate music that sounds like it's from Star Control II.

Liberia's was hilarious, though.
posted by metaly at 4:23 PM on December 7, 2006

Wait, 52 stars?
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 4:27 PM on December 7, 2006

Before I clicked I could have sworn this was going to be a double-post of this.

But since it isn't you should go look at that, too.
posted by Mwongozi at 4:33 PM on December 7, 2006

Wait, 52 stars?

I understood the extra two to be for Canada and the UK. It's a reasonably common joke in Britain.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 4:33 PM on December 7, 2006

You'd think someone would have told Canada that joke. ... On second thought, we would be horribly appalled and not talk to the UK for, like, all of math class, oh my god, seriously.
posted by blacklite at 4:38 PM on December 7, 2006 [2 favorites]

I understood the extra two to be for Canada and the UK. It's a reasonably common joke in Britain.


Don't forget Poland!
posted by mrnutty at 4:38 PM on December 7, 2006

Brilliant! Loved the "52 x stars" joke...
posted by clevershark at 4:40 PM on December 7, 2006

The 52 stars thing was a joke. I wish their redesigns could have been a little funnier, but great concept.

Also, does anyone remember Conan O'Brien having some gag where he planned on insulting every nation in the world? I saw a part of that once and it was quite funny. Is that collected anywhere?
posted by Falconetti at 4:40 PM on December 7, 2006

I had never equated the Russian Federation flag and Aquafresh until this moment. Thank you.

I'm off to brush my teeth with some polonium now.
posted by randomination at 4:47 PM on December 7, 2006

"The world's flags given letter grades" is still one of the funniest, most deadpan things I've seen on the internet. Beat me to it Mowongozi!
posted by jcruelty at 5:10 PM on December 7, 2006

"The world's flags given letter grades" is pretty hilarious, but I have trouble forgiving them for only giving Albania a 65/100. Because seriously. That flag fucking rocks.
posted by bookish at 5:16 PM on December 7, 2006

> Wait, 52 stars?

It's always got to be about America, doesn't it?

:D
posted by elmwood at 5:46 PM on December 7, 2006

2 stars == iraq && israel
posted by furtive at 5:59 PM on December 7, 2006

The the rebranded UK flag was worth a second look.
posted by furtive at 5:59 PM on December 7, 2006

See, this is why I come here - pure entertainment value!
posted by winks007 at 6:10 PM on December 7, 2006

Furtive's reasoning was what I assumed.
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 6:23 PM on December 7, 2006

Mwongozi, that is too funny. My wife and I got a real kick out the comments, Libya - did you even try? Still funny.
posted by winks007 at 6:24 PM on December 7, 2006

I liked it. I'm a bit dense though... who is "the client?"
posted by arcticwoman at 8:49 PM on December 7, 2006

They ran out of jokes after like 3 flags, but the Somalia and Liberia ones were good.

Pedantry: The UK flag has the diagonal red bars in the wrong place to begin with. And of course the flag of "Great Britain" has no bars.
posted by cillit bang at 8:56 PM on December 7, 2006

Flagged
posted by bunglin jones at 9:26 PM on December 7, 2006

Flagged
posted by tehloki at 10:01 PM on December 7, 2006

I liked it. I'm a bit dense though... who is "the client?"

Well if you are a designer, it's the unappreciative philistine who pays your rent.
posted by ernie at 10:34 PM on December 7, 2006

I liked it. I'm a bit dense though... who is "the client?"

Well if you are a designer, it's the person you feel smugly superior to, making it amusing to ridicule their requests while sitting in the aeron chair they paid for.
posted by rokusan at 11:11 PM on December 7, 2006 [1 favorite]

neat
posted by zouhair at 11:12 PM on December 7, 2006

Well if you are a designer, it's the unappreciative philistine who pays your rent.

Well if you are a designer, it's the person you feel smugly superior to, making it amusing to ridicule their requests while sitting in the aeron chair they paid for.

You guys are cute, and I want you to have babies together.
posted by secret about box at 11:51 PM on December 7, 2006

The Japanese flag works in any colour.
posted by headlessness at 1:50 AM on December 8, 2006

If the several anecdotes about it in this amusing comment thread are true, the notion that the U.S. has 52 states is a pretty common misconception in Europe. Explanations mentioned include "Puerto Rico and DC are states" and "it used to be 50 but Alaska and Hawaii were 51 and 52".

The question then becomes, is the mention of "52 states" in the flags video an instance of this misconception, or a meta-joke making fun of this misconception? (It is, after all, impossible to count those stars...)
posted by The Tensor at 3:18 AM on December 8, 2006

It would be really funny if weren't a painful reminder of how the Toronto Raptors came to be..
posted by srboisvert at 6:09 AM on December 8, 2006 [1 favorite]

The Tensor writes "The question then becomes, is the mention of '52 states' in the flags video an instance of this misconception, or a meta-joke making fun of this misconception? (It is, after all, impossible to count those stars...)"

Actually I thought the underlying joke was that Americans themselves weren't sure how states they had (you know, 'bad at geography' and all that jazz).
posted by clevershark at 7:54 AM on December 8, 2006

It didn't really make me laugh, and it's a bit of a rip of that Microsoft iPod box movie.

But nice try though.
posted by fungible at 8:35 AM on December 8, 2006

Mwongozi, thank you so much for your link, never seen it before and it hit my sweet spot, as a teacher who grades papaers and a lover of flage... quite a few moments laughing out loud.

To recieve an F, a flag had to be so awful that its level of badness was clearly qualitatively different from that of any flag receiving a D. I had to feel that a country receiving an F had really set out to create a genuinely horrible flag, or didn't really know what a flag was. One prominent vexillologist I consulted put it thus: "Some countries' flags look like tea towels. If you'd rather be using the flag as a tea towel, and your tea towel as the flag, give it an F."

Rule 1: Do not write the name of your country on your flag.
posted by Meatbomb at 9:39 AM on December 8, 2006

Yeah, I know how to spellcheck... papers, flags.
sigh
posted by Meatbomb at 9:40 AM on December 8, 2006