History UsefulNotes / MicrosoftOfficeAssistant

Some appearances of the Paperclip in popular culture:

Office Assistant was a feature of Microsoft's Office suite of programs between 1997 and 2004. When the software detected certain activities on the part of the user, it would pop up an animated figure which would note, via a dialogue box, that the user appeared to be attempting some specific task (such as writing a letter), and offer to "help with that". If the user said yes, the Assistant would walk the user through a process to accomplish that task. A number of different figures were available, but the default was a talking paperclip named Clippit -- widely referred to as "Clippy" -- and as most people stick with defaults, and anyway changing it usually required the installation CD or a venture into the depths of Microsoft's website, Clippy the Paperclip became largely synonymous with Office Assistant. Wiki/TheOtherWiki has [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Assistant a lot more detail.]]

TheScrappy of Creator/{{Microsoft}}'s business software history. A classic case of UnwantedAssistance.

He makes Bill Gates look second rate, yah, screw him and his stupid paperclip.

* And just to show that you can't keep a good (or bad) paperclip down, in 2021, Microsoft contrived to bring Clippy BackFromTheDead, in a small way; [[https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/15/22578352/microsoft-new-3d-emoji-clippy-windows-office it was announced]] that their software would henceforth render the paperclip UsefulNotes/{{Emoji}} with his appearance.

TheScrappy of Microsoft's business software history. A classic case of UnwantedAssistance.

** There was a Flash-animated short promoting Windows XP, where Clippy laments that he might be out of a job at long last. And he's voiced by Gilbert Gottfried, for Christ's sake.

* A regular target of parody on ''Radio/TheNowShow'' in the nineties. The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7-D2pPP-u0 original version]] of Music/MitchBenn's "IKEA", written to commemorate a claim that Ingvar Kamprad was the richest man in the world (based on an assumption that he literally owned IKEA, which he didn't) had the lines:
-->Now he has over sixty billion dollars in his grip,
--> He makes Bill Gates look second rate, yah, screw him and his stupid paperclip.

-->--[[WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy Stewie Griffin]] encountering Clippy while trying to hack a power grid, [[ "Lois Kills Stewie"]]

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': Clippy shows up in a [[Recap/FamilyGuyS6E4And5StewieKillsLoisAndLoisKillsStewie season 6 story]].

Office Assistant was quite an ingenious programming exercise (it's been [[http://nymag.com/vindicated/2016/10/clippy-didnt-just-annoy-you-he-changed-the-world.html described as a precursor of modern voice-controlled software assistants]]), and some of the animations were kind of cute, but overall, the whole thing was a bit of a disaster. It just wasn't smart or helpful enough, especially after its first appearance for any given task, and the animations could soon become annoying; having Clippy pop up was just a distracting intrusion into people's serious work. The little sound effects attached to its appearances probably didn't help. You ''could'' turn it off, of course, but, well, most people stick with defaults -- so they blamed Microsoft instead. Magazine/TimeMagazine listed Clippit as one of the fifty worst inventions of all time. Even Microsoft soon started mocking their own creation, with some staff claiming to have been against it from the start.

-->--[[WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy Stewie Griffin]] encountering Clippy while trying to hack a power grid, [[Recap/FamilyGuyS6E4And5StewieKillsLoisAndLoisKillsStewie "Lois Kills Stewie"]]

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': "Go away, you paper clip! No one likes you!"

-->--[[WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy Stewie Griffin]] encountering Clippy while trying to hack a power grid, [[Recap/FamilyGuyS6E4And5StewieKillsLoisAndLoisKillsStewie Lois Kills Stewie"]]

-->--[[WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy Stewie Griffin]] encountering Clippy while trying to hack a power grid, "Lois Kills Stewie"

* ''VideoGame/Progressbar95'' has Clippy make appearances often and you have to remove him so he doesn't bother you. Most of the time, he blocks the movement of your progress bar, though sometimes he carries a stick of dynamite as a "present" and if the bar touches him, you lose a life.

