The Martinettis Bring a computer home - Part 1

[firehawk400]

Also, when multimedia was the buzzword of the year. Lol.

[firehawk400]

Back when getting a computer was a major event...ahh those were the days.

[JameyNicholas]

AWESOMMMEEEE

I remember eWorld!

I love this infomercial,

[mtanyc]

i remember fighting with my brother and mom to go online (aol) everyone wanted to be online. then i remember when napster came out it was amazing...free music!!

[killwize]

FORR... EV... ER!

[alienhddna]

now stave job id dead oh well look like apple is going go down hill

[mongomondomongo]

Fletcher is a genius, so he sells computers for $5/hour

[ladrifter764]

Hey Zoey, tits or GTFO!

[terrinisawesome]

I remember watching this three times in a row when I was a kid til I figured it wasn't a tv show and it was the same episode over and over.

[frankcvo]

I love the bad acting. "I'hahaha'm TJ." The kid can't seem to speak two sentences without a little laugh, or without a statement spoken as a question.

[ynkno13]

You can fucking put MUSIC on computers!

[pancove925]

I too recall watching this back in the day , and dreaming I could afford one . The computer really made this family better for having owned it .

Yet , little TJ seems in fear that without points , the computer would disappear . It is pretty clear at the store scene that it is just a question of who was paying for it , Dad , or Grandpa . They made a wager on who got stuck with writing the check . Q

These days , all the family , including the dog would say " what do I care " as no matter how ma

[NightLinks]

I remember staying up late on saturdays and sundays to watch this informercial because I wanted to buy the mac sooo bad. Until this day I still haven't purchased a mac yet :(

[bricklayerpayne]

Is that Squints from the Sandlot? I think it is.

[anndizzle13]

@bricklayerpayne Sure is. Michael...Squints...Paladores.­

[BethC7686]

look at the size of that computer!!!!!!! wow.....

[roofrack101]

<3 fletcher <3

[tharock220]

MULTIMEDIA!!!!! I never knew what that word meant, but I remember wanting a computer that had it when I was younger. All you ever heard was multimedia, multimedia, multimedia!!!!!! Come to find out, it just means the computer has sound and can play movies.

BTW, what the hell was pops using?? That computer he was using at work looked to be at least 12 years old. Was his company failing???

[tharock220]

Man, the 90's didn't seem so lame when I was growing up in them.

[mujrfster1234]

well i dont know about you but i'd rather have a PC with DOS games where youll never get boared (ps THAT WAS NOW WINDOWS THAT WAS DOS)

[smedly500]

"You can get music on it!" Even opera?" No Gramps, Firefox.

[suarezstyle]

Thank you thank you THANK YOU for finding and posting this!

[unnaro89]

TJ = Alan White from Freaks & Geeks

[familyphotoshoot]

oh god why am i watching this

[Phesath]

No points! 

[gersonrel]

Opera? Sure gramps, and it's even better than safari.

[jasonhdvideoman]

i all most got this computer i end up geting webtv they did say how much that computer was going to be this thing was like 3000 buck back then webtv was 200 bucks

[thepod96]

You just put in the disc and BAM the dirt is gone

[nornsmain]

omg, i nostalgia

[megamyers]

we had a computer long b4 cd roms were ever an option... watching things like "the incredible machine" and that lame quicken load up screen make me sick to my stomach of now

[mjnoir1]

i thought the old man was the best character. did he ever do voice over work?

[jasonhdvideoman]

only 8mb of ram come on that slow to for day standers

[psyjax]

Worst mac EVER!

[Intentspunk19]

I use Windows 7 Linux edition on My Performa 4100CD

[virtualpilot45]

Cheesy beyond belief, this video surpasses the emmental, soars past the cheddar and smashes the stilton. Best watched with a rich, complex red :-)

[TheDystopiaInside]

WOW I remember this infomercial and was curious if it had been posted on YouTube. I couldn't believe it had, thanks very much for posting it!

I think when I first saw this infomercial I was running either a Commodore Amiga or Commodore 64!

[utonium]

i swear why dont they just make shows lik this nowadays lol. id pay just to watch this type of infomercial

[3ggt3]

I use Windows XP, but if I was in their situation during the early 90's i'd go with a mac, especially the Performa.

[yonskii]

moar allegro

[ThatEccentricguy]

that grandpa kicks ass

[borbos75]

5:37 is proof this is pre win95. if you closely at the top of the window you will be able to tell

[captsensible23]

i remember back in the day of win95, most of the time of was using command prompt because they only run in dos.

