'1984' Commercial is 25 years old

Seth Weintraub
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January 22, 2009
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During the 3rd Quarter of Superbowl XVIII on this date in 1984, Apple released the famous '1984' commercial,  It has pretty much taken the top spot in all of the "Best Ads Ever" contests and people have been talking about it forever.  It also introduced a pretty important product. 

USC Alum Marcus Allen also had a great game that day for the L.A. Raiders.  I don't remember the Apple commercial (I was 10 and an Atari XE guy at the time), but I remember "that run"..

He heads left and is completely stopped. He spins around and heads back to the right. He swerves through a couple Redskins defenders, then hits a lane and he's gone. What I remember most was the way he just seemed to glide to the end zone. He wasn't running. He wasn't straining. He just glided past the defenders. Effortlessly pulling away from everyone.

 

Comments (7)

Chubbs (not verified) | January 22, 2009 - 4:16pm

Seth. We get it. You love USC football. Sheesh

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 22, 2009 - 4:23pm

Yeah baby! Although I liked the tecmo bowl version you had linked in my RSS feed....

admin | January 22, 2009 - 4:35pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNhOo0WRoO4

yeah that one was better. 

R (not verified) | January 22, 2009 - 5:05pm

Seems like the US has been getting a lot of political rhetoric just like the stuff from the guy on the screen.

Hm.

powers | January 23, 2009 - 7:30pm

By the way, anyone have predictions for tuesday? 

ulfoaf (not verified) | January 23, 2009 - 6:57am

I am now a huge Apple fan, and will buy nothing else. Commercials like this were major factors in many people, like me, feeling Apple was a smarmy and condescending company.

It was annoying because it told NOTHING about the product. It was mainly negative advertising against Big Blue. You had to watch the news to learn that Apple had this innovative new computer with something called a "mouse."

Another annoying one was the gal in the airport working on an Apple portable. She tells the guy having trouble with an IBM compatible, "I'm sorry, I don't know anything about computers."

And a REALLY annoying one was the office scene where they are printing out a color presentation. Some idiot looks dumbfounded at a minor accomplishment, and says "what kind of computer can do this?" Another guy takes a bite out of an Apple, and mumbles "MacIntosh."

I think Apple won back the hardcore tech geeks when they intoduced OS X. Before that, the message seemed to be "We are for technically inept people with a lot of money." My very little experience with the old Mac OS mainly consisted of annoying popups that said "You can't do that."

Times change, though. The Justin Long ones are excellent! I will not buy a Windows based machine ever again, and I love my Macbook and iPhone.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | January 24, 2009 - 10:05pm

This may be an interesting piece of advertising, but it really bares little to no impact to today's market. If you remember -- Apple all but nearly disappeared. Certainly it became irrelevant, 10 years after this commercial. What makes Apple great now are it's NEW products, and Steve Job's creative team into NEW markets. In many ways, the iPod resurrected the Mac.

This commercial can not really be seen as a touch stone for Apple anymore.

And also, though I love my Mac, independent thinking, at least within the Mac universe, is not really allowed, now is it. (e.g. you can have any screen finish you want, as long as it's glossy).

Love my Mac, but let's stop resurrecting this commercial.