I wish I could blame this latest round of mis-information on Matt Buchanan of Gizmodo, Jennifer Van Grove of Mashable, Matt Burns of CrunchGear, Devin Coldewey of CrunchGear, Martin Bryant of TheNextWeb, and “Staff” of TechEBlog.  I wish I could but unfortunately this current cycle of mis-information goes far further back than I’m willing to try to trace (maybe we’ll let the good researchers at “Know Your Memes” figure this one out).

There never was a “Family Guy” Windows 7 themed episode. Microsoft did not pull out of that episode. Things that also have not apparently happened:

– Bloggers at the aforementioned blogs have not bothered to do any original research.
– Microsoft, apparently, does not read the tech news (or doesn’t care). 
– Seth MacFarlane doesn’t read the tech news (and almost certainly doesn’t care).
– No one in the tech blogosphere reads Variety.

Fortunately, I do read Variety on occasion (it ended up on my RSS subscription lists ever since the writers strike a while back).

The original post that started this news story back in October is one by Michael Schneider: “MacFarlane special loses Microsoft.”

Remember that special? The one that aired?  The one where Marlee Matlin came out and “yelled” at Alex Borstein for mimicking her on the show? Microsoft pulled their sponsorship of that show.

This is what the original post said at Variety:

"We initially chose to participate in the Seth and Alex variety show based on the audience composition and creative humor of ‘Family Guy,’ but after reviewing an early version of the variety show, it became clear that the content was not a fit with the Windows brand," said a Microsoft spokeswoman. "We continue to have a good partnership with Fox, Seth MacFarlane and Alex Borstein and are working with them in other areas.  We continue to believe in the value of brand integrations and partnerships between brands, media companies and talent."

This (in bold) is what some of the tech bloggers apparently saw:

"We initially chose to participate in the Seth and Alex variety show based on the audience composition and creative humor of ‘Family Guy,’ but after reviewing an early version of the variety show, it became clear that the content was not a fit with the Windows brand," said a Microsoft spokeswoman.

There was also this confusing bit of copy at the end of the post:

Although Microsoft is no longer a part of "Almost Live Comedy Show," the rest of the company’s marketing deal — which still includes a "Family Guy" component — remains.

It doesn’t say “A Family Guy Branded Episode.” It says “A Family Guy component.”

Did it ever occur to anyone that when these commercials that, when they started airing, these might be the “Family Guy” component, as opposed to clips from a larger show?

When the commercials air on TV, they aren’t saying “Windows Episode Coming Soon!” They’re short riffs that lead into a longer Windows commercial.

Can we set the record straight now?

Incidentally (after the jump), here are the Windows 7 commercials that have been airing on TV, originally published on Neowin on the 26th.

Update: Martin Bryant of TheNextWeb and I had a brief conversation on Twitter regarding the story, and updated his story (pertinent parts quoted below):

@MartinSFP: The post in which @rizzn whacks me, @jbruin and others with a big stick. Well played! http://is.gd/56MIM
@Rizzn: @MartinSFP To be fair – this misinformation goes back quite a ways – almost since right around the original Variety article came out.
@MartinSF: @rizzn Yeah, it assumed some kind of ‘folk tale’ status.

It appears there may never have been a Windows 7-sponsored Family Guy episode after all, as Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins points out on Silicon Angle. As a commenter on this post, Rob, points out these are actually short ads for Windows 7. Still, these Microsoft ads really do sully the Family Guy brand.