Here's to the Craziest of the "Crazy Ones." Farewell, Steve

It's unclear to us why the death of Steve Jobs has hit us hard. We never knew him personally.  We love Android and hate the iOS closed model.  Despite that, while watching the videos when writing this, we would tear up, occasionally.  Is it because his age isn't that far off of ours?   Whatever the reason, farewell, Steve.

"Think Different" was an advertising slogan created for Apple Computer in 1997 by the Los Angeles office of advertising agency TBWA\Chiat\Day. And, when one "thinks" about it, it's a good description for the mindset of Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who died on Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2011, at the age of 56.

Jobs brought Apple back from the brink of bankruptcy. He changed a arguably irrelevant computer company into a consumer electronics company that also makes computers (if you didn't know, it used to be Apple Computers, and is now just Apple). He turned that same company into a company dueling with Exxon Mobil for the title as most valuable company in the world, by market cap.

He made MP3 players work, though now all anyone thinks of when they think of an MP3 player is the iPod. He turned the smartphone from a niche device into a must-have. And he took a market segment that no one was able to successful fill, and filled it with the iPad, the device that, at least for now, is what most people think of when they think "tablet."

The "Think Different," commercial, also known as "Here's to the Crazy Ones," aired in two different forms on television, but there was also one, never-aired version.  The idea, of course, was that the "Crazy Ones" thought differently.

The two versions that aired were narrated by actor Richard Dreyfuss. The original, one-minute version featured black-and-white footage of 17 iconic 20th century personalities. They were, in order of appearance: Albert Einstein; Bob Dylan; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Richard Branson; John Lennon and Yoko Ono; Buckminster Fuller; Thomas Edison; Muhammad Ali; Ted Turner; Maria Callas; Mahatma Gandhi; Amelia Earhart; Alfred Hitchcock; Martha Graham; Jim Henson and Kermit the Frog; Frank Lloyd Wright; and Pablo Picasso. The commercial ends with an image of a young girl (identified as Shaan Sahota) opening her closed eyes, as though she had been making a wish.

The second, thirty-second version used 11 of the original 17 personalities, but closed with Jerry Seinfeld instead of the young girl. For the shortened version, in order of appearance: Albert Einstein; Bob Dylan; Martin Luther King, Jr.; John Lennon; Martha Graham; Muhammad Ali; Alfred Hitchcock; Mahatma Gandhi; Jim Henson and Kermit the Frog; Maria Callas; and Pablo Picasso. This version only aired once, during the series finale of Seinfeld.

The text of the ad, with the part omitted in the shortened version in italics, was:



Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

The unaired version was narrated by Steve Jobs himself. It was never aired on television. Perhaps it should, with ... instead of the young girl, an image of Steve Jobs. It would be a fitting tribute, and we would love to see it.

You can watch the versions below: original first, Seinfeld version, and Jobs's version.

Truly, we've lost one of the Craziest of the Crazy Ones.