Early adopter TV ads: The Commodore VIC-20

I swear, I was doing serious research when I stumbled across this:

I only have vague memories of this era, but it’s one where I’d love to have a time machine to go back and study the marketing fully immersed in the culture but knowing what I know now.  I’d need some kind of “8 bit blind” to hide behind to make my observations or something, but it was fascinating: despite years of science fiction kind of preparing people for the advent of computers in the home, how do you pitch the things?

Well, yes, you could use William Shatner:

But that’s not what got me in this ad – it’s the few frames of the kid with the joystick:

Who holds a joystick like that?  Is it a kid who’s actually never seen a computer before, or is it a kid who’s been told to do this my the director, who also may never have seen a computer before, so the gear isn’t obscured by his hand?  I love the idea that something can be so new nobody really knows how to use it or market it.

Obviously, things turned out OK for the industry and for Commodore in the shorter term, with 2.5 million VIC-20 units sold (and 17 million of its successor, the Commodore 64.)  But wow, part of me thinks it could have gone another way, and that there’s an alternate universe where people use the Zune.