34 years after playing with power, Paul Rudd has rejoined the Nintendo TV commercial Universe.
In a new commercial called Now You’re Playing Together, Rudd is showing playing a Switch 2. He plays Mario Kart 8 and demonstrates it with his friends.
It’s certainly not that deep, but Nintendo very clearly paid attention to the finder details in messaging, upselling it not only for the nostalgia factor of their brand, but to upsell them as a brand that connects players across generations.
To understand that, we need to rediscover Rudd’s 1991 Super NES commercial, which was made for the launch of the console. This was the start of Rudd’s 34 year career in Hollywood, and four years before his first big break as Josh Lucas in Alicia Silverstone vehicle Clueless.
The commercial clearly positions Rudd as a young adult for kids to look up to, playing the Super Nintendo on an outdoor projector screen. The light from the screen glows back at his engaged face, as throngs of younger gamers amass behind him. As some fans have pointed out, the narration comes from famous Hollywood trailer narrator man, Tony Jay.
In the new commercial, Rudd is comedically attempting to recreate the scene of his original commercial at home. As it turns out, he’s turned on GameChat on his Switch 2 so he can play with family and friends.
Rudd is soon throwing lines like a Judd Apatow cast member, because yes, two decades before becoming the MCU’s Ant-Man, Rudd was best known as part of Apatow’s revolving cast of comedians. Apatow is also known for his sitcom work, including beloved hits like Friends and deep cuts like Sisters.
Rudd also has low key theatrical credibility, working in Broadway since 1997 and notably appearing in 1999’s The Cider House Rules. That doesn’t quite come up in this commercial, but to some degree, we do see that this new commercial shows us Paul Rudd, not as we imagined him as kids, but for what he is now. An accomplished actor who’s done it all, and after all this time, still loves video games.
In an interview with IGN, Rudd admitted that he actually enjoyed playing Mario Kart World a little too much. It reached a point that the crew had to tell him they were ready to start filming, and he had to stop playing the game for real, so that he could start playing the game for the cameras. Maybe that’s a little bit of PR, and maybe Rudd isn’t entirely exaggerating. But it’s clearly that Nintendo got the perfect ambassador to help them sell the Switch 2, just in the nick of time.
You can watch Rudd’s commercials for the Super NES and the Switch 2 below.
