Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Jerry Seinfeld will soon be starring in ads for Microsoft Vista. The veteran comic and ’90s sitcom star is no stranger to commercial endorsements, of course: He and American Express were buddy-buddy for years. Now, for $10 million, he’ll apparently appear in ads with Bill Gates. The Cutting Room can just imagine what these spots will be like…
“Y’know, what is the deal with calling a browser ‘Safari’? I mean, safaris are dangerous! There are tigers, guns, rhinos. People get trampled and eaten. And I don’t want that on my computer. Computers should be safe. That’s why Vista’s browser will be renamed ‘Armchair Explorer,’ because nobody ever got hurt in a comfy chair.
“And another thing: Didja ever notice how certain other computer companies keep making their machines smaller and smaller and whiter and whiter? It’s like they’re trying to match the decor in your bathroom or kitchen. Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my computer to look like a bar of soap or a toaster. I have enough trouble in the morning getting the toaster to work. I don’t want to be putting the bread in the floppy drive or the disk in the toaster. But maybe the floppy disk wouldn’t be so floppy if I heated it up in the toaster? Hey, we should add that feature to Vista.
“Hey, you know what else I’d like to see? A machine that could take the yellow legal-pad pages where I write my jokes so that I could send those pages to another person, via the machine, and they could read those jokes and give me feedback. Or write their comments on the new piece of paper. Then they could type my edited jokes for me, which would be really helpful. And then they could mail them to me. But what would we call that machine?
“You know what I’d like to see more of on my computer screen? Pop-up ads. I love those things. They’re always reminding me of stuff, giving me ideas for jokes to write down on my yellow legal pads. But why are they called ‘pop-up’ ads? They should be called ‘pop-in’ ads, because they pop into your computer. Who are the ad wizards who decided on ‘pop-up’ ads? Because I really don’t get it.
“And another thing: Why do they keep trying to put e-mail on my phone and voice on my computer? Keep them separate! Like the American and National Leagues. I’m not spending my money on a voice-puter or a phone you can type on. That would be silly. I mean, think how large your pockets would have to be to carry the phone-puter around. But maybe that’s another product for Microsoft: Instead of making computers smaller, we should be making shirts larger! I can’t wait to tell Bill.”
