10:56 I'm french and this ad really traumatized me, it was a freaking jump scare for me and I couldn't dream for many days after seeing this, even watching tv was kind of scary after because the idea that this ad might appear again was frightening.
It's fascinating to me that the ps2 "third place" ad campaign is prophetic, even if it wasn't intended that way. Fortnite and Discord and other online games are basically the modern equivalent of malls and pubs, which is the original meaning of "third place" - a place that isn't work or home where you gather with strangers and friends, feel safe, build community, and don't have to spend too much money. The kids have taken to online videogames because modern America basically has no third places. If you want to go anywhere you have to spend a lot of money and they want you to leave as quickly as possible and don't care about the citizens building community.
@@elgoog-the-thirdFacts. By the time I needed a third space you had to have $100 a visit, adjusted for inflation it's close to the $250 you need for a night at the bar today. I long for the days when "Cheers" was a reality for people, I never got to have that. I'm pushing 40.
Aside from the whole surreal vibe of it all, my favourite thing about the alien girl ad is that she's Scottish. The "scottish people when they see scotland mentioned" thing is so real
fr they fumbled marketing earthbound to english-speaking countries SO BAD because they decided to focus on toilet humor (which is borderline non-present in the games)
One of the reasons for the style of the “Mental Wealth” ad is its director Chris Cunningham, who is known for his bizarre and often nightmarish imagery. The best example I can give is his work on two music videos both of which were made for two of Aphex Twin’s songs “Windowlicker” and “Come to Daddy”, and you’ll see what I mean.
Add-on because i'm a nerd: he also created the video for All Is Full Of Love by Bjork, which a lot of weird music video fans will also likely be familiar with! :)
Additional factors: There are factors from the late 90s zeitgeist you would have missed being a kid. There was a deconstructionist vibe to most media created by and for GenX young adults that often translated into an edginess as we pushed the boundaries after the Hayes Code had been toppled in *our* childhood, and various social taboos were being tested. You can see this in every single other kind of media, but particularly that targeted to 20-somethings. So music videos and MTV bumpers/ads/stylings, as well as Cartoon Network shows which we as much targeted at us as they were at kids. (Dexter's Lab, Power Puff Grrls, Ren & Stimpy, et al were just as popular with us, not to mention Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Daria, Beavis & Butthead, Sifl & Ollie targeted directly at us, and these all had this edgy undercurrent testing the limits of our newfound freedom of speech.) These also served to "question everything," a popular slogan, and there was a pursuit for authenticity, keeping it real, media about "real" things that was often defined as anything the olds were trying to keep from us. It's hard to understand the time before all this and how repressive it was, and the 90s was about breaking free. This was definitely an influence on gaming ads at the time, since gamers tended to be the edgiest of all, generally nerds who wanted to be cool, and I think we succeeded at that. ;) These ads were very incredibly MTV in their vibe. Lastly, cheap CGI was new, so creatively, anything was possible, and those limits were associated with gaming graphics (at the time, the #1 selling point of any platform or game), so testing those limits was a way to show your console was as good as or better than the latest GForce card for PC.
my fav video game ad has always been that one for Viva Piñata where the piñata tells kids he’ll grant them wishes if they free him and then he runs out of the backyard yelling “THAT WAS ACTING CHILDREN!”
i know the focus of the video was on late 90s-early00s, but the mid-90s had some really out there advertisements. Two that particularly comes to my mind are the TV commercials where a man eats food until he physically explodes (Yoshi's Island) and another where a bus driver drives a bus full of Pokemon into a car compactor and gleefully turns it on as the Pokemon are crushed.
Im kinda glad I didnt see those ads growing up, I would have been traumatized 😭Even though I saw them in adulthood, the videogame ads that came to mind were the Animal Crossing Gamecube live action ads. Seeing them now, they're definitely aimed at young adults/adults and are so witty and funny
i’m endlessly fascinated by old game ads, and hope you return to this endless well of weirdness some other time. maybe focusing on older ads from the nes and 16 bit eras?
I don't know if you'd call it "unhinged" or not, but one of the most iconic game ads of my childhood was the Halo 3 "Believe" trailer. The one where it's a model of a Halo battle scene that somehow manages to really portray the horror, desperation, and sickening nature of war. The emotion on the little plastic faces is palpable and almost brings a tear to your eye. And also kinda makes you want to play Halo. It's certainly very visceral, if not unhinged. I'm only just finding out that it was part of a larger marketing campaign where elderly veterans of the war recall their experiences and give interviews. Even for a fictional war, it hits all the beats of real war and really pulls at the heartstrings.
