Microsoft’s got a pretty stellar track record of terrible Windows infomercials. Some for the consumer, some internal, all pretty rough. This 1988 video showcases Windows/386, a fairly impressive upgrade to Windows that introduced multitasking among other features. The impressiveness of the upgrade does not come through in this video. What begins as a dry-but-corny corporate…
Freddy Krueger’s always been his own best pitchman, both in his filmic universe and in ours. He’s got this unflagging confidence that only breaks – at most – thirty seconds before he’s defeated, and that confidence rings as clear as a bell as he breaks the fourth wall to sell his movies to the real…
The idea seems like a 7-year-old’s fever dream: strap trampolines to your feet and then you can get trampoline-air anywhere you go for the rest of your life. That’s the promise of Moon Shoes, the brightly colored ankle-breakers of the ’90s. To be clear, the shoes are a terrible idea; apart from the aforementioned risk…
Most VHS games come off as less than they intend to be, but watching this VHS presentation of 1992’s “Nightmare” I can’t help but catch a chill. Nightmare’s a 3-to-6 player board game fueled by the Gatekeeper, your host on the VHS tape. Unlike other VHS board games where you fast forward and rewind to…
The idea seems like a 7-year-old’s fever dream: strap trampolines to your feet and then you can get trampoline-air anywhere you go for the rest of your life. That’s the promise of Moon Shoes, the brightly colored ankle-breakers of the ’90s.
To be clear, the shoes are a terrible idea; apart from the aforementioned risk to your ankles and balance, the air you could get wasn’t really worth the effort put into it. Classic Pogo-Bal syndrome. The ad, though, will be burned into my mind until the day I die. More “infectious” than “catchy”, the jingle takes the form of a dad-rock sort of punk that shouts “Moon Shoes!” at you more than a few times. I guess that’s the chorus? In between choruses are rambling claims that resemble verses featuring the user’s similarity to kangaroos, an emphasis on the shoes being ‘kid powered’, and a bold claim that you will jump “straight to the moon.”
The best line is the last one, though. Out of desperation to fill out the measure the singer pleads “it’s a necessity,” holding that last note through the end of the commercial. Sorry, what? A necessity? I know the whole point of commercials, especially kid commercials, is to imply that you need this product, but to come right out and say it?
-ds