[praecorloth]

You can tell they're shopping at CompUSSR. Even back then you'd have to search out a PC that didn't have a sound card or a CD ROM drive. My first computer in 1989 came with a sound card. We added a CD ROM drive in 1991 I believe. Of course if you just bought a computer at that point, it would've come with one.

All in all, I LOVE this infomercial. It's so cheesey. :) Thanks for posting it.

[ocontin40]

they're probably still on AOL, forwarding lolcat emails.

[LolasBlog]

Not only is this family debating whether or not they should have a computer in the house, they're actually planning to share ONE computer for SIX people! Today an upper middle class family like this would have more computers than people in the house.

[werehyenataur]

This commercial is a total lie. Win95 never required command prompt and it played cds just fine.

[likeupskirts]

This is Windows 3.1 era... not Windows 95.

[werehyenataur]

Did you even watch the fucking video?

4:30 has 95' PCs. This video was made in 95.

Besides, Windows 3.1 was GUI as well, not command prompt.

[LolasBlog]

This infomercial aired in 1994. Windows 95 wasn't released until August 1995.

[justus4justice]

Except that if you looked closely, you'd notice that it was actually Windows 3.1, not 95. Even on Win95 though, I do remember having to do quite a bit at the command prompt. Not to mention, both 95 and 3.1 were essentially just shells that sat on top of MS-DOS. If you ever needed to troubleshoot something, you were likely going to be at the command line.

[viharsarok]

@justus4justice

"Not to mention, both 95 and 3.1 were essentially just shells that sat on top of MS-DOS"

Dude, you don't want to know what Mac OS was back then... No wonder it was thrown away in 1999 and replaced with a third party operating system based on Unix and FreeBSD. By the way, what you refer to as "shell" is called GUI (graphical user interface), and operating system GUI's always sit on top of the kernel, so I don't think the word "just" is justified in your sentence.

[viharsarok]

@justus4justice Also, using the command prompt may have been needed for some advanced settings, but the same goes for any operating system including Windows 7 and MacOS X. Basic things could be set via the GUI, and advanced settings are not for average users anyway.

The point is that this commercial suggests that Windows didn't have a GUI at all, whereas the truth is quite the opposite. If Apple lies to you about that, how can you trust anything they say?

[borbos75]

... I think they were showing win 3.1.  I installed it ina VM and it was a real pain.

[viharsarok]

@werehyenataur Yeah, and did you catch the way they prevaricated about prices? Instead of admitting PC's are a lot motherfucking cheaper than Mac's, they pulled some made-up "necessary upgrades" out of their asses and carefully avoided actually stating any final prices.

[stephthestar90]

@werehyenataur i used to have a windows 95 box for playing old games and all i had to do was stick the cd in and it would usually play with no problems! it was the same on any windows pc i owned. my laptop's a macbook pro though.

[etemon777]

@stephthestar90

I think this infomercial aired when Windows 3.1 was the newest version.

[stephthestar90]

@etemon777 ah ok :) hard to believe how computers have changed tho.

[likeupskirts]

That grandpa knows all about those computers is not that well surprised because he saw technology far more advanced when he invaded Germany in World War 2 with the Russians and French.

[plateshutoverlock]

I remember seeing this in 1995 early in the morning.

[sportsguy1989]

Wow this brings back memories.

[utonium]

i remember lookin at these at my radioshack.

[sampfag]

2:30 The Incredible Machine rules.

[utonium]

how old is this infomercial? i remember watchin this as a kid.

[blinkingblythe]

2:58 :)

[canihaveaquarter]

Man, I wish I grew up around that time. When computers were actually useful.

[SlightyDisturbedNBK]

Yea, sadly these days it's all spam, viruses and stupid 4chan memes. What a waste :(

[bishman82]

You can get pictures? on a computer?!

[mjnoir1]

fletcher!!

[70sMusicFan]

Very cute commercial. Makes me want a Mac Performa. :-)

Frank reminds me a bit of Matthew Perry.

[boamuro]

This is hilarious.... So what was the price for the Mac? I bet still around $1500 hahaha

Technology is crazy... those fat monitors all need to go away completely.

[richardmaudsley77]

unless you actually use them for photoshop or video editing, it which case you curse lcd monitors shitty contrast and inability to show anything darker than gray.

CRT supremacy.

[PropellerBusted]

Holy shit I the part at the end where they talk about points triggered a vague memory. I must have watched this back in the day. I haven't seen the rest but I remember the dad awarding points to random shit.

I nostalgia'd, I lose.

