I just bought a copy of Our Dumb World: Atlas of the Planet Earth, 73rd Edition, the new humor book from the staff of The Onion. As a fan of geography, this made me laugh a lot more than Our Dumb Century did, although they’re both great books. Newsweek says it’s the best parody since National Lampoon’s Sunday Newspaper. I wouldn’t know, since I’ve never read it. But what I can say is that there’s a lot of stuff in there that’s funny based on facts in a way, proving that satire is just the truth with jokes. Every place from New Zealand (“All the locations…required for a major Hollywood blockbuster, and if they do not have it, they will simply create it in post”) to New Jersey (“Demanding People Shove It Up Their Ass Since 1832!”) gets a look, and even though I’ve only skimmed it so far, there’s a lot to laugh at. Among the things you will learn in this book are:
-The Contras invaded Nicaragua in the 1980s. Although there were only two of them, they were able to take over the whole country, presumably due to the strength they recieved with their “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, select, start” strategy.
-Stuff actually happened in Namibia before Angelina Jolie adopted a baby there.
-Central African Republic is, as the name implies, a generic discount republic where you can get AIDS for much less than those name-brand central African republics.
-Cameroon is the result of a mapmakers’ error. In 1775, Arthur Sayles accidentially drew a landmass inbetween the gulf which seperates Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea. The cartographic lie persists to this day.
-Nigeria needs help from abroad. Just send them your e-mail address and bank routing number.
-The Libyan flag symbolizes green.
-Besides being the home of the lovely and attractive Queen Rania, Jordan is also the home of the lovely and attractvie Queen Rania.
-When spoken, the Welsh language sounds like a beautiful song. When written, it looks like the alphabet exploded.
-The Vatican is Europe’s answer to Disneyland, a magical kindgom where guests are entertained by delightful costumed characters. (Boys under 12 admitted free!)
-Dan Marino accomplished more in his 17 years in the NFL than San Marino has in its 1700-year history. Luckily for the editors of this book, Dan Marino is not a country.
-The most popular cereal in Romania is Count Ceausescu.
-Northern Australia is home to the Paul Hogan Institute of Knife Identification. It is also home to an unusual language with phrases such as “g’day mate” ('hello friend") and “pass us a tinny you bugga” (“g’day mate”).
-And more! (This is not a fact. This is a statement telling you there are more facts in the book.)
I haven’t even seen Our Dumb World yet but I’m just chiming in to say National Lampoon’s Sunday Newspaper (The "Dacron (Ohio) Republican-Democrat) wasn’t quite as good as the 1964 High School Yearbook parody, but pretty damn funny in itself.
And the book inpired this joke - the audio CD version. Because I want to believe that the concept of an audio atlas in just another piece of spot-on satire from the comedic geniuses at The Onion.
I’d just like to chime in that as a fan of both maps (map-making, or “cartography” is one of my hobbies) and humor, this is the greatest book ever published. Although some of the humor is pretty lame (for many countries, it’s apparent the writers could only think of one joke or stereotype and then run it into the ground for every little factoid), I really admire the effort they took to cover THE ENTIRE WORLD, giving every country its own page and own fake map.
How does it compare to America: the Book? Seem like similar concepts, except for the latter’s focus on, well, America (though it does have a “world” section).
I just tried to search to see if there was a thread on this book a few hours ago, but my skills weren’t up to the task. I’m not even halfway through, but it is hilarious so far.
Leaper, they devote at least 15 pages to the US. It’s similar to America: The Book I suppose, just as funnier, and better than Colbert’s book. The summary for Canada says “For The United States, See Pages 9-22.” Someone seriously has a major thing in for Minnesota (one of the “Bullshit States” and “Land of 10,000 Retards.”
There are a few misses. Couldn’t they really have found something more interesting about Slovenia besides that it makes a lot of crates, or constant obscure references to South American countries’ exports. The Nicaragua one is great, and the brief summaries are sometimes the best part. Sure to offend, Armenia’s is “Wah, Wah, Wah, The Turks Were Mean To Us.” They did recycle some jokes from “Our Dumb Century.”
This shows just what a video game nerd I am (see my 5 page thread on the NES-a-day challenge). When I saw that all of the photos of Nicaragua were from Contra, I thought “jeez, do some research! Contra took place in SOUTH America!” … yes yes, I’m an idiot.
I also was having my doubts about Andorra (one of the countries in Europe I’ve never even HEARD of), so I read the entry on it in my 2008 NY Times Almanac …and sure enough, everything they wrote about it was true! However, I also had my doubts that the Monaco flag actually had a roulette wheel on it, and this time my instinct was correct. So one little annoying thing about this book is that its going to lead to a lot of mis-information, mixed in with some funny, but true information. I’m pretty sure that everything in America: The Book was actually true, aside from the obvious jokes added on, but it’s been a couple years since I looked at it. I saw America The Book in Border’s Bargain Bin for $5, btw.
I love this book. In fact I started a thread on it, but I won’t bother linking to it because nobody loves me and it got zero replies.
I love just picking it up and randomly reading about a country. The funny thing is they really pull no punches. No issue is too sensitive or is out of bounds, form Armenia whining about the Turks “Being mean to us” to the Aids epidemic in Africa, to the fact that Minnesotans are mentally deficient (I am from Wisconsin as are the authors of the book). I think it is brilliant whhen they anthropomorphize a country, like Micronesia (It I think) being one of the newer countries they write it up as if it was a petulant teen-ager.
Yeah, I’d say either one of the writers or eds is from their… or one of their enemies. I imagine anywhere they mentioned as the birthplace of comedy or genius is a hometown. Cute book.
I enjoyed it a lot. I thought the bit about Gambia owning all the water in Senegal was funny. The “Paul Hogan Knife Indentification Institute” in Australia.
The only downer was that after having meticulously doing every little country in the Carribean and Europe and Africa, they (I assume) got tired of making stuff up and didn’t bother on a few of the Pacific Island nations. I don’t know that anything of value was really missing there, but they were so complete with the rest of the world, it was a shame they didn’t follow through.
Eritrea, at 15, is the rebellious teenage country that refuses to listen to its estranged father Ethiopia. Micronesia’s 22 now, so I don’t know what it’s up to- it isn’t covered in the book (thought if it were, it would probably be one of the nations so lovingly described as “a bunch of fucking islands.” Like Tonga, which doesn’t exist.)
I think the blurb that made me laugh the most was “Democratic Republic of the Congo: Like A Zoo You Get Killed At.”
Look closely. Some of the smaller island countries are on there, but on the bottom half of the page, or are grouped together. It’s both funny and sad how many African countries are so overrun with AIDS and have similar problems. I admit, I get most of them mixed up, and this doesn’t really help.
As a cartographer (should I start a thread called “ask the catographer?”), I did find it very interesting how the book pointed out that 80% of Suriname (a country we bet you thought was in Africa) has not been mapped or throughly explored. I checked on the various online map programs, and sure enough, the maps are almost completely blank for that country.
Another funny one I just found: Kiribati’s claim to fame is that it’s that island you always see in magazine cartoons where people stranded on an island make some sort of ironic comment about modern life.
After reading through this book, I am now convinced that every atlas should have a “Monkeys They Got” subbar.
God fucking dammit, my college writing partner and I used that joke in a radio show during my senior year! Sigh. I’m sure we weren’t the first either.
The book does sound very funny, and I’ll pick it up when I can. I’ve gotten some solid laughs out of America: The Book, I Am America (and So Can You!) and the Onion’s past efforts, but they’re all better in their original forms.
