Watch Apple’s TV Ads Change With The Seasons.

I’m a news hound, TV junkie, and collector. I have a few dozen QuickTime movies of Apple’s TV commercials over the past 20 or so years.

What’s cool is not the latest “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC.” ad campaign. What’s cool is Apple’s change in attitude through the years.

For example, the famous “1984” original Macintosh commercial depicted the brash young Apple, in true David and Goliath fashion, against IBM.

Who knew back then that it would be Microsoft who would grow into the modern Goliath.

Other TV commercials before the Mac and after the Mac have displayed varying personality traits of Apple’s maturity.

Do you remember Apple scorching the Intel Pentium? How about Steve Wozniak driving in a Datsun?

One of the early Mac TV commercials seemingly had the ability to turn back time, to the slogan “More Powerful Than God.”

Of course, that’s pure hype, though dramatic and not without effect. Entertaining? Not as much as the next one.

One of the things that struck many of us about the original Mac was that it was more promise than reality. Remember, 1984 came and went and the Mac didn’t have much going for it.

In fact, there was so little going for it that one could argue the Mac’s slow growth cost Steve Jobs his job at Apple. Software? Multiplan doesn’t count, does it?

Yet this next commercial talked Mac and business in the same sentence, or, at least within the same 30-seconds. The impression created was that Apple’s new Mac could do anything for anyone in business.

Here it is over 20 years later and the Mac is still challenged to make a dent in the average business. Entertaining? Yes.

Apple’s TV commercials through the years have gone from brash, to harsh, to cute, to sassy, to nearly understated while poking at PCs.

The iPod commercials quickly became iconic cool and remain so. Apple has generated plenty of media buzz and sales over both. What’s next?