Microsoft taps Pawn Stars guys to make fun of Chromebook

When I want an expert to assess whether or not I’ve made a solid purchase of a recent computer, naturally I go to the bumbling (yet lovable) hacks on History Channel’s Pawn Stars.

Apparently Microsoft had the same logic when putting together the latest “Scroogled” campaign ripping apart a Google product in favor of one of their own. In this case, Rick, owner of Las Vegas pawn shop and star of Pawn Stars, does his best to convince me that in addition to giving me information about historical items and antique restoration, he also knows a thing or two about Chromebooks.

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As you can see from the commercial embedded below, a bumbling girl tries to bring in the Chromebook she was gifted by her mother (probably also bumbling) to get enough cash to move to Hollywood. Rick of course explains that this isn’t a real laptop because it can’t run essential programs like “Office” and “iTunes,” and pointing at the Google beach ball logo. But the biggest point of contention Rick has over the Chromebook is that it’s just another cog in Google’s plan to steal information about you so it can sell advertising, which is pretty much required of all Scroogled campaigns. (It didn’t actually plug any Microsoft laptops, but it’s sort of implied that they’re better than Chromebooks.)

Then again, we actually praised Google’s latest HP-made Chromebooks as being sleek, lightweight, and fixing many of the issues we’ve had with past models of the device.

For people that get their technology news from the History channel, this might be a pretty convincing advertisement. To everyone else (including those reading this very sentence), it probably comes off as a sad attempt to discredit Google once again.

Check out the video embedded below and let us know what you think in the comment section.