Justin Long: Steve Jobs Rejected Mac Ads Because 'They Were Too Funny'

Actor Justin Long ’s “Get a Mac” commercials with John Hodgman were a bona fide hit, numbering in the dozens from 2006 to 2009. Long played a relaxed, innovative Mac while Hodgman portrayed a stodgy, complaining PC.

But some of the best ones never ran because Apple co-founder Steve Jobs rejected them for one surprising reason: They were too funny.

That’s the word from Long in a recent “Couch Surfing” interview.

“I noticed that some of the funniest ones would never air,” Long told host Lola Ogunnaike in a clip of the show above. “One, in particular, I remember, Zach Galifianakis played, like, a drunken Santa Claus, and I was dying to see that one.”

So when Long inquired why that spot and others weren’t airing, Long said Apple officials told him “that Steve Jobs preferred when they weren’t super funny.”

“Why?” Ogunnaike asked.

“Well, it’s because he thought it would detract from the point of the commercial,” Long replied. “He thought if people were too focused on the humor in it, they would lose sight of the product.”

One of Long’s longer-term gigs since that campaign has been voicing the character of Kevin Murphy on the Netflix animated comedy “F Is For Family.”

Hodgman’s recent work includes the role of Hobbes on Amazon ’s reboot of “The Tick,” according to IMDB.com . 

h/t Entertainment Weekly