Apple Produced 'Ghostbusters' Ad, Apple Boogie Album in 80s
As part of an international sales meeting in the early 80s, Cupertino put together a Ghostbusters-themed video that targeted IBM, its biggest rival at the time.
Happy Friday! It appears that Apple produced a rather entertaining ad in 1984—no, not that one. As part of an international sales meeting in the early 80s, Cupertino put together a Ghostbusters-themed video that targeted IBM, its biggest rival at the time.
The company also reportedly produced an album of cover songs known as The Apple Boogie. Yes, really.
The video is titled Blue Busters, a reference to IBM's Big Blue nickname, and features Apple employees dressed as Ghostbusters using their proton packs to turn IBM machines into Macs. "There's something strange stinking up your desk; who you gonna call? Blue Busters!" Ray Parker Jr. sings as Slimer drops ooze on an IBM computer.
"Just to keep your store, you gotta lose your soul," the song continues, as suit-clad IBM salesmen strong arm a store owner into setting up multiple IBM kiosks. The Blue Busters soon arrive, however, and zap the rival PCs. "We ain't afraid of no Blue," Parker sings.
As The Next Web noted, a YouTube commentor who was at the video's presentation provided some background on its origins. It was used as the opening presentation for an October 1984 sales meeting in Hawaii that introduced the Apple Lightwriter, later rebranded as the Laserwriter.
"There were also live dancers on the stage," wrote majorkahuna. "Apple always used a current movie as a them[e] for the sales meetings. In 1985 it was Back to the Future."
Someone needs to find the Back to the Future video, stat.
Yesterday, the AP ran a story about a housed at Stanford University, which includes documents, videos, books, software, and the blueprint for the very first Apple computer.
In that article, the AP said that Steve Jobs made an appearance in the Ghostbusters spoof, but like The Next Web, we could only spot Steve Wozniak. Did we miss Jobs? Check out the video below.
Update: A PCMag reader alerted us to the electronic filings for Stanford's Special Collections, which notes on page 196 that the 1984 "Bluebusters" videotape is actually 4:14 minutes long; the clip on YouTube is just over two minutes. The reader, who said he has a full-length copy of the show on DVD, said Jobs does indeed make an appearance; you can see him around the 1:13 minute mark in this AP video—screen shot at right. "The Apple BlueBuster isn't exactly a video. At least, it didn't start off that way. This is a video tape transfer of wide screen multi-media 35 mm slide show," he wrote.
Prior to iTunes, meanwhile, Apple also reportedly dabbled in music production of its own—an album called The Apple Boogie. The Next Web also reports that Blue Busters is among the record's eight tracks, which were provided to attendees at Apple's 1987 sales conference. Naturally the tracks are available online, but who knows for how long, so enjoy them in their 80s-tastic glory while you can. As someone who owns the Pointer Sisters on vinyl, I'm particularly amused by "We're So Excited."