An Oral History of Apple’s ‘1984’ Macintosh Ad ⇥ nytimes.com

Saul Austerlitz, New York Times (unlocked link if you need it):

In recent interviews, several of the people involved in creating the “1984” spot — [Ridley] Scott; John Sculley, then chief executive of Apple; Steve Hayden, a writer of the ad for Chiat/Day; Fred Goldberg, the Apple account manager for Chiat/Day; and Anya Rajah, the actor who famously threw the sledgehammer — looked back on how the commercial came together, its inspiration and the internal objections that almost kept it from airing. These are edited excerpts from the conversations.

I had no idea the crowd was comprised of real fascists who, apparently, fought with each other on set.