Sunday, July 18, 2010

Kick Back And Meet Death From Above, David Bowie!

CH Products ran this dramatic ad for its PC game controllers in a 1991 issue of Video Games & Computer Entertainment:


Talk about celebrity joystick excitement!  The legendary David Bowie is having a great time kicking back and relaxing on the beach, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and dungarees and balancing his favorite joystick on his thigh, with a bunch of other CH products tucked safely beneath his flimsy, non-bullet-proof lounge chair.  He's watching some sort of primitive video broadcast on his amazing levitating TV set, just as a jet plane, a chopper, and a UFO zoom into view, peppering the sand with live rounds.  We're witnessing Bowie's very last moment alive, just before the bullets rip into his pale flesh and all the bone structure and glitter spill out.

How did CH Products convince a major rock star to sacrifice himself for their joysticks?

The secret is in the list of compatible systems -- the company cannily lists the Apple and the Mac BEFORE the lowly IBM PC, platform of choice for decidedly unhip corporate tools.

In fact, I suspect we've been mishearing one of Bowie's most famous lyrics all these years -- fact is, the Jean Genie lives on his Mac.

1 comment:

  1. Heh.. I had a Mach II for the Apple II... If I'm remembering the right one, it was well built and responded well. The only issue was that it was an analog stick, and they put the calibration knobs on the top of the base, around the stick's movement area, so (very) occasionally they'd get bumped and you'd drift up or right.

    Of course this only happened when you were out of continues facing a boss or such. :)

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