The Portrait of Mavis Beacon.

While rumors have swirled for years about secret vats of preservative fluid, replaceable android bodies and the late night comings and goings of warlocks and mages, no one has been able to definitively say how it is that Mavis Beacon has defied the aging process.

Until today.

Finally, speaking to Crazy Apple Rumors Site reporters only on the condition of complete anonymity, sources at Broderbund say that the star of the long-running Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing series stays young thanks to a deal with the devil.

According to these sources, in 1984 Beacon, then working in the NBC clerical pool, was approached by Dick Clark who proposed a deal: sell your soul to Satan and receive everlasting beauty.

As well as a cheesy software franchise.

Per the terms of the deal, as Beacon herself remains unchanged, her visage in a portrait stored deep in the bowels of the Broderbund headquarters decays in her stead.

“I always knew there was something weird going on with her,” said former virtual Beacon student Sean Moran.

“I mean, look at her. She’s still totally hot. If anything she’s even hotter than she was. I mean, if that was even possible.

Moran noted that Beacon must be around 30 in the picture taken in 1987 when he first used her software in junior high school at the impressionable age of 14, making her now 50.

“I’m sorry,” Moran said, “but if that’s a 50-year-old woman, well, then sign me up for some more 50-year-old ass.

“You can tell there’s something wrong there… if you stop to think about it. But that’s the thing! Broderbund — and what kind of a name is that? Brother… bund? — Broderbund is counting on you to not… think… about… it.

Moran pointed out that Beacon also looked strangely whiter in the newer image and expressed concern about racial overtones in Broderbund’s marketing.

“If so? Not cool. Not cool at all.”

Broderbund declined to comment for this story and attempts to reach Beacon were, for some reason, unsuccessful.

38 thoughts on “The Portrait of Mavis Beacon.”

  1. Okay. Top ten, anyway. That’s what I get for reading the post first.

    I didn’t know Broderbund still existed. You can tell by her smile that Mavis is fully ready for Leopard. Well. Um. She looks fully ready for something. When I tried to sell my soul to Satan, he only offered me a ’73 Gremlin and a lifetime supply of Screaming Yellow Zonkers. If he’d have just thrown in a Les Paul and a pair of Ray Ban Wayfarers, maybe we could have worked something out.

  2. And then you could buy the Mavis Teaches Typing with the money you saved!
    (and you didn’t think this bit was going anywhere did you?)

  3. Mavis should have made a deal with John Dvorak instead: we might have ended up with a more efficient keyboard layout.

    By the way, Michael Jackson makes /me/ look black, and I really am not.

  4. Oh man, OH MAN! Lawsuit of Bats! Laaaawsuit of f@*king bats!

    Cripes John, you must be made of money to go up against Mavis and ol’ Mephistopheles all in one post. I hear they have a whole firm full of demon lawyers that are just hanging around the anteroom in hell waiting for somebody to call shit on Mavis.

    L.O.B. That’s all I’m sayin’

  5. Oops. Sorry John, but could you please remove the @ symbol that I carelessly stuck in my comment. WordPress thinks it’s a live email address.

    Thanks

  6. Broderbund Says Mavis Not Moribund Thanks To Devil

    Pictures at 11.

    Moltz if you need a headline writer I’m available. Cheap. Real cheap*. You’d only need to have me round for dinner every second Sunday.

    *Airfares could bump real cheap to really expensive.

  7. Bah, Souls are way downrated these days. You can get like two and a half consciences for a soul, and those are, as everyone knows, cheap give-aways. Like Aunt Clothildes handmade itchy pullover every Christmas. No one really wants one, but they still put it on with a forced smile and bury it with the prior years itchy pullovers as soon as possible.

    I do suspect tho, that Mavis might have sold something “else” to the devil. You get it? Something “else”? You know, “else”? Like, with a wink and a nudge and a stupid laugh with a half empty Budweiser in your hand “else”?

    ok, I didn’t think it was funny either. So sue me.

  8. To contact Mavis Beacon, whisper her name three times backwards, turning anticlockwise each time, in front of a candle-lit mirror.

  9. … and to destroy Mavis Beacon, send her a message from your iPhone. It’s called GodPhone for a reason…

  10. Regarding the quote — “I don’t think anyone would argue that that wouldn’t be worse than Satan, so I’m just saying someone should look into it is all.” — Huh?

    Is a deal with Michael Jackson considered to be better than a deal with the devil? Or, is a deal with Michael Jackson considered to be worse than a deal with the devil? (I know, it’s a close call either way.)

  11. Isn’t Michael in Saudi Arabia to get a tan?

    You can’t count on him to “bet the farm” anymore. Looks like he may have already unless a guy with an unusual headdress comes through.

    Yes, I have a bicycle.

  12. Is this Crazy Mavis Beacon Rumors Site here ?

    Excuse me, must have been misdriven somehow.

    CMBRS isn’t even really speakable.
    Maygar ?

  13. Personally I think just having to bear the name “Mavis” is a burden that is only barely made up for by the promise of eternal youth.

  14. I should add that if you think Mavis has it good, just look at Betty Crocker — changed a bit, maybe, but unaged since 1936.

  15. Betty Crocker is a picture, Aaron.

    Just a picture.

    I suppose you’re going to tell me next that it’s about time Bart Simpson enrolls in puberty.

  16. Screaming Yellow Zonkers?! I’d have demanded a lifetime supply of Banana Wackies with that!

    As my dear friend White Fang used to say… “Wowee whoaee!”

    And by the way… why is it that every time I see “F” you see “K”?

  17. The other typing programs might be filing a class action lawsuit.
    Mario, PAWS, and Computron haven’t aged well while the ‘Mave has appeared to have reversed the process.
    Teh Honerable Judge Clarus will be presiding over the case.
    Also since Microsoft invented the idea of a keyboard, they’ll be in it to protect their copyright.

  18. Hello Kitty hasn’t aged much either over the years.

    Now that I think of it, I’ve never seen Dick Clark, Michael Jackson, Mavis Beacon or Hello Kitty together in the same room at the same time. Or Satan, for that matter. Could it be?

    33!

  19. Not only younger….But whiter! Does this reflect some reluctance on Broderbund’s part to publicly assert the darker-skinned (and aging) female? What statement is Broderbund making? Is this a statement that darker is less beautiful? Or a statement that dark-skinned people don’t want to learn how to develop necessary life and business skiills?

  20. I couldn’t understand some parts of this article The Portrait of Mavis Beacon., but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.

  21. Her name is Renee Lesperance.

    she posed for the first mavis bacon typing photo.

    they get younger models to pose… ok? get it, got it!

    good! YAY!

    Now I know why I work at Broderbund!

  22. The original 1985 Mavis Beacon model was named Renee Lesperence, who happens to be a very dear friend of mine. In 1998 or 1999, Mavis Beacon changed their the packaging and the model after being sued by Lesperence for failure to pay royalties for the use of her image.

  23. The original Mavis is what I remember. Thought she was a real accomplished business typist. Who would’ve thought that wasn’t true. Oh, and we didn’t have the vast resources of the internet to look this stuff up either. Just had to come up with rationalized ideas ourselves.

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