Steve Jobs Plays FDR in Apple’s Rally-the-Troops Film, 1944

Short­ly after Apple aired its famous Rid­ley Scott Super Bowl com­mer­cial in 1984, the upstart com­pa­ny knocked off a cheap World War II-themed inter­nal video — a ral­ly-the-troops film — dubbed 1944.  The cause is free­dom and the mis­sion, to save the world from bad com­put­ing. The ene­my isn’t the Axis (Ger­many, Japan, Italy.) It’s IBM and its “big blue mono-blob.” And the com­man­der in chief? It’s Steve Jobs, of course, chan­nel­ing F.D.R. at rough­ly the 5:30 mark (find the iso­lat­ed cameo below).

To be sure, there’s an his­tor­i­cal qual­i­ty to this film. It offers a visu­al reminder of how Apple posi­tioned itself against IBM before Microsoft came along. (Wal­ter Isaac­son dri­ves home that point in his recent biog­ra­phy of Steve Jobs, which you can down­load from Audi­ble if you sign up for a free tri­al.) But there’s also some­thing more time­less about the film. It just goes to show that every com­pa­ny, no mat­ter how much they think dif­fer­ent, can rev­el in the same cor­po­rate gim­micks — the schwag, the fawn­ing inside jokes and the rest. Poof, there goes my chance to work at Apple one day.

via Apple Insid­er