If you thought the Windows 7 house party ad was lame, wait ’til you see this. On November 8, Microsoft was planning to sponsor a special episode of Seth McFarlane’s animated comedy series Family Guy to promote their latest operating system.
You can see where this was going: Family Guy’s humor is very edgy, while Microsoft’s marketing is very corporate. Combining the two would have resulted in a horrifying trainwreck of pure sellout stupidity.
Fortunately, Microsoft pulled out of the deal after executives from Redmond saw an actual taping of the show. Apparently, up until that point, they were blissfully unaware of Family Guy’s edgy humor. Talk about being out of touch.
Now Microsoft has released clips from that hideous abortion through the Windows YouTube channel. As you can see from these clips, Microsoft made the right decision by killing their collaboration with McFarlane. One of the video descriptions even acknowledges the blatant selling-out involved: “When Brian notices Stewie has a new PC, he thinks he smells a sellout.”
Call your neurologist, because the sheer inanity of these totally unfunny sketches will kill your brain.
That last clip is especially sad, considering the ubiquity of Microsoft’s biggest competitor. “Google” is a word. “Windows 7” is not.
I can’t decide whether or not Microsoft did the right thing by releasing these clips. On one hand, they make us glad the whole episode didn’t push through. On the other hand, they further demonstrate just how out of touch Microsoft’s marketing can become.
Originally posted on November 28, 2009 @ 2:50 pm