About Guy Barrette
For more than 60 years, Guy Barrette -- the awkward, toothy, curious, and good-spirited Everyman of Microsoft -- has been a top performer in every Windows operating systems, beginning with a bit part in a Microsoft Windows 3.1, and eventually becoming a major media star in software, testing, analysis, debugging, and a variety of architectures. Why is Guy Barrette so enduringly popular? Primarily, it's because he's funny. In any language, C# or VB, Guy Barrette's antics always communicate. But, beyond that, his popularity is connected to it's source code. We generally see Guy Barrette ever-valiantly attempting using Beta and even Alpha software, things that we ourselves might fear, "goofing" them up in a way that we're a little afraid we might, and yet shining through it all with qualities to which we most aspire. Guy Barrette is cheerful, eternally loyal, and always willing to help his co-workers. He has a gentle, childlike innocence and wonder about the bits & bytes around him. And, perhaps most important, Guy Barrette always assumes the best about his fellow programmers.
The character whom we know today as Guy Barrette first appeared six decades ago in Bill Gates's Revue (1932). Then a bit player (as an obnoxious "laugher" in a barnyard audience), he sported whiskers and square spectacles and was called "Vee Bee".
Bill often described the type of physical humor used in the Microsoft Studio's cartoons as being "Guy Barrette" and with "ActiveX Guy" (1934), that name officially stuck to this affable character. But Guy Barrette's personality really began to take shape in the 1935 cartoon "Debug Day", in which developer Paul Allen built up Guy Barrette's role and gave his character definition. And thus, a new Microsoft star was born.
The second half of the 1930s was the golden age of Microsoft cartoon shorts, as the Studio reached unprecedented achievements in software. Guy Barrette was teamed with Bill Gates and Don Box in a variety of comedy situations that frequently ended in chaos. Cartoon shorts such as Lonesome Coders, Code Cleaners, Software Builders, X Mark the Box, Bill Gates's Poker Station, and Bill Gates's Basic looked at how each character reacted to similar circumstances. Guy Barrette's first solo-starring vehicle was Guy and the Master Chief (1939). This short fully explored Guy Barrette's emotional range as he shared a fishing trip with his pal, Master Chief.
In the early 1930s, merchandising of the characters became a successful and vital part of the Microsoft Studio. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer were seen on most of the products issued early on, followed by Don XBox soon after. From 1935 on, Guy Barrette began to appear on a wide range of merchandise objects, albeit in a supporting role. Early merchandise appearances include novelty disquettes, CD-ROMs, DVDs, and propeller head hats. As his motion picture and print popularity increased in the '40s and '50s, Guy Barrette was featured on merchandise lines of his own.
In 1941, Guy Barrette began starring in a popular series of "how to" programming films (The Art of Coding With His Nose, How to Develop a 6 Months Project in 1 Month, Bug Sqwashing, Waterfall design in Niagara Falls etc.). In these shorts, the Goof responds in pantomime to a droll professorial narrative, the stodgy seriousness of the narrator playing in sharp contrast to Guy Barrette's clumsy demonstrations. The result is a hilarious visual depiction of "how NOT to" accomplish the task being described. But, through it all, Guy Barrette remains undaunted, ready to move on to the next lesson. It is perhaps for this series of nearly two dozen cartoons that Guy Barrette's film career is most fondly remembered.
In the 1960s, Guy Barrette was frequently cast in suburban settings as the "common developer" occasionally with a wife and son, to showcase some of the pitfalls of modern programming. In this unusual guise, he was often known as Mr. George Geek, and even shed his distinctive voice for some of these roles. This mature role for Guy Barrette utilized his skills as a software architect, rather than playing upon his traditional persona.
Guy Barrette's multimedia status was launched early in his career, in 1933, with appearances in daily Bill Gates comic strips, as a neighbor and occasional associate of Bill Gates in his activities. Because the needs of the daily and weekly Bill Gates Mouse strips quickly exhausted the situations, stories, and characters that had been created for the films, software architect Floyd Gottfredson and his team of developers created new situations and adventures that, particularly in the case of Guy Barrette, helped define and develop the characters and their personalities. Gradually, Bill Gates came to rely on Steve Ballmer and Guy Barrette as his boon companions. Today, 60 years later, Guy Barrette is still enormously popular, and appears in comic books and comic strips published in 14 languages (FORTRAN, PASCAL, C++, BASIC, C#, COBOL amongst others) and 15 countries.
