August 8, 2026
Holy cow, these ads had receipts
Gateway 2000's hilariously bad ads in the 90s (Part II)
People Are Roasting Gateway’s Wild 90s Ads—And Secretly Admitting They Totally Worked
TLDR: Gateway 2000 flooded 1990s magazines with goofy cow-themed ads just as it was booming into a tech giant, even while dealing with growing pains and complaints. In the comments, people roast the cringe but also admit the ads were memorable, weirdly lovable, and far more alive than today’s bland marketing.
Gateway 2000’s gloriously chaotic 1990s ads are back on trial, and the jury in the comments is loud, nostalgic, and deeply unserious. The article walks through the company’s peak era of cow spots, barnyard jokes, giant magazine spreads, and billionaire swagger from founder Ted Waitt, who seemed to treat restraint like a personal enemy. We’re talking 11-page ad blitzes, cheesy Christmas specials, random historical gags, and enough visual chaos to make modern ad agencies faint.
But the real action is in the replies, where people are split between mockery and devotion. One commenter basically said those famous cow-print boxes were better than Christmas, which is either adorable or the most 90s sentence ever written. Another confessed the ads were “hilariously good” and so effective they still remember exact prices decades later—proof that ridiculous marketing sometimes worms its way straight into your brain and sets up permanent residence. Meanwhile, one proud Midwestern correction officer jumped in with a geography fact-check—South Dakota, not Iowa—because no internet discussion is complete without someone defending state borders like national honor is at stake.
The hottest take? Some readers think these loud, goofy ads had more soul than today’s polished, focus-grouped, AI-smoothed beige sludge. Others remembered the computers fondly... until the laptops got clunky and started shedding keycaps. So yes, the ads were absurd, the company had customer-service baggage, and the jokes were often terrible—but the comments make one thing clear: people still remember Gateway, and in advertising, that’s half the battle.
Key Points
- •The article reviews Gateway 2000’s unusually long and joke-heavy 1990s print advertisements, including an eleven-page “486 Fest” spread and a 26-page Christmas campaign in 1993.
- •It places these ads in the period following Gateway’s unexpected IPO, which the company used in part to help absorb costs tied to international expansion.
- •Gateway opened its first international headquarters in Dublin and was selling mail-order computers in Britain while preparing broader European expansion.
- •The article says Gateway’s stock debuted at $15 per share and later traded at about double that level, helping make Ted Waitt one of America’s early tech billionaires.
- •At the same time, Gateway was dealing with customer complaints and responded by doubling technical-support headcount, extending warranties, speeding replacement-parts delivery, and offering 24-hour phone support.