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...And Where's Pac-Man? (10/3/02)
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Come and get 'em while they're still sizzling, folks-- Apple's new celebrity Switch ads are on the tube and up at Apple's servers, so click fast and click hard. The Tony Hawk spot to which we alluded a couple of days ago is now officially public, and there are a couple of other "Let's Dazzle The Public Into Spending Tons of Cash By Showing Endorsements by Famous People" commercials as well. Let the starstruck mass consumerism commence!
What's particularly interesting about these new celebrity Switch ads, though, is that Apple has apparently decided to institute a policy of only showcasing one specific kind of celebrity-- not TV stars, not rock stars, not even movie stars (well, okay, Tony did drive the Pizza Hut truck in Gleaming The Cube), but video game stars. Tony Hawk is, of course, the bundle of polygons chewing up the screen in the smash series of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games (so, when you think about it, it's a really amazingly fortunate coincidence that his hame just happens to be "Tony Hawk"), one of which is even available natively for the Mac. Kelly Slater, who also stars in a new Switch ad, is a newcomer to the video game world-- he was tapped to star in the brand new Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer game, presumably because his name happens to match the game title. Apparently a lot of video game stars get work that way.
And then of course there's Video Game Star Number Three, who's a lot more old-school than either Kelly or Tony. It's been over twenty years, of course, so it's no surprise that he looks a little different these days; he's no longer orange and fuzzy, for one thing, plus he appears to have outgrown that whole "armless and swearing" phase, but Q*Bert is back and it seems he's a Mac guy. He's also now a scratch DJ, apparently, which we admit is more than just a little surreal... but heck, we're fans from way back, so we suppose owe it to him to support his changing career direction. And his new career choice still involves spinning discs, so hey.
So there you have it: Apple's master scheme to win market share by exploiting Mac-using video game stars. Now all we need is a Switch ad that features Donkey Kong talking about how ditching his Wintel for a Mac finally let him finish off that pesky Mario once and for all. Then we can die happy.
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 10/3/02 episode: October 3, 2002: Hey, good news-- Apple and Sorenson have finally settled that lawsuit you've never heard about. Meanwhile, three new celebrity-based Switch ads hit the airwaves, and Apple drops the ball on the SuperDrive PowerBook as Sony ships the world's first DVD-burning notebooks...
Other scenes from that episode: 3762: So Who Did The What Now? (10/3/02) Oh, thank heaven-- Apple has just issued a press release announcing that it and Sorenson Media have settled their legal differences and now everybody's playing nicely on the playground again. We don't need to tell you just how much of a relief this is to us here at the AtAT compound, where we've been plagued by constant worry, chronic anxiety, and near-terminal insomnia over this lawsuit ever since it was filed last whenever ago... 3764: Second Out Of The Gate (10/3/02) Well, nurtz-- if you've been sitting around holding your breath for Apple to become the first company to ship a self-contained laptop capable of burning DVDs, you can finally exhale, because the dream is officially over...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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