This commercial
August 3, 2000 4:18 PM   Subscribe

This commercial looks familar. Didn't some other computer company do something similar back during the 1984 Super Bowl? I suppose imitation is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
posted by fpatrick (14 comments total)
 
yep. the commercial where all those drone-type folks were just sitting and staring at the screen and then that woman came in and busted up the screen?

gah. this one was just BAD nevermind it being a rip-off.
posted by sarajflemming at 4:23 PM on August 3, 2000


wow, the computer itself looks like some sort of Commodore64 knockoff (it uses a monitor or a tv!).
posted by mathowie at 4:24 PM on August 3, 2000


Aw, c'mon dude, why do you wanna talk down on the C64? I loved my C64! Oh, for those halcyon days of comma eight, comma one.
posted by wiremommy at 4:48 PM on August 3, 2000


Ahem.
posted by Athena at 10:19 PM on August 3, 2000


>>>>Didn't some other computer company do something similar back during the 1984 Super Bowl?<<<

You knew the year that the commercial was played?
That's quite a memory you have there.
posted by the webmistress at 11:30 PM on August 3, 2000


I don't think the year the commercial aired was arbitrary or coincidental. Makes it easy to remember.
posted by dan_of_brainlog at 1:29 AM on August 4, 2000


Indeed, the commercial is _named_ "1984." Legendary among Apple fanatics -- my friend the Mac lover has the 30-frames-per-second Quicktime file saved on his computer.
posted by werty at 6:54 AM on August 4, 2000


The '1984' ad is generally regarded as the single best TV commercial of all time. Lots of people know precisely when it aired.

And some of us are even aware that the Super Bowl wasn't the first, or only, time it ran. Apple ran it once on some backwoods independent station in the Pacific Northwest at around 3:00 am one morning in late 1993, because it had to air at some point in that calendar year in order to qualify for that year's advertising awards.
posted by aaron at 7:28 AM on August 4, 2000



Feh, 1983 I mean.
posted by aaron at 7:28 AM on August 4, 2000


Never mind that it's a take off on an important work of fiction that's titled 1984.
posted by alana at 8:02 AM on August 4, 2000


Fiction? You mean like a there was a book or something too? Whoa.
posted by chicobangs at 10:36 AM on August 4, 2000


What's a book?
posted by fpatrick at 10:55 AM on August 4, 2000


Ah. I'm not a TV person, or a Mac person (yet), so I wasn't aware of those things. Thank you all so very much for enlightening me.
posted by the webmistress at 11:31 AM on August 4, 2000


I don't know why people are slagging this ad. It's a little amusing ... even I, a highly paid network engineer, have been struggling with config issues lately and would gladly do something similar if it weren't something I spent a lot of money for. :-/

Kids, clue: Shakespeare reused plots. There's hardly any such thing as an "original idea".

For my part, I thought it was an amusing homage that takes full advantage of the fact that Apple barely used the ad they're most famous for.
posted by dhartung at 2:47 PM on August 4, 2000


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