Back in March 1991, Saturday Night Live ran what I consider the best Apple parody ad ever made: “McIntosh Jr.” Siracusa and I talked about it on The Talk Show this week, celebrating Apple’s 50th anniversary, so I looked it up for the show notes. Alas, this appallingly low-resolution copy hosted on Reddit is seemingly the only free-to-watch copy of it available. (If you can find — or make — a better version, let me know.) If you have a Peacock account, you can watch it in much higher quality in their SNL archive: Season 16, Episode 16, starting at 7:30, just after host Jeremy Irons’s monologue. (It rolls right into a good “Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey”.)

We just recorded tomorrow’s episode of Dithering, and Ben asked me my favorite Apple commercial of all time. I was tempted to say this one, despite the fact that it isn’t real. The best parodies are the ones that hew the closest to the truth of their subject, that exaggerate the least. And the message of “McIntosh Jr.” is, at its heart, the actual purpose of the Macintosh, and of Apple writ large. Computers that enable you to do your best work. Bicycles for the mind. And, yes, the power to crush the other kids. That’s what drew me and Siracusa to Apple computers, and keeps us drawn to them today.

Update: Here’s a high-quality free-to-watch version on Rumble. Nice!

Jason Snell, writing at Macworld, regarding joining the staff at MacUser back in 1993:

But as amazing and revelatory as the Mac was for me as a writer and editor of print and online publications, I rapidly discovered that the Apple of the period was a mess. My first day as a full-time employee, a copy editor popped his head over the cubicle wall and asked me if I had heard anything about layoffs. Welcome to the media, kid.

60 Minutes published a short clip of a 2003 Dan Rather interview with Steve Jobs, and it’s a good one. Seems apt both regarding Apple’s continued success after Jobs’s death, and a refutation of the personality cult in The White House.

A veritable encyclopedia of Apple history. Just a remarkable, essential, and unique work.

David Pogue, on his new blog at Substack:

When the iPhone was about to go on sale in 2007, a thousand people lined up around the block at New York City’s Apple Store.

I’d written a parody of “My Way,” with the crazy idea of filming a music video with the participation of people standing in that line. It was a total blast; everyone in line was game. I edited the results together and uploaded it — and for six hours, ladies and gentlemen, it was the most watched video on YouTube. (It’s still there.)

Anyway. That night, I got a call from Jobs’s assistant. “I have Steve on the line,” she said. “Can you take the call?”

I was out to dinner with my family, but I said yes.

“David?” Jobs said when he came on the line. “I saw that song video you posted today.”

Oh GREAT, I thought. I steeled myself for another epic reaming by the CEO of Apple.

“I just wanted to say, it was the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever seen,” he said.