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Trevor Noah and Roger Federer board the 'wrong train' in perhaps the greatest tourism ad ever

It's clever, funny and incredibly effective.

MySwitzerland/YouTube

Roger Federer and Trevor Noah filming a Swiss tourism ad

What do you get when you combine comedian Trevor Noah, tennis legend Roger Federer and the world famous clock-making, chocolate-brewing, Alpine-skiing symbol of neutrality, Switzerland?

Apparently, a delightfully charming train ride through the Swiss countryside and perhaps the greatest tourism ad ever made.

Both Noah and Federer shared a tourism ad they collaborated on for the Grand Train Tour of Switzerland, and people are loving it. It's one of those ads that people don't care is an ad because it doesn't really feel like an ad and it's so enjoyable to watch. (It's also incredibly effective—like, give us alllll the train rides through Switzerland, please.)

The ad plays like a mini-documentary of Noah and Federer filming a Swiss tourism ad gone wrong. The two men—both of whom are half-Swiss in real life—appear to hop on the wrong train while arguing about whether or not the ad they are filming is funny (or whether it even should be).

What follows is a tale involving Swiss punctuality, hospitality and stunning natural beauty, all wrapped up in wholesome hilarity.

Check it out:

Thousands of commenters have chimed in with how enjoyable and effective they found the ad:

"This clip is brilliant and I am definitely going to travel on that train in Switzerland in the near future. Excellent work," wrote one commenter.

"Usually, I hate tourism ads because they're always so clichéd and unoriginal, but this one hooked me from the beginning," shared another. "Switzerland is such a beautiful country, and this ad singlehandedly convinced me so. Looking forward to this train ride sometime in the future! :)"

"This is criminally short!" wrote another. "I wish for a full hour! I can’t seem to get enough of them."

Noah and Federer shared their experience making the video with Financial Times, and their "behind the scenes" stories are as delightful as the ad itself.

Federer, who is an official Switzerland Tourism Ambassador, shared how much he has enjoyed making Swiss tourism ads with Robert DeNiro, Anne Hathaway, and of course, Trevor Noah. He said the shoot with Noah brought him back to his own childhood.

"I was always on trains, leaving home, looking out of the window, seeing the trees and the fields go by and thinking, 'Will I be a good tennis player? Will I not? Will I win, will I not?'" he said.

Several parts of the ad point to how strict the Swiss are about being on time, and Noah shared that there were a few instances while filming when a train really did almost take off with them inside.

"They weren't even going to hold it for us," he said. "We were like, 'Oh, we're making an ad,' and then they were like, 'Yeah, and the train has a schedule.'"

"We were laughing," Noah said, imagining what would have happened if a train really had left with them on it. "Like, would that become the meta joke? Does that become the joke in the joke?"

If you enjoyed the train tour ad, take a few minutes to see Noah and Federer share how it came to be and how much fun they had making it.

This article originally appeared on 4.5.23

From Your Site Articles

humor

How dogs and drones are slashing rescue times in thewake of natural disaster.

Well, this is incredibly cool.

An unlikely dynamic duo is changing the game for Swiss rescue operations needing to move quickly after natural disasters.

Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images.

Dogs...

Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images.

...and drones.

Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images.

The Swiss Federation of Civil Drones has partnered with the Swiss Association for Search and Rescue Dogs (REDOG) to complete a handful of missions — including one this week.

On Aug. 23, 2017, journalists at a press event were being shown how the dogs and drones work together during a rescue exercise on a grassy plain outside Zurich, when, incredibly, an actual landslide occurred in the Swiss Alps near the Italian border.

Drones and dogs were among the resources deployed to the region — a popular area for hikers.

As of this writing, eight people — from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland — were still missing following the landslide that rocked the remote village of Bondo, CNN reported.

— (@)

The tragic event — which forced an estimated four million cubic meters of mud and rock plummeting down the side of the Piz Cengalo mountain in southeastern Switzerland, the BBC reported — illustrates how vital it is to have resources like trained dogs and drone technology at the organizations' disposal.

