Microsoft, Fox Team Up to Create Worst Episode of Family Guy Ever
by John Paczkowski
Posted on October 14, 2009 at 12:01 AM PT
The last time Microsoft was featured in an episode of “Family Guy,” it was the butt of a Zune joke. Peter Griffin’s father-in-law asked Bill Gates to help him program his Zune and then taunted the Microsoft chairman, noting that he owns an Apple (AAPL) iPod “like the rest of the world” (see video below).
This time it’s going to be different. That’s because Microsoft (MSFT) is paying to make it so. The company has teamed up with Fox to sponsor a “Family Guy” special built around Windows 7. The show, dubbed “Family Guy Presents: Seth & Alex’s Almost Live Comedy Show,” after creator Seth MacFarlane and voice talent Alex Borstein, will air Sunday, Nov. 8, at 8:30 pm, EST and PST.
The new episode will be free of commercial breaks but presumably rife with “clever” references to Windows. Microsoft agencies Universal McCann and Crispin, Porter and Bogusky, which were tapped to weave the company’s marketing messages into the program, will make sure of that.
“You’ll see us deeply integrated into the content,” Gayle Troberman, general manager of consumer engagement and advertising at Microsoft, told Ad Age. “You’ll hear a lot about how Windows 7 can help you simplify your PC–it’s simple, fast and easy to use.”
Sounds…hysterical.
Incidentally, it’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time MacFarlane has inked an advertising deal with a tech company. He’s currently working with Google (GOOG) on a project called “Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy,” which involves humorous animated shorts with built-in advertisements syndicated through the search giant’s AdSense advertising system.
Comments
“Sounds…hysterical.”
That’s probably funnier than the show will be. Ultimate sell-out. Embarrassing for MS and McFarlane.
Based on the description I’d rather watch the Windows 7 Party Video for laughs.
Posted by Brendan Walsh at October 14th, 2009 at 6:58 amI would have watched if they had brought back Futurama. Bender would have added some class to the project.
But Family Guy? I’d just as soon have a root canal.
Posted by Eric Welch at October 14th, 2009 at 8:43 amAn instant classic for parody makers.
What’s amazing about this is that it should be targeted towards Microsoft’s customers, the people who actually pay money to Microsoft. It should be watched by rooms full of HP PC makers, or the I-T staff from big corporations who buy licenses, or MSCE’s whose job it is to endlessly reboot devices running Microsoft software, or the small number of nerds in a Microsoft user group. But instead it’s targeted towards consumers, who don’t know what a software version is or understand that there is more than one kind of “Windows.”
Not only that, to most people, “Windows” and “Word” and “Excel” are certifications for office workers, like a type of drivers license. You “know Windows” or you don’t. You “know Excel” or you don’t. This goes on your resume. People who want to hire you will read that you “know Windows” and nod approvingly. So even if they understand software versioning, they don’t want Windows to change. They want the steering wheel and speedometer to be in the same place every time they have to drive a company car, not moving around arbitrarily.
Microsoft always seems to want to pretend they have Apple’s customers, like some weird kind of envy. Vista was made for Mac users who didn’t want it, instead of being made for XP users who direly needed it. There are many Windows 7 reviews that point out how comfortable Mac users will be in the new UI but I haven’t seen any that say XP users will be comfortable there.
If the following events do not occur in the cartoon, they should be in the parodies:
- someone buys a $299 PC with basic Windows and pays $399 to Microsoft to upgrade to Ultimate
- someone upgrades existing PC from XP to Windows 7, requiring a complete backup and restore plus manually moving documents to new locations, and reinstalling all applications over a 20 hour period (a 20-hour real time parody of this would be brilliant)
- someone identifies all of the makers of the various components of their existing PC and visits dozens of websites looking for “Windows 7 drivers” and creates a checklist so that they can see if they are ready to upgrade, then after upgrading (20 hours) they have to downgrade because their new video driver keeps crashing the box
- someone calls Microsoft support
- someone gets a virus
- someone has their bank account cleaned out by Windows malware
- someone buys a Mac, connects it to their Windows XP PC, installs Parallels or Fusion on the Mac ($50), and imports their functioning XP installation with all apps and documents into a window on the new Mac, in about 1/1000th of the time it takes to upgrade the original PC to Windows 7
- etc.
Posted by Fred Hamranhansenhansen at October 15th, 2009 at 9:54 pm