I remember the magazine ad for Tekken 2 from a UK computer magazine been particularly scary, it featured a man who hadtattooed himself with various tekken related tattoos and his collection of clippings citing that he'd been driven crazy by the game with the words "a medal for each victory" and "heihachi will avenge!" over and over in big red letters, with some particularly scary and bad looking drawings of the characters been shown also. i don't what market they was going for, but certainly was eye catching.
One ad i still can’t get off of my mind is the Yoshi’s Island one, i never watched it airing as i wasn’t born yet but i came across it online growing up and it’s just so gross to watch in the worst way 😭
As someone who lived and bought games since the Atari, I can tell you that no ad ever sold a game, we never cared about campaigns, what sold games were the screens and clips of gameplay included along with whatever they thought was worth attention, and the consensus of opinion on what games were good held by other kids. Maybe it brought in the normies, I dunno.
Great vid, but I think you'll find it was Sega who started the weird ads craze during the megadrive and mega cd add campaigns, you kinda completely skipped them and jumped to Sony who imo have pioneered nothing in the gaming industry other than paid for exclusivity.
I got Pc Gamer magazines, they are so nostalgic. I remember looking at FEAR and Bioshock in them back in 2007-2009 and looking forward to the next issue for a demo disc. i wish demos were still a normal thing.
i was hoping you'd mention some of the weird rayman ads . a few good examples being the "no arms. no legs. huge features." rayman 3 ad, the "hello ladies, fancy a foursome?" rayman 2 ad, and the rayman 3 ad where rayman pees his name into the snow
Have you done anything on those Quiznos ads? Those were nuts, and had no business being on TV. 2000s were wild, and the zoomer gen will never understand how deeply traumatizing even the stuff we liked was.
Sony had some absolute bangers, two you didn’t mention and are my favourites are “Double Life” from the 90s which won advertising awards at the time and was done by a French ad agency. Also love the PlayStation UK one for the 20th anniversary of PlayStation from 2014
It was more "edgy" than unhinged but there was a print ad for a Spyro game that showed a mama duck and her duckling brood roasted in the middle of the street and I remember finding it needlessly upsetting as a tot
I haven’t even gotten a minute into the video but I’m so excited, the neighbours are asking me to calm down but I’m just so ecstatic to hear about the video game adverts regardless of what they tell me like “your phone isn’t even turned on”
No mention of the "Now you're playing with Power", "Play it loud", "Genesis Does" and " WELCO METOT HENEX TLEVEL" ad campaigns? As honestly, the later stuff from Sony and Microsoft seem to just be a geared up set of stuff from those ad campaigns from Nintendo and Sega Also, the Atari Jaguar advertisements were not fully hinged I mean... these are just turning the temperature up a bit on stuff already present
Yo, I was literally there at the time. It wasn't just video game ads that were crazy. The '90s were fucking wild. Check out the beer and soda ads. Notably Budweiser and Surge. If I had to guess the reason, I would say it was probably the crystal meth that seemed to be everywhere. Not just the streets and skate parks, but also in your weird uncle's master bathroom actively cooking. I wasn't aware of the drug connection when I was ten, but it became clear after my uncle blew himself up a year before he overdosed and died in my teens. From the look of you, I'm probably ten to fifteen years older than you.
I worked on a PC game named Obsidian that was released by Segasoft in 1997. It was a surreal adventure game about AI and nanotechnology gone wild, and had an ad totally unrelated to, but equally surreal: ruclips.net/video/VFE3fPYYIqo/видео.html. Definitely in the vein of some of the ads you mentioned.
Yeah stuff back then was weird. When I watch back something like Rocko's Modern Life, I'm like how tf did they get this in front of kids 'cause there are tons of sexual jokes and such.
The insanity has transferred to exclusively mobile game ads
But without the charm and let alone their ambition or budget.
And less ominous, most mobile game ads felt like brainrot content from tiktok
𝓦𝓮 𝓐𝓻𝓮 𝓕𝓾𝓬𝓴𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓤𝓷𝓭𝓮𝓻 𝓐𝓽𝓽𝓪𝓬𝓴!
Fr these video game ads for phone games are crazy
Definitely, although not in a good way
10:56 I'm french and this ad really traumatized me, it was a freaking jump scare for me and I couldn't dream for many days after seeing this, even watching tv was kind of scary after because the idea that this ad might appear again was frightening.
