Watch Apple's Terrifying 1985 Follow-Up To Its Classic Super Bowl 'Macintosh' Ad

WATCH: This Is Apple's Terrifying 1985 Follow-Up To Its Classic Super Bowl Ad
Apple

When, 30 years ago this weekend, Apple broadcast an advert for its new Macintosh computers during the Super Bowl, it changed the world of advertising.

Director Ridley Scott's clip - which portrayed an Orwellian dystopia of drudging workers, who are set free by a blonde woman in orange shorts throwing a hammer at Big Brother - was a landmark achievement.

While broadcast only once on TV, it earned Apple untold replays on news stations and column inches, and secured its place at the heart of the Silicon Valley revolution.

Then, a year later, it tried to do it again.

Only this time… It failed. Massively.

Wired has an interesting write-up of the 1985 follow-up, titled 'Lemmings', which attempted to advertise an upcoming produced called Macintosh Office. This time Apple portrayed legions of workers in suits walking blindfold up a hill only to plummet off a cliff to their deaths. That is until one takes off his blindfold and realises he has to buy a Mac, or something, at which point it's all fine.

The problem? The advert is horrifying, scary and mean. And the reaction to the clip, for which Apple paid $900,000, was apparently worsened by the fact that the product was delayed, and took two more years to arrive.

According to this write up of the ad's reception Steve Jobs was in the front seat of the stadium when it was played to "stunned silence". Afterwards one the creative team threatened to run a full page apology in the Wall Street Journal - only for another member to respond that he would run an apology for the apology, in the same paper, if he did so.

Take a look at the horrifying spectacle, below.

Close

What's Hot