Microsoft drops Family Guy like a hot deaf guy joke Microsoft proved that one thing Windows 7 won't install is a sense of humour yesterday, by hastily pulling out of its sponsorship of a Family Guy/American Dad variety special. The vendor announced two weeks ago that it would blow some of its Windows 7 marketing budget on "an upcoming television event devoted to the comedy of …
Already been covered in Mr Griffin Goes to Washington.
I can just imagine Mr Griffin Goes to Redmond...
Lois, in kitchen: "My, those leaves are changing awful early this year"
Ballamer, in office: "BUY WINDOWS 7."
Lois: "We'll have to watch out, those Leafers will be here real soon"
"BUY WINDOWS 7"
Lois:"What's that, Brian? Chris has fallen down a well?"
"ARE YOU BUYING WINDOWS 7 YET?"
Also, jokes about incest/the holocaust are part of the staple Family Guy diet. And what's the problem with jokes about deaf people? It's not like they can hear them. And if they can, they'd already have been so pissed off about the greased-up deaf guy they'd not be watching it.
Rather than doing a variety show they'd have done much better paying the creators to change Brian's laptop from a Mac to a Windows PC and have Stan Smith end up ranting about Apple being UnAmerican. Oh, and missing out bits like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXCRUE4Bip8
My guess is that the MS marketing people have never seen an actual episode of Family Guy/American Dad, but their kids keep telling tell them how awesome the shows are, the ratings are good, and marketing drones understand that those must mean it's hip, edgy, and popular and thus a good thing to glom onto, right?
Then they see, for the first time ever, what they've hooked up with and realize that they're about to score the biggest PR own goal since the Polish Photoshop Affair.
I wonder how much mickey-taking the shows' writers can indulge in now before Microsoft get all huffy and send in the lawyers?
I was in a taxi, and I thought.... wouldn't it be great if I could see at a glance all the things I had open. So I told Microsoft, and as I was writing the email to tell them, my laptop's battery went flat because I was running 20 things on a big screen in a laptop in the back of a taxi.
If only I was a real person, I would have known that my priorities in a laptop in the back of a taxi, are to not run out of power and not clutter up my small screen with stuff.
Did I design Windows 7? Or did Windows marketing dept design me, to fit what Windows 7 offered?
Agree to million's of dollars to front Hole-in-a-wall 7, make the ad as rude and close to the edge as you can (or in Seth's case a normal show) and watch the ad men run a mile.
Profit!
Do you think these ad men watched the show? or just typed the word hip and trendy into a search engine (not google of course).
PH cause MS would be better spendding there money on getting here to sport a Windows 7 tattoo
Did Microsoft think it wasn't sufficiently PC (ba-dum-tish) or did they suddenly realise that MacFarlane et al just aren't funny.
The only thing funny about the Family Guy is not that it takes the piss out of American stereotypes but that so few Americans seem to realise this. Bit like the Colbert Report.
>> Not moral enough to be associated with Microsoft.
>> I can't think of a worse indictment for anybody.
I don't think Seth will be that upset. He tries to make his show edgy, it's just that till now he never realised just how edgy. If you are so edgy that even Satan himself doesn't want to be associated with you, that's saying something.
Joe,
According to Chortle (:http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2009/10/27/9844/microsoft_bails_on_sponsored_comedy): "Fox still plans to air the special – costarring Alex Borstein, voice of MacFarlane’s Family Guy wife Lois – on November 8, but plans to have another sponsor attached."
They're still being corporate whores, just bending over for someone different now.
Also, it hasn't been lost on everyone that MacFarlane not that long ago signed a deal with Fox that would (supposedly) net him $100 million... not exactly as if he needs the money.
Young & hip demographics? How old was the data they gave Microsoft? I’m guessing they got a look at the current demographics (post-American Dad & Cleveland) and started wondering if daytime soap operas or televised dog fighting wouldn’t be a better fit. Throw your logo on a stadium and move on. Leave Fox-imation to the folks that don’t know how to get a Tivo to stop recording their shows.
Martin Lyne your right, Simpsons have always ripped into fox too, eitherway I though this would haev been blindingly obvious and I am supprised the touted it in the first place.
Don't get me wrong Family Guy is great and at times hallariously funny but unless you are advertising something like acohol then Family Guy has to be a no go, Simpsons would have been a better shout here.
I also agree with alot of the other comments about the Windows 7 adverts, they are truely appaulling, who designed them?
I wish they came up with the same idea for Vista...
"I had always thought Network Connections which I use reguarly, was far too acessable, why don't we hide it under granies underwear so it is hard to find and then even once you know where is it you don't ever want to go there!"
OR..
