"Orson Welles of the Genre" with Horace Dediu, Jason Snell, and John Gruber

Apple has been using cinematic techniques in their events and ads since 1984. Horace Dediu, Jason Snell, and John Gruber discuss the story Apple has told on screens for 30 years: one of engineering thriving on dynamic creativity.

Panelists

• Horace Dediu runs Asymco and hosts The Critical Path.

• Jason Snell bleeds Six Colors, captains The Incomparable, and just started Upgrade and moved Clockwise to RelayFM.

• John Gruber is the Daring Fireball, hosts The Talk Show, and is 1/3 of Vesper, a great note-taking app.

Sponsors

• Symbolicons: 40% off any icon bundle with ESN1

• Harry's: $5 off with ELECTRIC

• Backblaze: unlimited, unthrottled backup for $5/month

• Iconic: $25 off Iconic Classic or Classic Plus

(Fair Use) Audio Clips - Video Library

• 1984, directed by Ridley Scott

• Apple Watch - Reveal

• Mac Pro - Cinema Ad

• New Coke (two ads in one), directed by Ridley Scott

• iMac - (She Comes in) Colors

• iMac - Jeff Goldblum: Email

• Ortega Tacos

• Gold iPhone 5s - Metal Mastered

• John Lasseter and Steve Jobs on Charlie Rose (1996)

• Steve Jobs introduces the Macintosh

Show Notes and Links

• The Making the New Mac Pro short is a great example of the industrial documentary style so often copied.

• Helvetica, Objectified, and Urbanized are all very, very well-made documentaries.

• More "Solid Goldblum": Beige and Three Pizzas.

• Three Steps couldn't be used because a version with decent audio couldn't be found in time.

• Exploding Tacos got you down? That purse just too confusing? Has your arm lost all ability to carry the weight of a chip bowl? Can't stop knocking over Cheetos? I...don't know what to tell you.

• My least favorite thing about the above-linked Charlie Rose interview is almost every minute of it that is not included in this week's show. Calm down, Charlie! Damn!

• Not used in the show proper, but still great: the original 2007 "Hello" teaser for iPhone.

• Creativity, Inc.

• Incomparable 197: Fail Fast (Creativity Inc.)

• When it posts within 24 hours of this episode, The Incomparable #212 will be the Toy Story-centric episode mentioned here.

• The introduction of the original iPhone.

Robin Williams: "The Tactical Nuclear Man" with Andy Ihnatko

Andy Ihnatko joins Moisés to discuss the mind, career, and incalculable impact of Robin Williams. There never has been (nor will there ever again be) one like him.

Sponsors

• Harry's: they're already disrupting the shaving industry by offering a much better shaving experience at a much better value. Use promo code ELECTRIC for $5 off.

• NEED: Place an order and send an email to **hello@neededition.com** mentioning ESN in some way to get 25% off your next order and extras freebies sent your way in the meantime.

Show Notes and Links

• Standup clips care all taken from Reality...What a Concept (1979), an album which...is not purchasable on iTunes?

• On YouTube, there's a smorgasbord of clips from Robin Williams's appearances on late night talk shows. The latest one posted is from Monday night's Late Show with David Letterman. Dave's tribute to Robin's 50 times on one or another of his shows is both very well-produced and very touching.

• Watch The Fisher King. I dare you not to be moved. The guy selling a used copy for $108 right now can go fuck off.

• The World According to Garp and Being Human were brought back into print by Warner Archive Collection a few years ago on DVD.

• Looking for off-the-beaten-path Williams movies? The Final Cut is the one few have probably recommended to you.

• The darkest, most obscure Williams performance I ever recommend is The Secret Agent (1996), based on the novel by Joseph Conrad and starring Bob Hoskins, Patricia Arquette, and Gérard Depardieu, along with Jim Broadbent, Christian Bale, and Eddie Izzard.

• Sadly, The Secret Agent is out of print and not sold digitally. Good luck...finding it.

• Insomnia, One Hour Photo, and Death to Smoochy are underrated and then some. They make up a "Dark Trilogy" of sorts. The first two are dark and disturbing, full of suspense and psychological terror, but the last is pitch-black comedy.

• FUN FACT: Death to Smoochy introduced me to the notion that "gluten-free" things existed.

• WARNING: World's Greatest Dad is amazing, but very difficult for me to think about watching due to eerie parallels it contains.

• Please, for the love of everything good, don't waste your time on RV.

• The Night at the Museum movies are fun and good and (yes) well-written.

• Other movies Fair Use-clipped here: Good Morning Vietnam*, **Dead Poets Society*, *Good Will Hunting, and The Birdcage*.

• Soon, the full audio of the excerpted Kevin Conroy interview will be posted as Screen Time 38.

• Andy's article about cosplay for BoingBoing, and the huge gallery of his photos that he mentions on the show.

• Really lovely remembrances of Williams by Mara Wilson and Lisa Jakub, who played his daughters in Mrs. Doubtfire.

• I might do a variant (maybe longer, maybe shorter) cut of this episode (as an exercise of sorts) down the line. I'm working (slowly) on a series of video essays. One of them is a case study of a deleted scene from Mrs. Doubtfire.

• If you like this episode especially, an iTunes review comment would be nice. I don't troll for validation aside from the standard "support the show", but it would be nice to know I got this one right.