Both organizations aim to eventually have drones complement the dogs' work on every rescue event.

“This allows us to have an eye in the air and a nose on the ground,” REDOG president Romaine Kuonen told AFP.

In the wake of natural disasters, drones are particularly helpful at scanning areas unsafe for people (and dogs) to venture, such as the dangerous terrain surrounding cliffs. At the same time, dogs are especially handy at sniffing out those who need rescuing in heavily wooded areas, where operating drones can be difficult.

Allowing dogs and drones to, in a sense, divide and conquer larger areas in the precious hours following a natural disaster — where rescue teams are racing against the clock to save lives, as they did in the wake of the Swiss avalanche — is truly changing the game.

Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images.

“The main benefit is to gain more time, to be more efficient and to be faster to find the missing person,” Dominique Peter of the Swiss Federation of Civil Drones explained to AFP.

Stay up to speed on the news unfolding in Bondo, and learn more about Swiss efforts to combine dogs and drones to save lives in a video by AFP below:

Heroes

Trump's climate plans are despairing most Americans. This Swiss plant is reason for hope.

Today in America, Donald Trump decided to leave the most significant climate treaty of the 21st century.

At a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden, the president announced that the U.S. would begin the process of pulling out of the Paris Agreement, which requires signatories to strive to limit global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius.

Meanwhile, in Switzerland, two engineers unveiled this baby:

Photo by Julia Dunlop/Climeworks.

As the U.S. plans to keep pumping out biggie-size amounts of carbon dioxide, the Swiss will be sucking the noxious planet-cooking gas out of the sky.

The Swiss plant, operated by Climeworks, is powered by waste heat and can capture 900 metric tons of CO2 annually, according to its designers.

The plan is to sell the trapped carbon to a local greenhouse for use in fertilizers.

"Highly scalable negative emission technologies are crucial if we are to stay below the two degree target of the international community," Christoph Gebald, co-founder and managing director of Climeworks, said in a press release.

The rest of the world is moving forward on climate change, and nearly 70% of Americans agree that we should too.

Unfortunately, with a climate change skeptic in the White House, repping the only major political party in the world that denies the effects of climate change, our government apparently plans to continue desperately sifting through various elements, rocks, and viscous liquids to see what else we can burn.

When America was apparently great. Photo by Gene Daniels/U.S. National Archives/Flickr.

Meanwhile, China and India — two of the world's largest non-U.S. polluters — are on track to blow past their Paris-mandated emissions targets. Yesterday, the European Union and China committed to remain in the agreement, regardless of U.S. action.

At the same time, the cost of solar energy is plummeting in the developing world, making it more affordable than ever. In India, solar power is already cheaper than burning coal in existing coal plants.

Climeworks plans to sell the CO2 captured in their plant to companies producing carbonated beverages and carbon-neutral fuel in the hopes of making carbon capture economically attractive.

Climeworks founders Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher. Photo by Julia Dunlop/Climeworks.

Because the plant captures CO2 directly from the air, it doesn't have to be located near a source of emissions — and can be installed virtually anywhere.

Innovations like these will continue to green the Earth and and grow the economy.

Occasionally, they even make their creators rich in the process. That's something America's free-market-loving political leaders — especially those who campaigned on running the government like a business — should be able to get on board with.

Slowly but surely, the world is realizing that uncooking the planet isn't just the right thing to do, it creates jobs, drives growth, and spurs investment.

Even the United States' biggest cities and states are moving forward, despite the Trump administration's decision to stay put. That's reason to hope.

Trump may be in favor of getting off the climate change train.

The rest of the world is saying, "All aboard."

An artist painted a giant man on a hillside. In 3 weeks, it will be gone.

A few weeks after its creation, this painting of a man relaxing in the grass, believed to be one of the largest ever, will disappear forever.

Photo by Alain Grosclaude/AFP/Getty Images.

Artist Saype said that his painting, entitled "What Makes a Great Man," is an attempt to reflect on the "relationship between human beings and nature."

The piece is 100% biodegradable, composed completely from materials Saype mixed himself.

