I don’t remember if my dad watched Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984. The Los Angeles Raiders demolished Washington, 38-9. The game was pretty much over by halftime, I understand.
I myself have no memory of watching that game. I was 10 years old at the time, and more interested in science fiction than football. Little did I know that science fiction was becoming a reality.
It’s unlikely that my mom and sister watched the game. My sister had been given a cookbook for her birthday, written especially for teenage girls, and she and my mom had been spending a lot of time in the kitchen. Too much time in the kitchen, probably.
However, January 1984 had a specific importance for my family. An upstart computer company called ‘Apple’ purchased a one-minute Super Bowl commercial to announce their new ‘Macintosh’ computer. The ad didn’t offer any information about the computer, and didn’t include an image of the computer. At the end of the one-minute commercial, the only thing the viewer (and potential consumer) knew was the release date for the new product.
It was directed by Ridley Scott, fresh off making the dystopian science-fiction film “Blade Runner.”
A rather revolutionary approach to TV advertising. Don’t tell the audience anything about the subject, except when it would happen. But include an attractive and brave hero in the story.
Politicians have been using a similar technique for centuries. Corporations, not so much.
I hadn’t yet read George Orwell’s novel, “Nineteen Eighty-Four” in 1984. It wasn’t exactly ‘science fiction’ although it featured some futuristic ideas about conformity, loss of privacy, and universal surveillance. “Big Brother” was a prominent character in the story.
If only George could see us now!
Orwell started writing his novel in 1944, and still managed to predict some of the things surrounding us in 2024, like the ubiquitous cameras and screens, watching our every move and delivering a constant barrage of misinformation — activities in which we are more-than-willing participants. At least, most of us are. (Me included. I love posting information about myself, and letting myself get riled up over national and global political situations that may or may not be real.)
Anyway — regardless of whether anyone in my family had watched that Apple Macintosh commercial on January 22, 1984 — we ended up with an Apple Macintosh, later that summer, sitting on my dad’s desk.
An amazing device it was, with a weird little thingamajig attached — ‘a mouse’ — than could move the cursor around on the small black-and-white screen.
Unlike any computer we’d ever seen.
You could even draw on the screen using the mouse, in a perfunctory way. A 10-year old could do it. Definitely more fun than football.
As I mentioned, this happened in 1984. My family became an Apple family, having not the slightest idea that we were helping to bring George Orwell’s dystopian nightmare into existence.
Reportedly, the founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, wanted to announce this new product in a way that would “stop the world in its tracks.”
Apple’s media director, Hank Antosz, told him, “Well, there’s only one place that can do that. The Super Bowl.”
Steve Jobs asked, “What’s the Super Bowl?”
The media director said, “Well, it’s a huge football game, that attracts one of the largest audiences of the year.”
And Jobs said, “I’ve never seen a Super Bowl. I don’t think I know anybody who’s seen a Super Bowl.”
That’s kind of shocking. Over 100 million people typically watch the Super Bowl. Steve Jobs didn’t think he knew any of them.
Meanwhile, there are now over 1 billion people now carrying Apple iPhones, which track their location, and in many cases, their blood pressure, and send the information wirelessly to data storage sites.
Makes me wonder who, exactly, is benefiting most from the Super Bowl.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.