It’s not easy to make image videos for countries or cities. It should create a certain atmosphere while being informal. It''s meant to present some attractions but without the use of too much clichés. It should be easily understandable but avoid being too didactic. Many amateurs and professionals have tried to make one. What follows is a compilation of some indeed poor attempts, though there must be even worse out there. If you have a favorite, do send it to us in your comment. We want to have some fun, too.

Hungary, king of animation You won’t believe how difficult it is to botch a country image video with a colossal budget. The main ingredients: take the state as sponsor, a tragically pathetic song with lousy keyboard and commonplace lyrics and a characterless singer. If the tone is somewhat sad, don’t worry, our national anthem won’t say otherwise. You will also need a cute but untalented child actor but maybe the most important is the uninteresting, overly didactic concept and script. Now, this video is even worse since it’s augmented with animations that are hard to describe indeed. (Editor: we learnt the following video is not imázsfilm but one made to boost Hungarian tourism.)

“Just enjoy the hope of sunlight, the all-resetting mystery of the moon”  It's a true but sad fact that once you get hold of a professional camera, there’s no mercy. Even if you say “if the world is offensively wild, take a step and see what’s nice”. I would but the never-ending cuts won't let me. Well, except if a sequence where the hair of a character is blown by the wind is slowed down. Now, then I can see. The creators succeeded in selecting the worst background music you can imagine. This NOX song could easily be even worse than the rest. The lyrics is worth a longer examination, find it here.

“I can see that people are bleeding for this ugly city.” This video has everything you might need. The Revolution of 1956 and the winter Budapestamong others. These can be seen in most of the videos in similar quality but this one made it on our list due to the lyrics reminiscent of a nursery rhyme (sorry, Géza Bereményi) and the music with its terrible guitar solos (no excuses, Róbert Hrutka). The only thing that makes it just a little lovable is Anikó Für’s cutely off-tune voice (regards, Anikó).

“My dear ladies and gentlemen” We left our absolute favorite to the end. We’d award this one the first prize. Attention! No matter how much you’d love to believe this was made in 1992, we’ll have to disappoint you: it’s a masterpiece from 2010. Leslie T. Eloed (apparently the international version of László Előd) had an exceptional sense of selecting the best people for both in front of and behind the cameras. The two main characters, the girl who smiles with a fluent English showing off her astonishing teeth and the azure lecher-looking man guides us through the attractions of Budapeston a chariot and on foot while you can listen to old songs from Pest. Every venue that would keep away tourists with even the slightest taste makes an appearance. Luckily the video is 'Not for sale' and this is made explicit throughout the whole clip. This is a video you should sit through with patience not missing one little bit. Thank you.