Originally published at: Watch: Yakko's World, sung by the actual countries' leaders | Boing Boing
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A youtube version that includes flags of the world, too!
It repeats halfway through…
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Shouldn’t be too hard (but damn tedious) to nail down every states’ governor providing a clip for every “state and its capitol” ala Wakko…
(could have Gilbert Gottfried do the voice for a couple of select currently vile governors)
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RIP Czechoslovakia, North and South Yemen, Kampuchea, Yugoslavia and Zaire. May a generation of children remember your names because they memorized a song and ignored the complex sociopolitical reality of nation states.
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As sad as it is, there are likely a lot of people who only even know of the very existence of many of those countries because of a silly clip on Animaniacs; expecting folks to actually have any knowledge about the socio-political workings of those nations as well seems like an exercise in futility.
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Now, anyone who would trade their national leaders for an Animaniacs Junta say HELLO NURSE!
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I personally find it more important to know how to know something. I’ve always hated pure memorization.
If I’m honest the only reason I know that a song like this can become outdated is I learned at a young age that countries can cease to exist. As a kid in 1990’s there was a big discussion in my school district about the cost of changing all the maps in the district. When I was in 5th grade (around ~1996) my classroom was one of the first to have a map that didn’t have the Soviet Union printed on it. It then became my hobby in middle school to try to find the classrooms that still had the Soviet Union printed on the maps.
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Hmmm.
That statement inherently (and perhaps uncharitably) implies that others do not, for some reason.
I don’t dispute the contention that rote memorization is not really learning.
I was an undergrad student at that time.
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Obligs:
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I’ve felt wind in my hair, riding test boats off the black galaxies and seen an attack fleet burn like a match and disappear. I’ve seen it, felt it…! Czechoslovakia, East Pakistan, Burma, South Vietnam, Ceylon, East Germany….all gone…like tears in the rain.
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Perhaps a better way to put it is I value the process of finding things out more than I value the answer. I work in a place that is very by the book and the book contradicts itself. So it could be some workplace angst slipping out.
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Now I’m curious: is there any currently named country that has had the same name and the same borders for the past 500 years?
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Japan (日本) has had the same name for over a thousand years, though the kanji can be and has been read in different ways.
The borders have remained the same if you discount ongoing disputes with China, Russia and Korea over some tiny islands and the fact that Okinawa and Hokkaido were independent from Japan before modernization.
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Ooooh, good question. Same name and border? Language changes alone will make that one tricky
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Let’s start with England, Scotland and Wales
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Wales was my first guess, but 1536 makes it just below the 500 year cut.
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I think they had a hiatus from being countries under the Kingdom of Great Britain.
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