Published at LXer:

Microsoft proved that one thing Windows 7 won't install is a sense of humour yesterday, by hastily pulling out of its sponsorship of a Family Guy/American Dad variety special. The vendor announced two weeks ago that it would blow some of its Windows 7 marketing budget on "an upcoming television event devoted to the comedy of Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy, American Dad and The Cleveland Show".

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I can't help but think that any damage they think would have come from this has already been done by the publicity ABOUT their sponsorship in previous weeks.

The subset of Americans that would be offended don't watch Family Guy and know WHY they don't watch, so if they heard about this beforehand, they already should have been upset. On the other hand, I have trouble believing that a lot of those people are active Internet users, so they might have not known this at all.

I guess Microsoft thinks that they must be big computer users. But aren't those folks already ticked at Microsoft over gay rights issues? Could Seth McFarland really anger them more? Well, maybe :-)

The part that confuses me the most is that surely Microsoft should have known that Family Guy is NOT for Middle America. If the people in charge truly have never watched an episode, wouldn't a simple Google - excuse me, Bing! - search have enlightened them? Why would they have ever agreed to this on day one?

I agree with you that any publicity, positive or otherwise, has already been achieved simple because of the announcement of this scenario.

It'd probably be funny to see some Windows bluescreens, maybe see Peter smashing his locked-up Windows computer, or watch the son trying to install W7 on his laptop and subsequently throwing it out the window by the end of the show!

Now I guess we'll have to wait and see if maybe we can't get some penguins onto the show instead -- and I bet it'd be Brian the dog, and the daughter, who'd be the Linux users in the Griffin family.

Family Guy is completely hilarious IMO -- it's one of the very few things I would sit through, if we actually got whatever channel it may be on these days.

Sasha

I agree - Brian might use Linux, though Meg would probably be a Mac fan.


Peter would have trouble with anything..,

Microsoft seems so out of touch. Their latest ads, with that uninspiring guy demonstrating Snap - I bet 80% or more of viewers have NO idea what he was doing or why they'd want to do it. The Mac ads, however are funny and although they may be unfair (Windows 7 is a better Windows - not that saying that means much!), they do nail the issues.

It's fun to fantasize what Linux ads might look like. Red Hat is too "business conservative" to do anything like Apple does, but Shuttleworth seems like he has a sense of humor - maybe instead of taking another rocket ride, he'd like to put Tux on TV?