Looking Back On '1984'
On this, the Sunday of Super Bowl XLII, ESPN.com writer Michael Weinreb reflects on what he calls "the commercial that ruined that Super Bowl" -- the now legendary "1984" ad for the Apple Macintosh computer. "It was the first and only Super Bowl spot driven by German Expressionism sensibilities and obvious literary allusions to the work of a British intellectual author," he writes. "Its featured character was a spiky-haired woman dressed up like a Hooters waitress and toting a massive sledgehammer, and its message managed to be both subversive and sneakily capitalistic, dismissive of its direct competitor, IBM, as a 'Big Brother' figure straight out of George Orwell's '1984.'" More than 70,000 Macs were sold within the first 100 days of the ad's airing, exceeding the company's goals by 50 percent. Watch the nostalgic ad above. Read Weinreb's missive here.
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