Freedom Stick
Watch the ad (970 KB, streaming Windows Media)
SuperSonic
Video of ad coming soon...
These two ads are utterly identical, except that they feature different controllers and the Super Sonic apparently doesn't work with Atari, Commodore, and Sega. Camerica/Codemasters was probably trying to appeal to the rarely-tapped inner-city demographic with the hip, street-slamming music; however, any benefit from the hardcore rap was promptly erased by the fundamental whiteness of the family depicted in the video. Still, it was an important step in getting rap accepted by mainstream America.
The Codemasters controllers have a complicated history that I'm still unravelling. Whichever of these ads hit the scene first, it was promptly remixed by another artist to produce the second ad - which raises the question: who is the original turntable-spinner who cut this unforgettable b-boy classic? Either the Super Sonic or the Freedom Stick is fictitious, conjured up by the remix artist to pad out his killer rhymes. I've drawn up a little table comparing the two controllers, in an attempt to deduce which one is a believable real controller and which is a clever fake...
| Freedom Stick | Super Sonic | Which is Believable? | |
| Design | Clunky, heavy rectangle | Awkward space-age triangle | Freedom Stick. Many stupider controllers than the Super Sonic exist, but technically, the triangle design is still "beyond belief." |
| Compatability | four systems | just Nintendo | Super Sonic. I would like to be the first to point out that the NES, Atari, Commodore, and Genesis have completely different joystick ports; how is the FS supposed to work? |
| Real Cool? | yes | no | Super Sonic. I'm surprised the Freedom Stick didn't get slapped with a false advertising suit for this alone. |
| Two-Player Support | no | yes | Freedom Stick. Even though the two NES game ports are totally identical, I find it convincingly likely that these guys had such bad hardware that the Freedom Stick works only for one of the ports. |
| Wires | none | none | Neither. No wires?! |
The winner? Come on, did anyone not see this coming? It's a tie! What does this mean? Simple. Neither of these controllers actually exists! Don't be fooled by clever fakes - these two commercials are your only chance to see these amazing devices in action. Watch them over and over again, and drive up my hit count as much as possible while you're at it. Meanwhile, check out the other ads, while I speculate on whether the current craze about wireless Internet access would justify a hip, post-90's update to these ads. "No wires!"