Saturday, September 27, 2008

from the 'what were they thinking?' file

using the (incredible?) hulk as an av spokesperson:


i actually saw a very small version of this in a print ad some time ago and i thought it was hilarious at the time but i couldn't find it anywhere online so that i could share it... graham just reminded me of it and better still pointed to a site where one might find it and low and behold here it is...

and why did i think it was hilarious? well, the hulk is certainly powerful, no one can deny that, but the hulk also has one major weakness - he's a dumbass... and that's who symantec chose to represent their product... well i guess it's better than a picture of peter norton who once famously said that computer viruses were an urban legend like alligators in the sewers of new york... yes, that's right, the same peter norton that norton anti-virus is named after...

4 comments:

paperghost said...

Heh, can't say I'd have picked the Hulk either. Interestingly, the character in the comics was revamped years ago and is now pretty smart. But of course nowadays the comics only really exist to act as a jumpoff for the IPs to make money via the films....and hardly anyone who watches the films actually picks up the monthlies...so everyone will indeed run with the "Hulk is a dummy" version as portrayed in the films.

Poor move on Nortons part.

Having said that, I never understood why they insisted on making Hulk dumb like he was in the 70s comics. Heaven forbid they base them on the ones being made right now, but I think that's more of a ramble for a comics blog :)

kurt wismer said...

well, i can't say i follow the comics much, but a friend of mine seems to (after we saw the movie he talked a bunch about the different hulks)... i got the impression from him that the smarter hulk was a different colour, though...

at any rate, the hulk that the masses know is definitely the dumb one, even without the recent movies (the tv show portrayed him that way as well)...

paperghost said...

They made him grey for a time (back in the 90s, I think) with a tradeoff - reduced strength, increased intelligence.

They changed him back to green (don't think he kept the brains) but the last few years, he's been super strong and pretty clever to boot so I guess they rejigged him again.

kurt wismer said...

after your first comment i was inspired to go read about the hulk in wikipedia - it seems he's lead a very interesting fictional life...