I like Saturdays.  My editorial decision to feature a humorous blog item every week on that day fits well with this. In the past, I have featured jokes, comics, cartoons, and news.  Sometimes I include comics, stories, games, and photos.  By far, though, the most popular humor posts are the videos.

After “investing” an hour searching, watching, and laughing, I have picked this video to share with you.  It is called Computer History/Humor with John Cleese and it is very very funny. It is by 1Cheryl and it is a reminder of a computer age now long gone.  Once upon a time, there was a war among various manufacturers to produce IBM PC Clones and increase sales through differentiation.  Compaq Computing was one company that came out with a line of “portable” computers that got the funny nickname of “luggables” because they were about 45 pounds and bigger than a suitcase.  Their first model was not so successful, so they needed something extra to try to sell the next generation.  They decided to hire the famous Monty Python actor, John Cleese, to do a series of humorous commercials to sell the product.  As far as I know, it was the first time that humor was employed to sell “serious business IT stuff”.  Enjoy.

Funny right?  Now watch it again and notice the details about the machine and how the hardware itself is not even discussed.  In addition to the first time that humor gets used for this, I think that it might be the first time that a computer system is sold by branding rather than performance.  Think about today’s computer ads… notice the trend that is still alive today.  Are computers commodity items or does the company behind them really matter today?  

What did you think of the video?  Does it apply to your organization? Do you remember these running on live TV?  What other old computer commercials are worth featuring? I hope that you laughed. 

Do you know of any other funny IT themed videos or video sites?  If so, please do share with us all.

That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for October 3, 2009.

media credits: 1Cheryl

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