It's fascinating to me that the ps2 "third place" ad campaign is prophetic, even if it wasn't intended that way. Fortnite and Discord and other online games are basically the modern equivalent of malls and pubs, which is the original meaning of "third place" - a place that isn't work or home where you gather with strangers and friends, feel safe, build community, and don't have to spend too much money.
The kids have taken to online videogames because modern America basically has no third places. If you want to go anywhere you have to spend a lot of money and they want you to leave as quickly as possible and don't care about the citizens building community.
Nothing prophetic about that. By the point these PS2 ads ran, it had long been a reality.
@@elgoog-the-thirdFacts. By the time I needed a third space you had to have $100 a visit, adjusted for inflation it's close to the $250 you need for a night at the bar today. I long for the days when "Cheers" was a reality for people, I never got to have that. I'm pushing 40.
Aside from the whole surreal vibe of it all, my favourite thing about the alien girl ad is that she's Scottish. The "scottish people when they see scotland mentioned" thing is so real
Sony try to make normal ads challenge impossible
I remember most of these ads. They were really clued into the clubbing scene in england in a lot of ways. Wipeout was a memorable one.
They advertised playstation in clubs and raves, it wasn't uncommon to see a couple of ps play booths in your local night club.
The tv in the back had my whole attention span
I wanted to see it hit the corner.
One of my favorite video game ads was the "It Stinks!" campaign for Earthbound. For some reason, it didn't end up selling well at the time.
fr they fumbled marketing earthbound to english-speaking countries SO BAD because they decided to focus on toilet humor (which is borderline non-present in the games)
One of the reasons for the style of the “Mental Wealth” ad is its director Chris Cunningham, who is known for his bizarre and often nightmarish imagery. The best example I can give is his work on two music videos both of which were made for two of Aphex Twin’s songs “Windowlicker” and “Come to Daddy”, and you’ll see what I mean.
Add-on because i'm a nerd: he also created the video for All Is Full Of Love by Bjork, which a lot of weird music video fans will also likely be familiar with! :)
@insectsect That one as well. He’s done a lot of stuff.
@@insectsect additional add-on: Rubber Johnny video short
@@stregadreamcast3928 he did some artwork for Judge Dredd and Alien too, under the name Chris Halls. Dude is mad skilled and highly creative fr.
He also came very close to doing a Neuromancer movie. I would've loved to see his vision.
8:15 RIP, hope you’re doing okay.
Additional factors: There are factors from the late 90s zeitgeist you would have missed being a kid. There was a deconstructionist vibe to most media created by and for GenX young adults that often translated into an edginess as we pushed the boundaries after the Hayes Code had been toppled in *our* childhood, and various social taboos were being tested. You can see this in every single other kind of media, but particularly that targeted to 20-somethings. So music videos and MTV bumpers/ads/stylings, as well as Cartoon Network shows which we as much targeted at us as they were at kids. (Dexter's Lab, Power Puff Grrls, Ren & Stimpy, et al were just as popular with us, not to mention Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Daria, Beavis & Butthead, Sifl & Ollie targeted directly at us, and these all had this edgy undercurrent testing the limits of our newfound freedom of speech.) These also served to "question everything," a popular slogan, and there was a pursuit for authenticity, keeping it real, media about "real" things that was often defined as anything the olds were trying to keep from us. It's hard to understand the time before all this and how repressive it was, and the 90s was about breaking free. This was definitely an influence on gaming ads at the time, since gamers tended to be the edgiest of all, generally nerds who wanted to be cool, and I think we succeeded at that. ;) These ads were very incredibly MTV in their vibe. Lastly, cheap CGI was new, so creatively, anything was possible, and those limits were associated with gaming graphics (at the time, the #1 selling point of any platform or game), so testing those limits was a way to show your console was as good as or better than the latest GForce card for PC.
Im honestly surprised that there wasn't a section for any Sega Console, hell ESPECIALLY the American Saturn ad's, those were...odd to say the least.
Sorry to hear that you're recently bereaved Randy, I hope things get better for you.
that one gun girl z ad where an anime girl's bare ass was shown, AND it had jiggle physics too, thats stuck in my head permanently fr
my fav video game ad has always been that one for Viva Piñata where the piñata tells kids he’ll grant them wishes if they free him and then he runs out of the backyard yelling “THAT WAS ACTING CHILDREN!”
i very nearly included that one in the video lol
I miss weird ads. Instead of paying money (RUclips premium) not to see them, I used to go out of my way to look up, watch, and share those ads.