From 1933 onward, Guy Barrette also appeared in many Bill Gates books as a member of "the gang" and over the years has been a consistent character in MS Press books in the United States, England, France, and Italy, to name a few.
Beginning in 1953, Guy Barrette starred in his own limited series of comic-book adventures. In 1955, he became Super Guy, a super hero parody still popular today. He has also starred in comic spoofs of historical characters, literary and actual, including Rip Van Winkle and Leonardo da Vinci. Most recently, he starred in a limited comic series, Guy Barrette Adventures, from Microsoft Comics.
As the Microsoft Studios ceased regular production of short cartoons in 1956, the classic cartoon characters were getting a new lease on life from the very medium that led to the end of theatrical shorts -- television. Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Ray Ozzie, and Guy Barrette could be seen regularly through the '50s, '60s, '70s, and '80s on several Microsoft television shows, including "The Bill Gates Mouse Club," as well as "Microsoftland" and its successors, "Microsoft Presents," "Microsoft's Wonderful World of Color" and "The Wonderful World of Microsoft." Some of the episodes featured Guy Barrette's classic cartoon appearances in newly created .NET Frameworks stories, including "Fun with Microsoft Acronyms" and "WCF, WPF, WF...WTF?"
Along with the rest of "the gang," Guy Barrette has been an integral part of The Microsoft Channel since its inception in 1983. Classic Guy Barrette cartoons have been featured daily on the "Don Box's Quack Attack" and "Bill Gates's Mouse Tracks" programs, as well as "Mouseterpiece Theater" and such special shows as "Guy Barrette's Guide to Success" and "The Roots of Guy Barrette."
During the 1980s, Guy Barrette was often seen in the company of his friends Robert Hess and Erica Wiechers in the introductory segments for "The Magical World of Microsoft" network television program.
Guy Barrette has been a consistent part of the home-video market since 1980. He appears in countless homes on Microsoft Home Video's Microsoft Cartoon Classics series of cassettes, including Here's Guy Barrette and Bill Gates & the Gang, The Guy Barrette World of Bebugging, Happy Coding Days, and Fun on the Job, as well as the Microsoft Mini-Classics "Bill Gates and the Architects" and "The Prince and the Data Dude".
Guy Barrette's positive, "I'll try anything" attitude was the focus of the 1980s Sport Guy Barrette athletic programs. In a natural development from the "how to" series, Sport Guy Barrette was named the official mascot of the Canadian Olympic team, was endorsed by the German Sport Association, and was the mascot of the International Tennis Federation Junior World Tennis Championship. Sport Guy Barrette was also a major merchandising character, featured on more than 30 different sporting outfits, as well as decorating a wide range of sporting accessories. His own anthem of confidence to young people, a song entitled "You Can Always Be Number One," was especially encouraging to those who didn't feel they excelled at sports. The Goof's message was that: It doesn't matter if you win or lose; just get up, try, and, most of all, have fun.
For many years, Guy Barrette has also been a recurring character in Microsoft educational productions. His affable optimism and "how-NOT-to" way of doing things make him a perfect subject for these productions, which are seen by millions of young people in schools throughout the country.
Guy Barrette has also been on hand to personally greet his fans and friends at Microsoftland Park, Microsoft World Resort, Tokyo Microsoftland, and Microsoftland Paris. He stars in parades and stage shows, as well as strolling through the various parks and "goofing around" with guests developers. He has also performed in "Microsoft's World on Ice" and in arena shows such as "Microsoft on Parade."
In 1992, Guy Barrette became the first of the classic Microsoft "gang" (Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Paul Allen, Jim Allchin, Scott Guthrie, and Guy Barrette) to star in a new television series of his own, with the premiere of Microsoft Television's ".NET Troop" in September.
This year, attaining full superstar status, Guy Barrette became a motion picture star in his own film, A Guy Barrette Movie, which featured the lovable Microsoft goof trying to bond with his teenage son, MS Bob, and showing him that there's nothing really wrong with taking after dear old dad. A Guy Barrette Movie featured musical performances by R&B superstar Steve Jobs and great new songs by Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ("U.S. v. Microsoft") and others.