I came to the U.S. in the early 2000s and was a technology journalist within the decade, so everything from before then I find packed with intrigue and mystery and, sometimes, bafflement. Today I learned about the raccoons who made computer magazine ads great, dredged from the memory hollows by Harry McCracken.
No, what made PC Connection ads unique was the imagery of anthropomorphic raccoons, the work of an illustrator named Erick Ingraham. Here they are in that same 1991 PC Magazine ad. If you inspect the art closely enough, you'll spot some boxes of vintage 1991 software, including The Microsoft Office (which, like TheFacebook.com, eventually lost its "The"). But they're Easter eggs in a scene that is mostly about raccoons making pies—assisted by a bunny rabbit and a beaver—and playing what I assume is folk music. The piece looks like an illustration from a classy children's book. That made sense, since Ingraham's work in that field helped him secure his PC Connection assignment. What on Earth was this beautifully done, homey scene—part Beatrix Potter, part Norman Rockwell—doing in a mail-order ad for computer products? The text below, by copywriter David Blistein, acknowledged that people might find it puzzling. It went on to explain that PC Connection was based in tiny Marlow, New Hampshire (population 567) and prided itself on good customer service. The point of the characters, it said, was to add "a human touch to high tech."
Reminds me of the Canadian cartoon of the same era (or perhaps a little earlier), which had a similarly rustic anthroprocyonid thing going on. McCracken's retrospective covers other things: come for the raccoons and the story of the advertiser they served, PC Connection, stay for the era's insanely dense Bronner-esque ads for mail order software and peripherals.
The raccoons who made computer magazine ads great [Technologizer]
Looks like Erick is still in business!