I've recently become a member because of your content and now I'm addicted! Looking forward to more future uploads!
i know the focus of the video was on late 90s-early00s, but the mid-90s had some really out there advertisements. Two that particularly comes to my mind are the TV commercials where a man eats food until he physically explodes (Yoshi's Island) and another where a bus driver drives a bus full of Pokemon into a car compactor and gleefully turns it on as the Pokemon are crushed.
dead flowers in the background is seriously really good
RIP GameInformer
Im kinda glad I didnt see those ads growing up, I would have been traumatized 😭Even though I saw them in adulthood, the videogame ads that came to mind were the Animal Crossing Gamecube live action ads. Seeing them now, they're definitely aimed at young adults/adults and are so witty and funny
Didn't know the DS was so freaky 👅
i’m endlessly fascinated by old game ads, and hope you return to this endless well of weirdness some other time. maybe focusing on older ads from the nes and 16 bit eras?
that commercial at 3:30 is made by Chris Cunningham who did some iconic Aphex Twin music videos. So wild they had him make that commercial.
WWF Attitude Era
Nuff said
I don't know if you'd call it "unhinged" or not, but one of the most iconic game ads of my childhood was the Halo 3 "Believe" trailer. The one where it's a model of a Halo battle scene that somehow manages to really portray the horror, desperation, and sickening nature of war. The emotion on the little plastic faces is palpable and almost brings a tear to your eye. And also kinda makes you want to play Halo. It's certainly very visceral, if not unhinged.
I'm only just finding out that it was part of a larger marketing campaign where elderly veterans of the war recall their experiences and give interviews. Even for a fictional war, it hits all the beats of real war and really pulls at the heartstrings.
Man, the Sega ads and the Crash Bandicoot ads. You can't tell me those producers weren't on the best kind of drugs making those.
I remember the magazine ad for Tekken 2 from a UK computer magazine been particularly scary, it featured a man who hadtattooed himself with various tekken related tattoos and his collection of clippings citing that he'd been driven crazy by the game with the words "a medal for each victory" and "heihachi will avenge!" over and over in big red letters, with some particularly scary and bad looking drawings of the characters been shown also. i don't what market they was going for, but certainly was eye catching.
One ad i still can’t get off of my mind is the Yoshi’s Island one, i never watched it airing as i wasn’t born yet but i came across it online growing up and it’s just so gross to watch in the worst way 😭
makes sense, it *was* based on monty python’s mr. creosote bit
Zach and Cody playing pokemon Heartgold/Soulsilver on a beach is burned into my brain.
These videos are so nice to draw to, man. Nice job
Reminds me of this RE2 christmas ad that would run when I was kid that had a severed head in a serving tray. Used to scare the hell out of me.
Damn I remember subbing you like at 20k and now you are 60k. Growin fast. Keep going.
easily becoming one of my fav utubers
As someone who lived and bought games since the Atari, I can tell you that no ad ever sold a game, we never cared about campaigns, what sold games were the screens and clips of gameplay included along with whatever they thought was worth attention, and the consensus of opinion on what games were good held by other kids. Maybe it brought in the normies, I dunno.
Great vid, but I think you'll find it was Sega who started the weird ads craze during the megadrive and mega cd add campaigns, you kinda completely skipped them and jumped to Sony who imo have pioneered nothing in the gaming industry other than paid for exclusivity.
I’m never going to forget that ps3 baby ad. Made the ps3 feel so premium back then.
That dvd logo never hit the corner!
imo i loved the weird ads for games, it had some weird aesthetic that would always capture our attention
Bring the weird videogame ads back
I got Pc Gamer magazines, they are so nostalgic. I remember looking at FEAR and Bioshock in them back in 2007-2009 and looking forward to the next issue for a demo disc. i wish demos were still a normal thing.
I am amused by the "hear me out" cake. I love that Joshua Graham is on there.
8:03 HOO-HAH???? PRESS 1????
fav add is the "youre gonna need an extra pair" from mario strikers
I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss absurdist techno-grunge, but we should never bring it back.
