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Why is the Cave Infomercial infamous?


ReddMcKnight

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I'm trying to imagine the thick awkwardness filling the air during the filming process. Each decade has its own brand of cheesy directing, and this infomercial is filled with it. Did anyone see this in an original broadcast? Was this a late night thing targeted to depressed people dying for a radical change in their lives (and desperate to hope a new game console would get them laid)? I wish I could hear the pitching process for ideas like this. Lastly, imagine the ideas which were thrown out if this was the type of thing pushed into full production.

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It's infamous for the simple reason that it is tougher to watch than low-grade, 70's, homo-erotic, elderly, amputee porn:

Boy. That sucked. Hard.

 

I can hear Jack T. yelling, "I'll give you 300 bucks for a video and not a penny more!!"

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Anybody know what the actors of the cave do now/how they look now? I seem to have found the male ones, but for the girls I was unsuccessfull.

 

They tried to live down the shame. For years they spent 2 days a week in therapy. Eventually, the could show their faces again, but the thought of the infomercial haunted them. Secretly they hated themselves. Eventually they were forced, through desperation, to take low paid jobs working in burger joints. During this time they attented Ultra Vortek cosplay seminars to make a little bit of extra cash. After a few years of flipping burgers, one of them got promoted to shift manager. This caused tension between them and the other quit. They never spoke again. Their current whereabouts are unknown.

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  • 1 month later...

Part of my love for the Jaguar infomercial was that it was an infomercial. This was the crap that showed up after 11PM-12AM when independent TV stations were selling anything. These commercials are part of a place and time, a snapshot of history that will never be repeated.

 

This crappy infomercial, like so many of its time, is horrible and exaggerated for even the people who watched it in the 90s. But that demonstrates the history of the time -- not only how crappy infomercials played every night, but how Atari had sunk so low as to do that. Maybe some people see these spots positively, but I remember them as the end of the end for Atari.

 

Sure, you can sell knives at $20/set in late night infomercials, but that's the grandma-who-can't-sleep market... or the drunk-dad-who-forgot-Christmas market. It was never going to be the mainstream gamers or their market. The moment that Atari made that infomercial, then aired it, they were doomed to 3rd rate status.

 

They could have advertised platinum at $2/lb instead of the Jaguar, but that was not the right time slot or audience for video games or video game consoles. Simply by doing that, many gamers knew that Atari was dead and the same cheap shit people buy when drunk at 1AM.

 

Of course, that's what makes the commercial so awesome. There is no more 1AM time slot that so demonstrates everything. This commercial is a time capsule of everything laughable about that time and everything so wrong with Atari.

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Part of my love for the Jaguar infomercial was that it was an infomercial. This was the crap that showed up after 11PM-12AM when independent TV stations were selling anything. These commercials are part of a place and time, a snapshot of history that will never be repeated.

 

This crappy infomercial, like so many of its time, is horrible and exaggerated for even the people who watched it in the 90s. But that demonstrates the history of the time -- not only how crappy infomercials played every night, but how Atari had sunk so low as to do that. Maybe some people see these spots positively, but I remember them as the end of the end for Atari.

 

Sure, you can sell knives at $20/set in late night infomercials, but that's the grandma-who-can't-sleep market... or the drunk-dad-who-forgot-Christmas market. It was never going to be the mainstream gamers or their market. The moment that Atari made that infomercial, then aired it, they were doomed to 3rd rate status.

 

They could have advertised platinum at $2/lb instead of the Jaguar, but that was not the right time slot or audience for video games or video game consoles. Simply by doing that, many gamers knew that Atari was dead and the same cheap shit people buy when drunk at 1AM.

 

Of course, that's what makes the commercial so awesome. There is no more 1AM time slot that so demonstrates everything. This commercial is a time capsule of everything laughable about that time and everything so wrong with Atari.

 

Back then, I only ever saw Jaguar commercials after midnight and only during Mystery Science Theatre 3000, never in prime-time or even in any day-times. The audience from MST3K was probably a target audience for gaming, but the show aired in earlier evening and day-time weekend time spots and would have been a better choice to get the whol MST3K audience. But Atari was unwilling to flip the bill for commercials at anytime but the middle of the night apparently...how they ever thought that would get them sales or a market share, I don't know. The only reason I ever watched that late was I had a second shift job at the time so I was up into the middle of the night and woke up around noon. I never saw the infomercial on TV, only in later years online.

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For some reason the psycho reminds me a lot of Doc from Back to the Future...

Also, it bothered me that the power and video cables weren't actually connected to the Jaguar itself. I was always far more focused on the flaws than whatever shit message they were trying to deliver. You're right, I would have never bought this crap. I want more than just a 64-bit kiss.... :grin:

 

On a side note, I always did like the cartridge holder on the side and wanted to make something similar that would store carts but, like a lot of shit I wanted to do, will never happen.

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