Saype. Photo by Alain Grosclaude/AFP/Getty Images.

The media used to complete the fresco include flour, linseed oil, water, and natural pigments.

Saype chose Leysin, Switzerland, for the site, where the giant painting would be dwarfed by the mountains surrounding it.

"The idea is to paint a huge man compared to the real size of a man but really small compared to the mountains, the world," he said.

Saype conceived the project three years ago, and it required weeks of backbreaking labor to compete.

Photo by Alain Grosclaude/AFP/Getty Images.

Finishing the fresco required Saype to walk up and down the hill multiple times a day and paint very rapidly, often in an attempt to beat the rain.

At the end of each day, he filmed his progress with a drone to pick out mistakes and allow him to adjust if necessary.

As the grass grows and the rain falls, Saype's man will slowly warp, fade, and disintegrate.

Photo by Alain Grosclaude/AFP/Getty Images.

According to Saype, the painting's temporary existence is central to its design.

"The fact that it is short-lived reflects the idea that all is impermanent, nothing in our life lasts forever," he said.

Saype hopes the painting will inspire discussion about humanity's responsibility toward its environment.

Photo by Alain Grosclaude/AFP/Getty Images.

"I read ... some publications where scientists were saying that we are in a critical period where our generations are not aware about the disaster that they trigger on the ecosystem," he said. "In many years we will reach a non reversible point where it will be too late to get disengaged."

A 2014 United Nations panel concluded that drastic cuts to greenhouse emissions worldwide would be necessary to reverse, or slow, the effects of climate change. An agreement signed the following year commits the 197 signatories to hold global temperature rise under two degrees Celsius.

Saype explained that he began doing land art, in part, to make people question their role in shaping their surroundings.

"I am not a fervent ecologist," he said. "But it is a theme that I am interested in and I think that my generation must be more aware it."

Photo by Alain Grosclaude/AFP/Getty Images

What does he hope the painting will inspire in viewers' attitude toward nature?

"A touch of humility."

switzerland

Trevor Noah and Roger Federer board the 'wrong train' in perhaps the greatest tourism ad ever

It's clever, funny and incredibly effective.

How dogs and drones are slashing rescue times in thewake of natural disaster.

Well, this is incredibly cool.

An unlikely dynamic duo is changing the game for Swiss rescue operations needing to move quickly after natural disasters.

Dogs...

...and drones.

The Swiss Federation of Civil Drones has partnered with the Swiss Association for Search and Rescue Dogs (REDOG) to complete a handful of missions — including one this week.

Both organizations aim to eventually have drones complement the dogs' work on every rescue event.

Stay up to speed on the news unfolding in Bondo, and learn more about Swiss efforts to combine dogs and drones to save lives in a video by AFP below:

Trump's climate plans are despairing most Americans. This Swiss plant is reason for hope.

Today in America, Donald Trump decided to leave the most significant climate treaty of the 21st century.

Meanwhile, in Switzerland, two engineers unveiled this baby:

The Swiss plant, operated by Climeworks, is powered by waste heat and can capture 900 metric tons of CO2 annually, according to its designers.

The rest of the world is moving forward on climate change, and nearly 70% of Americans agree that we should too.

Climeworks plans to sell the CO2 captured in their plant to companies producing carbonated beverages and carbon-neutral fuel in the hopes of making carbon capture economically attractive.

Innovations like these will continue to green the Earth and and grow the economy.

An artist painted a giant man on a hillside. In 3 weeks, it will be gone.

A few weeks after its creation, this painting of a man relaxing in the grass, believed to be one of the largest ever, will disappear forever.

The piece is 100% biodegradable, composed completely from materials Saype mixed himself.

Saype conceived the project three years ago, and it required weeks of backbreaking labor to compete.

As the grass grows and the rain falls, Saype's man will slowly warp, fade, and disintegrate.

Saype hopes the painting will inspire discussion about humanity's responsibility toward its environment.

"I am not a fervent ecologist," he said. "But it is a theme that I am interested in and I think that my generation must be more aware it."

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