Anybody remember the old Mac EvangeList and the regular feature, Mac Sightings? Any time Mac hardware was seen in a movie, tv show, or whatever, it'd get a mention in the list. I miss that.
Anyway, I bring it up because the geeklings & I rented Chicken Little this weekend (and watched it several times!) and I noticed that in the scene where Chicken Little's Dad was answering angry phone calls, his computer pipes up & says "you've got hate mail"; the computer is an aluminum-colored laptop, and has a glowing acorn on the back of the screen. While not an actual Mac, the similarity was absolutely there. Even my 7 year old noticed it!
Anybody else have any recent sightings to report? Extra credit for screen shots!
this got mentioned on TUAW back in november.
check it:
here
they even have a shot of it. it's either a powerbook tribute, an Acorn Comupter tribute, or both.
I'm glad you brought this up, I was just about to make this topic, as I was watching The Outer Limits an hour ago. the title of the episode was "Judgement Day".
In it, I spotted 2 Apple Flat Panel Monitors, the old graphite ones that used DVI and had 2 USB ports. not the newer cinema displays, but the old one that was rebadged thrice. first in 98 with the translucent black, then in 99 with the blueberry colour, then in 2000 the graphite shade. this episode was shot in 2000, so that makes sence. The Porducer was using them to watch the show. first i spotted the trade mark clear backing, and then the looped stand. too bad the Apple Logos were removed.
also, The guy who was being hunted had a 3400/3500/KANGA. I noticed the big gill vents behind the LCD, and the spot in the center where the apple logo should have been.
other TV shows I know who used Macs:
24 (only in the first season, though. I recogniced the studio display (newer type), and I THINK I caught a glimpse of a cube. now, they use some generic HPs.)
Dark Angel (now discontinued, this was a grat show, it had Jessica Alba in it!! the guy she kept meeting with used a mac, I think a cube or a Powermac G4. it was a while ago, so I dont remember, but he had one of the ADC studio displays.
-digital
in curb your enthusiasm, lary david's manager has a cube sitting on his desk behind him
Quite often on "ABCs Extreme Makerover: Home Edition" they will use a de-logo'd PowerBook or iBook to communicate with the families. Sometime they switch off to Compaqs or Dells, but almost half the time it seems to be a Mac.
I can't count the number of PC-centric or generic "tech" commercials that use an iBook or PowerBook to help sell Winders-based software... I've seen multiple print ads that use them as props to advertise PC gear. Being in the know enough to spot them, I find it funny that just the industrial design of a mac can help people sell crud for that "other" OS.
I think the biggest tv show that has used macs is seinfeld. You can tell how old an episode is by the mac, they've used the TAM etc.
uses quite a few various AlBooks, as well as iBooks - all de-logoed.
dan k
Can anyone explain to me why they'd de-logo the Mac before shooting the TV show? I know this happens really *really* often (I remember that cheesy show "Home Improvement", Jill would use a PowerBook with a post-it note put over the logo :-P). It's never made sense to me why they'd have to remove the branding from the computer to show it on TV.
Cheers,
The Czar
Because sometime branding involves the "right" to use the mark in question. The owners can demand payment for the use of the mark, or demand that they don't use the mark. So, it's usually only the logo that gets covered.
CSI used to use a pb g3 with a blacked out logo, and the world was saved by a pb 5300cs in the movie Independence Day, also there was a mac plus, or classic in Back to the future II in the antique shop windows in the future where Marty buy's the 1950-2000 sports almanac.
we cant forget the movie hackers. there were a few macs in that if IIRC. the GUI they used seemingly was almost always fake though. they had a DE badged powerbook but im sure the apple logo was still on it...
I just watched a sienfield that has a color classic in it. pretty neat.
John
My brother and I were once fishing, kinda late at night, when we saw one. Thing was hoverin' about 20 or so feet above the river, I reckon. Made no sound at all as it drifted on by, glowin' pale bluish green. Scariest thing I'd ever seen...
Oh, Macintosh sightings. Sorry...
Uh, not like I've ever like seen it myself, me being like a very manly sort of man and all . . . uhh, but like . . . uhhh . . . like the main chick like whatsername has like a bronze keyboard PowerBook G3. Or so I'm told.
Isn't there already a complete website soley devoted to this very topic (Macs in media) fer heckity-heck's sake?? And if not, why not dangit?!? This is the 21st century already, where the h3ll's progress if such a hole as this exists??!!??
dan k
Not necesarily, I haven't seen it in a while, but I recall that they were using Macs to interface to mainframes with a piece of software known as a TSO client emulator. I own a copy of one of the best (of course there is like only two or three out there...) and it is made by Celcorp and the product is Celview, avaiable for z/OS - OS 390 systems and for the AS400. It allows you to choose different skins and backgrounds. You *could* even build your own as the characters had in the movie.
I cannot swear that it really was Celview being used, but I can believe that it was that product seeing what I saw and owning what I own. But yes, I loved that they used Macs in that movie, it is what inspired me to find a real mainframe client for my Mac.
The KBD on Bruce Willis's hacked "notebook" computer looks an aweful lot like it came from a PowerBook, but I've only seen it on VHS. Great flick, if somebody rents the DVD, check it out and post a screen shot. It's very a cool hack, even for a faked up, non-functional hollywood prop.
jt
The KBD on Bruce Willis's hacked "notebook" computer looks an aweful lot like it came from a PowerBook, but I've only seen it on VHS. Great flick, if somebody rents the DVD, check it out and post a screen shot. It's very a cool hack, even for a faked up, non-functional hollywood prop.
jt
edit: just remembered, there were lots of Macs in
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
I remeber seinfeld, the Macintosh Plus used to be on the desk in Jerry's apartment. The 1995 movie "hackers" starring Sandra Bullock was also a macintosh based movie. All the computers in it were all macintosh II series, or powerbooks, I think she also has a macintosh plus.
The math geek on tonight's episode of Numb3rs was using a PowerBook with a sticker over the Apple logo. What he did with it was totally outside the realm of possibility though; he plugged a cable into the USB port on the right side of the machine, banged on the keys a little and had an image displayed on the big screen in his brother's office.
While he's explaining the new method (that he just developed 15 minutes earlier) of using known DNA markers to build a physical profile of individuals from seemingly random DNA samples, his fingers look like he's typing 85 words/minute.
Yeah, right!
Wow! I just watched that one! Wasn't really paying attention to the laptop though. Hmmm...I see alot of ads in catalogs where they have a wallstreet sitting there, running win2k or XP and their pice of software.
John
If it was with Bullock it'd be "The Net" which was heavily Mac-based as you pointed out.