No Seinfeld for You

Susie Ochs — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:24:14 -0500

So long, and thanks for all the churros. Yes, after a 90-second TV spot and a 4-and-a-half-minute opus of zuh???, it seems that Microsoft is done making commercials with Jerry Seinfeld, at least for the time being.

Now, instead of the Bill-and-Jerry's-Nonsensical-Blathering style of WTF commercials, we'll see the Redmond Giant attempt to take back the phrase "I'm a PC," spoken so many times by John Hodgman in Apple's "Get a Mac" ad campaign. In fact, the first spot, which will debut tonight during the season premiere of "The Office," will even have a Hodgman lookalike saying, "Hello, I'm a PC, and I've been made into a stereotype."

The new ads will also feature celebrities like Eva Longoria, Deepak Chopra, and Pharrell Williams, along with everyday PC users and 60-odd Microsoft employees. (Maybe some familiar faces from this video? We can only pray.)

If you think this sounds like a rehash of the "Get a Mac" commercials, you're exactly right. Microsoft's general manager for brand marketing, David Webster, says of Apple's campaign, "They've made a caricature out of the PC. You always want to tell you own story." This new approach is designed to let Microsoft "take back that narrative."

Um, hello? Where have they been for the last two years? Those "Get a Mac" ads started airing in the U.S. in May 2006. And while it wouldn't be fair to expect Microsoft to immediately respond to barbs from a competitor whose market share is handily dwarfed by its own, this late follow-up seems odd too. A lookalike version of something Apple has done successfully for years? It's the advertising equivalent of the Zune! Or Vista itself!

Also, Microsoft's approach of pointing out that millions and millions of people use Windows PCs for a lot of different and cool things sounds suspiciously like HP's "The Computer Is Personal Again" campaign, which featured waist-to-shoulders shots of celebrities describing what they do with their HP machines -- they had Shaun White, Serena Williams, Pharrell, even Jay-Z.

Microsoft's ads are the brainchild of ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, veteran of both successful and cringe-worthy ads that attempt to build pop-culture buzz -- they did that Subservient Chicken site for Burger King, for example.

Today, Microsoft claims that it was the plan ALL ALONG to only have Jerry in the first couple of commercials, even though he was reportedly paid $10 million (which MS won't confirm, naturally).

If their aim was really to get people buzzing about Microsoft, mission accomplished, although the buzz wasn't all positive, to put it mildly. "Microsoft provided the same quality user experience in the commercials that they did in Vista," joked ITworld's James Gaskin. "The campaign is not aimed at real techies," Chris Matyszczyk from CNET explained. "It's solely there to help you find some positive disposition toward the Microsoft brand."

"They're asking us to be patient," theorized LA Times writer Maria Russo, "to laugh with them at their rustiness and general failure to be with it." (Ha...ha?) Seems like sort of a negative premise to begin a $300 million ad campaign, but one thing's for sure: After changing tack from the "ads about nothing," these new commercials are going to have all kinds of attention paid to them, positive or negative. And isn't that largely the point?

Anyway, if the lack of new Seinfeld-ian computer commercials leaves an empty place inside your heart, don't forget that Apple had him first.

Why Seinfeld Doesn't Work With iPhones

Susie Ochs — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:09:06 -0500

Newsweek recently examined whether the episodes of Seinfeld still hold up 10 years later. After I got over the shock that "yikes, that was 10 years ago? I am friggin' old," I thought it was a nice article -- everyone loves Seinfeld, it's fun to look back, yadda yadda yadda. But Mac|Life dares to ask the deeper, more important, and far, far geekier question:

Would the episodes of Seinfeld hold up if the characters had access to iPhones?

Well, do they? To borrow a phrase from closer to the show's time, I think they do. Not.

Heh. Look, I'm not bagging on the best sitcom of all time (and I thought Newsweek's "Legend or Loser?" headline was a little much -- there are a few stops in between, aren't there?), but very little from 10 years ago could hope to hold a candle to such a technological wonder. They didn't even have iPods back then. Bondi Blue iMacs, dude, and that was the same year the show ended. Seinfeld is still awesome.

Anyway, let's take a look at a few classic episodes to see how the plots wind up after they've been trampled upon by the iPhone 3G's unique footprint.

The Chinese Restaurant (206)

The entire premise of this classic episode is that Jerry, Elaine, and George are waiting for a table at a Chinese restaurant, on their way to see a bad movie (Plan 9 from Outer Space, actually a real movie, as opposed to many fake ones mentioned in later episodes, directed by Ed Wood). This is a notable case study in that nearly everything that happened within the 22-minute story would likely have not occurred if the characters owned iPhones.

First of all, the restaurant. They might not have even picked that hole if they'd been using the iPhone to look up the movie theater's location in Google Maps. Then any number of apps -- Where, iWant, UrbanSpoon -- could help them find a better place to eat.

