Why that Swiss flag?

Now lookie here, even though transatlantic shipping was considerably more expensive in the 80s than it is now, our kids in Stranger Things 3 heal themselves using entire suitcases of imported Swiss chocolate (bottom left next to the character portrait):

This is not the first time the Stranger Things team makes this mistake, look at the lifeguard fanny pack Eleven and Max find:

You can clearly see that this isn’t watertight. It would never keep your Swiss chocolate in edible shape. Boo. Boo, Netflix. 10 points docked for ruining our suspension of disbelief.

In this game, your sled dogs get mauled by a bear, but not to worry: You have a pack of Swiss playing cards with you to pass the time.

These cards will probably be used to play Jass. Not sure how you play that with just one person, but maybe the developer, Timberline Studio, knows. Screenshot stolen from Nintendo.

I have to retract my praise for this game and turn it into blame! While the medkits in the game are not actually shown and their icon is black and white in the inventory, first aid storage cupboards at least use the correct colors on their labels:

But pharmacies are labeled with the Swiss national flag, even in the square shape:

I didn’t have the patience to wait for the light to hit that sign. The only thing that’s wrong with this Swiss flag is that the ratio between the cross and the rest is messed up. The cross is slightly oversized. Other than that, stellar job marking the Swiss embassy (and disguising it as a pharmacy, no less!)

The developers of digging simulator Volcanoids were clearly impressed by Swiss engineering, particularly the construction of the world’s longest tunnel that we finished in 2016. The Swiss enjoy drilling holes into mountains just as much as into cheese. That’s why in Volcanoids, you get little tubes filled with Swiss chocolate and labeled with the Swiss flag to refill your health:

Screenshot stolen from Hex DSL’s video on the game.

EA direct our attention to yet another famous Swiss healing item: bags of Swiss CBD weed, ready to smoke:

I applaud EA for their foresight in transplanting the miracle drug we take for granted nowadays back into World War 2. I’m sure the soldiers appreciate this slight historical inaccuracy.

Thanks to Mack for making the video I stole this screenshot from.

In Last Year: The Nightmare it looks like some adolescents got drunk on the same Swiss liqueur that we know from Donkey Kong Country — see the heart-shaped bottle with the Swiss cross in the lower right corner?

But the punishment for underage drinking is swift and appears to involve the ripping out of spinal cords. Brutal but quite surely effective. Also, one must wonder if these kids played DKC when they grew up and that inspired them to become alcoholics. Someone at Nintendo should take note.

Fanatical‘s Jumbo Bundle logo appears to tell the story of a lonely Swiss millionaire in his Swiss helicopter, out to save his friend from a mountain mishap:

To be fair, Switzerland does have a famous international helicopter rescue organization, Rega, but I can’t imagine that this was a nod to them.

You would expect better from neighbors of Switzerland Rammstein, but perhaps they actually recorded this video in California, where lifeguards are labelled with the internationally recognized symbol of “Swiss cross”:

Dangerous, boys. If you enter Switzerland in those trunks, people will think you are some foolish Swiss nationalists or football hooligans instead of the proud, muscular German industrial workers that you are.

Donkey Kong is a drunkard! Why do we know this? Because drinking Swiss cherry liqueur from a weird wood-framed bottle gets him a “heart boost”. Cirrhosis of the liver, more likely:

There are multiple things wrong with this situation, not the least of which that the Swiss cross is slightly too thin, the bottle has no obvious opening and the price is way too low. Röteli for a mere 10 gold coins? In Switzerland? Not bloody likely.

The only heart-shaped liqueur bottle I know comes from Germany and is actually arse-shaped:

Proper Swiss Röteli bottles have the decency to come in normal shapes instead:

The screenshot above was stolen from The Geek Critique’s excellent coverage of the Donkey Kong reboots.

In a not-so-distant but very dystopian future, the neon is bright, the streets rain-slick, and Swiss chocolate is delivered via nanoteleporter directly into your system. You can see this in a screenshot from Ruiner:

If you step into one of the fields that are clearly labeled with the Swiss cross (and even square like the Swiss flag), nanomites crawl into your nose to simulate the taste of delicious Swiss chocolate made with the freshest milk from the Alps, perhaps gathered by Heidi herself; although I hear she’s more into goats. Once you’ve had your taste, the mites enter your bloodstream where they construct sugar molecules to nourish your body. That also explains why setting foot on a Swiss flag heals you in this game.

For shame, Reikon Games, for shame.