Parody of 'Ghostbusters' shows fight against IBM

Less than a week after a previously-unreleased Apple sales force parody video surfaced on various sites (and finally on YouTube), a similar sales video from the era has also appeared on the video site. The previous film, "1944," based its satire on the company's "1984" commercial and portrayed Apple as engaged in a war with its main competitor at the time, IBM. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs appeared as President Roosevelt.

The recently-posted parody uses a modified version of the song "Ghostbusters" from the hit film of that year. A custom version of the song (perhaps sung by Ray Parker Jr. as the original version was, or a soundalike) is featured, with the lyrics changed to continue the theme of a war against IBM. The video is called "Blue Busters" (as IBM was known widely as "Big Blue"). While Jobs (and some other notable Apple personalities) are seen in much briefer cameos in the video, the idea is the same: to inspire the sales force to see IBM as their main competitor, particularly when dealing with businesses.

The video is a stylized music video using animated still photos as was popular in the era, and features cameos of John Sculley, Steve Wozniak and even Jobs, who is dressed as one of the proverbial "Blue Busters" in a jumpsuit with a Macintosh for a backpack, a Apple IIc breastplate and a gun to shoot streams that convert IBM computers into Macintoshes. Viewers who were old enough to well recall the Ghostbusters movie and cultural impact are likely to find the video nostalgic.

Like the "1944" video, the "Blue Busters" was never intended to be seen by the public and was developed to be shown at the annual sales force retreat in Hawaii that year. Other tech companies have been known for similar parody promotional videos, but until recently Apple was not thought to have done humorous or satirical promotion videos.

by MacNN Staff