And of course, we saw George freak out ("You know we're LIVING! In a SOCIETY!") when he had trouble using the pay phone to call Cynthia. Later, Cynthia actually tried to call George back at the restaurant (who does that anymore?), and the host called "Cartwright" instead of "Costanza," ensuring hilarity would ensue. Of course, an iPhone-toting George makes his call without problems, at the same time Elaine and Jerry use Yelp to complain about the restaurant's incredibly slow service and seating the other guy ahead of them.

Even the part where Jerry and George offer to pay Elaine $50 to eat an egg roll off someone's else's table could have been drastically changed with iPhones. George would have been snapping pictures of her embarrassment, and if she had actually pulled off the stunt, she could collect from Jerry even if he didn't have cash, thanks to a little thing called PayPal.

Then, of course, there's The Pez Dispenser...

The Pez Dispenser (314)

iPhones give you any number of hiarious ways to while away a piano recital -- you won't need the ol' Pez-dispenser-on-the-leg trick to make your friends guffaw. Just show them a hilarious picture you made in Finger Paint, start chuckin' beef with Cow Toss, or even whip out the ol' Tiny Violin (not a euphemism). How about Jared at the opera? Obviously if Jerry had an iPhone, either Elaine would be desensitized to the whole shebang, or neither of them could go to recitals together ever again, period.

And who could forget...

The Phone Message (207)

Sneaking into someone's apartment to steal the tape from their answering machine? That would never work today, of course. (And to be fair, this episode dates way back to early 1991.) But if George's girlfriend had the iPhone, he'd be be even more sunk, as she would notice his messages in Visual Voicemail, listen to them first, and bust him in record time.

Still not convinced? There's more...

In The Sponge (709), Elaine's search for sponges would be VASTLY aided by a trusty iPhone 3G. Simply search the built-in Maps app for nearby drugstores, click the phone numbers to call each one, and save yourself a lot of legwork, Laney. Or she can just go buy them on drugstore.com.

In The Stock Tip (105), Jerry and George invest in some stock, and Jerry is very stressed about it, always looking for a newspaper to obsessively check and re-check the price. A newspaper, aw! Hmmm, one of the iPhone's default applications is a Stocks checker. Bloomberg makes a nice one too, we hear. How handy.

In the classic episode The Parking Garage (306), they'd have no trouble finding their car thanks to the iPhone's Notes application. Sure, you can't sync the notes to your Mac or even to MobileMe for some insane reason that no one in the universe can properly explain (it's like those hip musicians and their complicated shoes), but your iPhone can remember what level and section you parked in. Presuming you remembered to make a note in the first place.

To be continued! Like that funny one where Morty lost his wallet.

In The Bizarro Jerry (803), George tells people that a photo of Elaine's attractive friend (the pictured Man Hands) is his dead fiancee, to win sympathy from some models and entree into their "forbidden city." Then his blow dryer ruins the picture, and when Elaine can't get him another one, he cuts one out of a magazine and is busted. Since people carry their photos on their phones and other gadgets now, this would either be much easier (since he could find a hot chick on the Internet, tap and hold the photo in Safari to save it to his iPhone's Camera Roll, and say she's his dead finacee) or much harder (because the lack of hard evidence would keep the models from falling for the story altogether -- I mean, come on).

And what about The Bubble Boy? (407) While Jerry following George instead of having his own directions is kind of weak premise anyway, with the iPhone 3G they could both map out directions to the Bubble Boy's house so easily. And when George drove too fast and Jerry lost him, they could just...well, call each other, duh. (I like to have Google Calendar send me an SMS with the address and even a map link if I'm going somewhere new.) Plus, that whole nasty business with the Moops? Easily avoided thanks to Safari.

The Implants (419): While we're on the subject, Safari and our old pal Google can solve all kinds of bets, even Kramer's insistence that he saw Salman Rushdie at the health club. (The iPhone's camera might come in handy here too. For Rushdie, not Sidra.)

The Marine Biologist (513): If Testikov had thrown Elaine's iPhone out the window of the limo, Carol Kane wouldn't have tried to find her and have her medical bills paid -- she would have just kept the iPhone.

The Hot Tub (705): Jean-Paul Jean-Paul -- best tertiary character name ever -- wouldn't oversleep and miss his marathon even when Kramer's hot tub motor blew the apartment buildng's power. Because, apparently unlike all clocks and watches way back in this episode's time, the iPhone features BOTH a helpful alarm function AND the blackout-resistance of batteries.

...

As long as you charge it every day or so.

[Laugh track]

That's it for me; you've been great! Good night!

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No Seinfeld for You

Why Seinfeld Doesn't Work With iPhones