Office Assistant was a feature of Microsoft's Office suite of programs between 1997 and 2004. When the software detected certain activities on the part of the user, it would pop up an animated figure which would note, via a dialogue box, that the user appeared to be attempting some specific task, and offer to "help with that". If the user said yes, the Assistant would walk the user through a process to accomplish that task. A number of different figures were available, but the default was a talking paperclip named Clippit -- widely referred to as "Clippy" -- and as most people stick with defaults, and anyway changing it usually required the installation CD or a venture into the depths of Microsoft's website, Clippy the Paperclip became largely synonymous with Office Assistant. Wiki/TheOtherWiki has [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Assistant a lot more detail.]]

Office Assistant was quite an ingenious programming exercise (it's been [[http://nymag.com/vindicated/2016/10/clippy-didnt-just-annoy-you-he-changed-the-world.html described as a precursor of modern voice-controlled software assistants), and some of the animations were kind of cute, but overall, the whole thing was a bit of a disaster. It just wasn't smart or helpful enough, especially after its first appearance for any given task, and the animations could soon become annoying; having Clippy pop up was just a distracting intrusion into people's serious work. The little sound effects attached to its appearances probably didn't help. You ''could'' turn it off, of course, but, well, most people stick with defaults -- so they blamed Microsoft instead. Magazine/TimeMagazine listed Clippit as one of the fifty worst inventions of all time. Even Microsoft soon started mocking their own creation, with some staff claiming to have been against it from the start.

Office Assistant was quite an ingenious programming exercise, and some of the animations were kind of cute, but overall, the whole thing was a bit of a disaster. It just wasn't smart or helpful enough, especially after its first appearance for any given task, and the animations could soon become annoying; having Clippy pop up was just a distracting intrusion into people's serious work. The little sound effects attached to its appearances probably didn't help. Magazine/TimeMagazine listed Clippit as one of the fifty worst inventions of all time. Even Microsoft soon started mocking their own creation, with some staff claiming to have been against it from the start.

Clippy has appeared as an annoying or tragicomic figure in animations and comics, and will still be recognized by computer users whose memories go back to the turn of the millennium; the Assistant's StockPhrases have featured in memes created since the Assistant's demise. The ExpositionFairy is a similar feature in computer games.

* This [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP98Pb50T-U Demetri Martin routine.]]

Office Assistant was quite an ingenious programming exercise, and some of the animations were kind of cute, but overall, the whole thing was a bit of a disaster. It just wasn't smart or helpful enough, and the animations could soon become annoying; having Clippy pop up was just a distracting intrusion into people's serious work. The little sound effects attached to its appearances probably didn't help. Magazine/TimeMagazine listed Clippit as one of the fifty worst inventions of all time. Even Microsoft soon started mocking their own creation, with some staff claiming to have been against it from the start.

Clippy has appeared as an annoying or tragicomic figure in animations and comics, and will still be recognized by computer users whose memories go back to the turn of the millennium. The Assistant's StockPhrases have featured in memes and are sometimes put in the mouth of the ExpositionFairy.

TheScrappy of Microsoft's business software history.

Office Assistant was quite an ingenious programming exercise, and some of the animations were kind of cute, but overall, the whole thing was a bit of a disaster. It just wasn't smart or helpful enough, and the animations could soon become annoying; having Clippy pop up was just a distracting intrusion into people's serious work. Magazine/TimeMagazine listed Clippit as one of the fifty worst inventions of all time. Even Microsoft soon started mocking their own creation, with some staff claiming to have been against it from the start.

* See [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifleu0VVAc0 this video]].

Clippy has appeared as an annoying or tragicomic figure in animations and comics, and will still be recognised by computer users whose memories go back to the turn of the millennium. The Assistant's stock phrases have featured in memes and are sometimes put in the mouth of the ExpositionFairy.