mental_floss magazine
SUBSCRIBE >
GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS >
DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS >
subscriber services >
Some of these are parodies, and some are for real — see if you can tell the difference!
Cleveland
Excerpts from this homemade ad were featured in Michael Moore’s new movie Capitalism: A Love Story.
I like the “second attempt” more:
Have a crappie time in Missouri
Apparently, Missouri is the crappie fishing capitol of the world. At one point, the announcer actually says “crappie destinations are everywhere in our state!”
Swiss mountain cleaning
You’ll love Switzerland — it’s one of the cleanest vacations destinations in the world. They even scrub the bird poop off their mountains!
The Salton Sea
Fifty years ago, the Salton Sea Yacht Club was a destination for pleasure-seeking tourists from all over the state of California.
Today, it is a scary abandoned craphole. (Check out my photo essay on the Salton Sea to find out what happened.)
Where the bloody Hell are you?
This Australian tourism ad was banned in Britain.
So where the bloody Hell are you (New Zealand version)
A humorous parody of the Australian ad. “We’ve cleaned most of the urine out of the pool!”
Invade New Zealand
The Aussies got back at the Kiwis with this parody of their “100% New Zealand” tourism spots.
No wonder they call it the Holy Land
This racy (but real) promo for tourism to Israel contains a few naughty words!
Banned Danish tourism ad
This caused a bit of an uproar when it came out last month. I could only find this version as reported by Fox News — sorry! They seemed to have pulled the original.
Comments (11)
Comment
- Follow mental_floss
Wow. Proof that Fox News is full of D-bags! Possibly the most obnoxious people I’ve heard all year.
posted by Mark on 9-28-2009 at 11:31 pm
Mark, did you get that from Wikipedia? CNN could’ve wrote that!
posted by ufluffed on 9-29-2009 at 12:12 am
LOL “Don’t slow down in East Cleveland”. No comment. I’m representing North Broadway, myself. I’m glad I didn’t know I lived within a few hundred feet of Kingsbury Run until AFTER we moved.
posted by Rachel on 9-29-2009 at 12:16 am
Oh Cleveland… my roommate and I are from Cleveland and we laughed throughout the entire videos. It’s all so true.
posted by Anne on 9-29-2009 at 12:47 am
i love the flossing of the mountain. I bet you $50 bucks that the guy cant find denmark on a map.
posted by Austen on 9-29-2009 at 12:57 am
The husband of her baby?
Wow, Fox is stupid.
posted by Kate on 9-29-2009 at 9:46 am
Just read the Kingsbury Run Murders link from the Cleveland Police Museum’s site. How utterly disgusting and facsinating at the same time…and who knew Eliot Ness was involved?
(theme of Untouchables just went through my head)
http://www.clevelandpolicemuseum.org/torso1.htm
posted by Helenann on 9-29-2009 at 10:34 am
whoops…Kinsbury, not Kingsbury…
posted by Helenann on 9-29-2009 at 10:34 am
I thought it was mentioned in the movie that Eliot Ness had worked in Cleveland, but I may be making that up and just knew that since I am from there. One of those tidbits you carry around in the back of your mind.
My folks didn’t share news stories with us much, but I think I remember my mom referring to the serial killings at least once when I was growing up, although they were long before I was around.
posted by hyacinth on 9-29-2009 at 12:49 pm
HA! i’m from Detroit and that Cleveland spot cracked me up!
ReCaptcha: enjoyed cleveland
posted by kat on 9-29-2009 at 3:22 pm
Um… Wow. Fox News has blown my mind yet again. Sure the ad may not have been the best move on the part of the Denmark Tourism board, but Fox has proved for the umteenth time that it is chock-full of rude, narrow-minded jerks. The fake accent? Denmark is not a country? I guess I just don’t find American superiority humor to be that amusing.
I did enjoy the other videos though. The Swiss Mountain Cleaning one had EXCELLENT production values for its topic!
posted by Claire on 9-29-2009 at 3:34 pm