The Times

As part of the 20th anniversary celebrations of The Mattopia Times, the wizards from some of the most powerful agencies on Mattison Avenue have pulled together a collection of 20 of their favorite advertisements and other propaganda. With Flash (those good ol' ShockWaveFlash .swf files) sunsetting at the end of 2020, it's also a great time to revisit some classic animated efforts, meticulously restored and upgraded from old ActionScript 1 and 2 .fla files to modern Canvas Javascript animation — for the enjoyment of all.

It all started so humbly back in July 2000. All those slogans, launched back in the early days of the original WWW, the Wild Wild Web, the precursor to what is now the World Wide Web.

• Changing the world one word at a time.¹
• The Website with a Mattitude²
• All the world that's fit to 'Net'³

Enjoy this early piece of animation from Flash 5. It's so quaint now.

Gotta love the brick treatment in the very first Mattimus logo, thanks to the magic of Macromedia's Fireworks. Those bricks launched the site, which started out at Mattimus.com.⁴

Back then, Mattopia.com was in the hands of the Matthew Goode Band. Yes, it's amazing to think somebody had taken the domain. But, thankfully, it went on the market in 2002 and its acquisition became an international affair: the purchase request commenced in The Hague, was taken to the next step in the business center of what was at the time called Budapest Ferihegy International Airport. Then the purchase was completed in a quiet, dark conference room in a compound in Atyrau, Kazakhstan. Phew.

What's up with the name "Mattimus," anyway? Well, distraught by the unavailability of Mattopia.com, the relentless creative genius that is Matthew Anderson came up with a different name, in honor of the legendary Maximus Decimus Meridius, whose tale was documented in the Ridley Scott motion picture Gladiator. Back then, a quote from Maximus also adorned the home page: "What we do in life echoes in eternity."

Oooh. Those words still generate goose bumps. Pure, raw, unfiltered drive and ambition launched this site and we're all looking forward to the next 20 years. Things are just gettin' started.

Wow! Box office records crumbled left and right as Mattywood churned out one groundbreaking blockbuster after another. The question isn't "Did you see these?" The question is "How many times did you see these?"

Mattman: Bring on the Knight⁷

MMM²⁽⁸⁾

Note the rare on-camera cameo by Mattopia Jones himself, with Broadway star Stephanie Block (The Pirate Queen), in this edition of On the Scene, below left. Of course, in those early days, text in graphic files was the norm. Accessibility wasn't a concern, as exhibited in the classic MMUTHA advertisement, below right.