Paul Rudd cosplays 1991 Paul Rudd in throwback Switch 2 commercial

As all Ruddheads know, actor Paul Rudd made his acting debut in an iconic 1991 Super Nintendo commercial as a radical-looking 22-year-old playing games like F-Zero and a then-unnamed The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on a gigantic, drive-in movie theater screen. And now, almost 35 years later, Rudd is back to promote the Switch 2 wearing the exact same outfit.

Nintendo uploaded both commercials to YouTube on April 21, providing a wonderful side-by-side look at how differently video games are marketed in the 2020s compared to the 1990s, as well as how ageless Rudd continues to be even as he nears 60 years old. The two videos have since accrued nearly two million combined views.

The new Switch 2 ad doesn’t show much we haven’t seen already. It focuses mostly on the C button’s GameChat functionality and the console’s official camera as fellow actors Joe Lo Truglio (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Superbad) and Jordan Carlos (The Colbert Report, The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore) join Rudd and a little girl who’s supposed to be his niece, trash talking their way through a game of Mario Kart World.

“You know guys, it’s nice playing with power,” Rudd says to cap things off, referencing his turn in the Super Nintendo spot, “but this is better because now we’re playing together… super together!” Lo Truglio then breaks the fourth wall by making fun of Rudd’s advertisement voice, a very modern and meta strategy to distract us from the fact we’re just watching another commercial for a console with an arguably huge price tag. Cute!