"I was riding in the back of a cab when I though I know I just polish off that document for the office before I get home, four hours later and in bed I finally heard the laptop boot up after installing what must have been the biggest four updates ever seen, by the time I pulled myself out of bed to turn it off the BSOD had done it for me!"
> As for MacFarlane, he has arguably dodged the same cred bullet that has hit the likes of Mick Jagger and David Bowie.
And Brian Eno. I've always thought his ambient stuff was a bit drab anyway, but him designing "The Microsoft Sound" (Win95) didn't do much for his suppercoolcuttingedginess.
They really don't want to be associated with a show like that. I found the first couple seasons funny, but not so much anymore. The show is too offensive for a main stream company like Microsoft to associate themselves with. The last thing they need is the religious right or conservative organizations around the world to have such an easy target to demonstrate around. There are enough companies and people with an agenda to push against Microsoft that they were probably already planning how to use these pawns to their own ends to hurt them.
Good on them for coming to their senses.
My theory is that MS finally realized that MacFarlane, being a fan of Apple/Mac hardware (his personal machine is a Mac, and of course there was the "I have an iPod like the rest of the world" joke on the show), would have set up MS to look like fools. ;)
Steve, because this is a win for him either way.
The Simpsons have always been entertaining (especially when something bad happens to Ned) but really comparing Simpsons to Family guy is like comparing Paul Blart Mall Cop to Observe and Report (didn't like Seth Rogan until this flick, I got the biggest fucking shotgun you have ever seen, lmao). By the way just curious do the British readers get to watch Family Guy? I know the Simpsons were on in Germany (had to change many of the jokes though as American humor tends to be more crude than most countries enjoy).
WTF?! So it took them two weeks to realise what FG is like? Before agreeing to "use" the show, no one bothered to watch a boxset? No one is spared on FG, everyone is fair game to them, didn't these stupid MS marketing drones realise how low FG can descend?
FG used to be good, but it's all gone a bit Carry On. You know, when CO Screaming was good, then At Your Convinience was bad, then England was just tripe, and pathetic!
There was a Simpsons episode where Bill G is going to "buy out" Homer's invention. When Homer agrees, a couple of Bill G's thugs break everything in Homer office and destroy his invention. Asked as to why he's destroying everything he says, "You didn't think I got rich writing out checks did you?"(or something like that)
Famiy guy has got to be one of the worst, most offensive shows in television history. It's a sad testiment to people that it was not only concieved, but is still on the air after all these years.
As for the MS ads. Well, at least they aren't doing the typical Apple ad campaign, which is to bash the shit out of your competition's product while making no claims as to how well your own product performs.
Microsoft FTW.
Microsoft can't even come up with an 'edgy' series of ads to counter the "I'm a PC, I'm a Mac". How the hell would they be able to judge 'edgy'. Or know how to market to anyone under 55.
Perhaps they figured that only the literate watched Family Guy and they covered that cohort through online advocates already. No sense wasting budget on the converted. Might as well sponsor Fox News and Glenn Beck to cover the rest.
"I know the Simpsons were on in Germany (had to change many of the jokes though as American humor tends to be more crude than most countries enjoy)."
Erm, no. I think it has more to do with whoever does the German translations of The Simpsons having no grasp of contemporary English/American at all. Sometimes you need to do a "sounds-like"-translation back to English to get what it means. E. g. "fabric of the universe" was translated as "Fabrik des Universums" (factory of the universe), when it should have been something like "Struktur des Universums".
I was right! They saw the early drafts of the show, and realized that they were paying Seth McFarlane a LOT of money to make Microsoft look foolish. The leaked clips I saw were making the average Windows user sound like someone who would buy Seven Ultimate so they could brag about how they needed it for better Tweeting.
Pity for them they didn't have enough sense to examine the rest of their commercials that way.
As to the "Family Guy sucks" crowd, A: Family Guy is humor for those of us who like to see just how offensive and anti-pc a show can go. "Family Guy picks on everyone" and B: The Simpsons hasn't been funny since Windows 95 came out. THAT on the other hand WAS funny. in a sad pathetic, me too kind of way.
I just hope the unfinished show gets leaked!
It seems that Microsoft has no idea how to advertise its products, and looks increasingly desperate and out of touch with each ad campaign. Since The Mary Whitehouse Experience has been off the air longer than Seinfeld, but was much funnier in its prime, I think Microsoft should do a combined ad for both Windows 7 and Songsmith, with Ballmer as the embarrassing dad who can't dance.
I would expect Family Guy to do the same as the Simpsons, as both usually rip the shit out of Fox. I'd actually expect Seth to pull a "Wayne's World", that is make fun of Windows 7 in the show. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's what actually happened and Microsoft's PR people used the incest/holocaust jokes as their 'reason' to pull out.
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