Love the new backdrop 👍
Chris Cunningham is an amazing director/artist. His contribution to that era was incredible
Cat maid Leon edits are necessary for understanding the Lore of the game.
your voice if very nice to hear while I look at the dvd logo
I loved the crazy Crash Bandicoot ads
I'm glad RUclips finally recommended me a good channel 👍🏻
I'm surprised the infamous Australian "We are Nintendo" NES ad didn't get a mention
i was mainly focusing on the late 90s-2000s so i didn’t come across that one but i just looked it up and omg 😭 what were they doing
randy video yes yes yay I’m jumping for joy
i would love if you included the “you cannot beat us” ad from the nes days
That one PS2 print ad that had condoms in the shape of a triangle, x, square, and circle
I remember seeing these ads onTV. I remember seeing the xbox one on some website I don't remember
this channel is fire
Spike Jonze's HomePod ad is the best I've ever seen and it's from 2018
a new randy moon video? you cooked and i‘ll eat it up
i was hoping you'd mention some of the weird rayman ads . a few good examples being the "no arms. no legs. huge features." rayman 3 ad, the "hello ladies, fancy a foursome?" rayman 2 ad, and the rayman 3 ad where rayman pees his name into the snow
I'll never forget the crying, laughing baby PS3 ad.
Video game ads peaked when peter griffin entered fortnite
Have you done anything on those Quiznos ads? Those were nuts, and had no business being on TV. 2000s were wild, and the zoomer gen will never understand how deeply traumatizing even the stuff we liked was.
thanks for the video
Sony had some absolute bangers, two you didn’t mention and are my favourites are “Double Life” from the 90s which won advertising awards at the time and was done by a French ad agency. Also love the PlayStation UK one for the 20th anniversary of PlayStation from 2014
watching the ds ones were so weird considering i was obsessed with them when i was 4 😭
im a simple person. i see new randy moon upload, i click.
12:36 IT DID THE THING
It was more "edgy" than unhinged but there was a print ad for a Spyro game that showed a mama duck and her duckling brood roasted in the middle of the street and I remember finding it needlessly upsetting as a tot
My dad got me into games PlayStation tho Since PS2 and some game ads i noticed some seemed weird
10:49 I feel like if you tried to bang Joshua graham, his thing would just fall off
Times were more fun back then.
I haven’t even gotten a minute into the video but I’m so excited, the neighbours are asking me to calm down but I’m just so ecstatic to hear about the video game adverts regardless of what they tell me like “your phone isn’t even turned on”
thank you randy moon thank
omg thanks for releasing this im broke 😭
No mention of the "Now you're playing with Power", "Play it loud", "Genesis Does" and "
WELCO
METOT
HENEX
TLEVEL" ad campaigns?
As honestly, the later stuff from Sony and Microsoft seem to just be a geared up set of stuff from those ad campaigns from Nintendo and Sega
Also, the Atari Jaguar advertisements were not fully hinged
I mean... these are just turning the temperature up a bit on stuff already present
Im literally your number one fan!!😼
thank you nakeyrandy
Like ads haven’t been insane from their conception
staring into my soul.
Hello mr lynch what are you doing here
Cool sega music 😍
10/10 video
You know, I think I finally found my type. But idk tho
EU had the weirdest ads like ps2 condoms lol
they aroused viewers' CURIOSITY. gosh.
16:13 the Kylie Jenner Pepsi ad
7:16 xDDDDDDDDD 100% Tru
Yo, I was literally there at the time. It wasn't just video game ads that were crazy. The '90s were fucking wild. Check out the beer and soda ads. Notably Budweiser and Surge. If I had to guess the reason, I would say it was probably the crystal meth that seemed to be everywhere. Not just the streets and skate parks, but also in your weird uncle's master bathroom actively cooking. I wasn't aware of the drug connection when I was ten, but it became clear after my uncle blew himself up a year before he overdosed and died in my teens. From the look of you, I'm probably ten to fifteen years older than you.
I worked on a PC game named Obsidian that was released by Segasoft in 1997. It was a surreal adventure game about AI and nanotechnology gone wild, and had an ad totally unrelated to, but equally surreal: ruclips.net/video/VFE3fPYYIqo/видео.html. Definitely in the vein of some of the ads you mentioned.
Randy time yeeesss
Thank you randy moon
do u by any chance read ur script of off a screen? i have a suggestion xd
they need to bring them back lowkey
It wouldn't work. Imagine all the crybullies throwing hissy fits and tantrums if those ads came out today.
Lmaooo I feel like my attention span is edging with the screensaver in the background. Love in the video so far sincerely
Yeah stuff back then was weird. When I watch back something like Rocko's Modern Life, I'm like how tf did they get this in front of kids 'cause there are tons of sexual jokes and such.
I'm sorry for your parents' loss
Okay we believe ur not reading a script u can blink now
i like your videos but it feels like you're staring into my soul
4:11 BRASIL MENCIONADO!!!!!!! 🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷
Love your wide eyes 👁👄 👁