[RadRetro]

Oh sure... we've been living in a friggin utopia since the advent of Tetris. Douche!

[Letshereitforthelulz]

Martinetti Phil Harmonic Jug Band, ha ha ah... SHUT THE FUCK UP!

[ScottX6945]

A modem!!  My god, what are those!! LOL

[bretsteinmetz]

it would be kinda cool to make a 2008 version of this infomercial thing, then in 15 years we can make fun of it, "How many megs of ram, Carmine?" "2 Gigs? How cute" When we are all using 1-4 terabyes of RAM in 2025!

[bretsteinmetz]

Oh Man,... its Squints!

[samusamu]

sweet pre-photoshop skills dude!

[aardvaarkman]

I'm pretty sure this was post-Photoshop. It's been around for a long time.

[Jasoco]

The first Photoshop came out in 1988. It's been around for 21 years now. Longer than America On-line.

[stevemen7272]

I think Pop needs his ass kicked!

[kedohmen]

Is that Squints? From The Sandlot?

[elgilicious]

Apple is full of shit. I got my first computer in '94, and I'm pretty sure it came with everything I needed for less money than a Mac.

[smincer]

it's totally corny, but i remember back around 1995/1996 people thought macs were so different from windows that they wouldn't know how to use one and the whole time windows was just a more "jibberish" version of the mac os.

[BigRC83]

You can also store your pornography on the computer!

[jasonisroxursox]

whoda thunk?

[SirJeffington]

I came.

[SonikkuZaHedgehog127]

SAGE GOES IN ALL FIELDS

[zomfgguise]

Hey I'm TJ, and yeah I am a bit of a fag. And look! I'm using a program that is worse than Draw that was shipped with Windows 1.0

[acanthopleura]

MULTIMEDIA!!!!!!!!!!!11

[fragglet]

"On a Windows PC, running a CD-ROM was a real hassle"

Pro-tip: you have to put the CD-ROM into the drive.

[SZF123456]

lol hahaha

[PKFC]

Yeah no idea why they didn't read the dialog box saying to insert the disc... :P

[cutebikerwannabe]

Or you would have to install the dos driver, cd would be dirty, scsi port not plugged in correctly...

Back then Soundblaster sound card with cd-rom control were very difficult to fix

[Maxfli82]

This was a cool infomercial I remember watching while growing up. Thanks for posting this for memories!

[orgthingy]

if linus created linux in 80's, then there would be more linux users!

[pedicabdr1ver]

$1499

i fucking lol'd

[epicAn0n]

Apple: Negative Campaigning since...whenever this was made.

[Gonzc900Productions]

what do you exactly mean by that

[epicAn0n]

Well, actually, to be fair, this actually does show the good features of the Preforma in the later segments.

[Gonzc900Productions]

I would think the grandfather would be the one bitching about the computer....

I wonder how the family is now, 2008? Pop be bitching bout the iphone lol

[ForcheAlex]

Fucking guidos

[kjb86]

wonder if i could do matlab on that, i already finished c....

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee­eeeeeee

[snowblindu]

POP IS AN ASSHOLE

[bckintussr]

T.J. is Squints from the movie "The Sandlot" no?

Anyone else think so?

[Str8ShootR]

I remember seeing bits and pieces of this macfomercial on many a Saturday morning in the mid-90s. I was a little sad when it (finally) went off the air. I think Panasonic was also running 3DO commercials... Good times.

[DeeObl0]

I can't help but think that whoever wrote/directed this may have worked for a communist government beforehand. Just a thought.

[schildtyler]

Is the older brother played by that kid from Dawson's Creek? James van something?

[watchingtvisgood]

Jeez...I thought this thing fell off the face of the earth or it was some werid dream I had as a child but I actaully stayed home one afternoon, thinking this was a actaul tv show when I was like nine years old. Thanks for finding this thing.

[chunksloth]

Man, this used to air all the time during one summer!

Thanks for putting it up!

[arteitle]

Ever since this first aired, my brother and I would say to each other, "Eight megs." "I knew you were a power user!"

[demiurge2demiurge]

I remember these infomercials in the mid-nineties...lol. It took the whole family to decide on one computer, and purchase it together?! BTW, where's grandma?

[times9]

i remember watchn this most nites,it came on late enuff lol.

[nomadcowatbk]

what family was up at 3 AM?

[teknokracy]

Epic. It's funny because so many years later, it's still the same deal. Macs just work.

[TaciturnGirl]

"I hear you can even have music on it too."

LOL

[cassettiespagetie]

It's hardcore katie !