Get a Mac - British Style
I liked Apple’s “Get a Mac” ads with the cool Mac, and the rather fusty PC. But it was all too American. The PC guy was just too faceless-business, and the Mac just too self-knowinly cool; he was also too good looking for his own good.
Now I’d just assumed that as US corporations think that we speak the same language on this side of the pond (we don’t: colour is spelt with a ‘u’; it’s fibre, not fiber, and when in the UK we refer to a ‘pack of fags’, we’re talking about cigarettes, not a ‘Pride march), that we wouldn’t get our own version of ‘Get a Mac’. I was pretty jealous about this - after all, even the Japanese got their own one.
Well now we have our own British Get a Mac, with two of my favourite comedians - Mitchell and Webb in the two roles. They’re far better than the original US boys because . . .
- They’ve worked together for years, so have great on-camera chemistry
- They’re obviously mocking the whole concept of the ads.
- They use words like ’shinnagins’ and ‘high-jinks’
- They look like real people - one’s overweight and ’square’ in a british way (Mitchell), the other is pasty and looks ill at ease with the world (Webb).
- I can see this morphing into a Sir Digby Chicken Caeser & Ginger sketch.
Now that’s Numberwang!
