Ron Popeil

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Ronald M. Popeil (born May 3, 1935 in New York City) is an inventor and marketing personality, best known for his direct response marketing company Ronco. He is well known for hawking the Showtime Rotisserie ("Set it, and forget it!") in infomercials and for saying, "But wait, there's more!" and "Now how much would you pay?" Each phrase followed the addition of another item or feature to the catalog of a product's advantages or attachments. The advertisements frequently answered the "how much?" question with potential prices, followed by the dramatically lower actual price.

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[edit] Personal life and career

Popeil learned his trade from his father, Samuel, who was also an inventor and carny salesman of kitchen-related gadgets such as the Chop-o-matic (later called the Veg-O-Matic). It retailed for $3.98 USD and sold over two million units. The invention of the Veg-O-Matic caused a problem that marked the entrance of Ron Popeil into television. It turned out that the Veg-O-Matic was so efficient at chopping vegetables, that it was impractical for salesmen to carry the vegetables they needed to chop. The solution was to tape the demonstration. Once the demonstration was taped, it was a short step to broadcasting the demonstration as a commercial.

Popeil received the Ig Nobel Prize in Consumer Engineering in 1993. The awards committee described him as the "incessant inventor and perpetual pitchman of late night television"[1] and awarded the prize in recognition of his "redefining the industrial revolution" with his devices.

In August 2005, he sold his company, Ronco, to Fi-Tek VII, a Denver holding company, for $55 million USD. He said he plans to continue serving as the spokesperson and inventor, but wants to spend more time with his family. As of 2006, he lives in Beverly Hills, California, with his wife and two youngest daughters; Popeil has three older daughters from previous marriages.

[edit] Inventions

Some of his better-known products, and their original sale pitches, include:

  • Veg-O-Matic food slicer. "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to show you the greatest kitchen appliance ever made... All your onions chopped to perfection without shedding a single tear."
  • Dial-O-Matic, successor to the Veg-O-Matic. "Slice a tomato so thin it only has one side."
  • Popeil Pocket Fisherman. "The biggest fishing invention since the hook...and still only $19.95!" (According to the program Biography, the original product was the invention of Popeil's father and only marketed by Ronco, but as of 2006, Popeil had introduced a redesigned version of the product.)[1]
  • Mr. Microphone. "Hey, good looking, I'll be back to pick you up later. Broadcast your voice on any FM radio!!!"
  • Inside-The-Shell Egg Scrambler. "Gets rid of those slimy egg whites in your scrambled eggs." Popeil has said the inspiration for this product was his lifelong revulsion toward incompletely blended scrambled eggs.[1]
  • Six Star 20-Piece Cutlery Set.
  • Solid Flavor Injector. This product accompanied the Showtime rotisserie grill and was used to inject solid ingredients into meat or other foods.
  • GLH-9 Hair in a Can Spray (Great Looking Hair Formula #9).
  • Drain Buster.
  • Smokeless Ashtray - "Does cigar and cigarette smoke irritate your eyes?" Commercials showed this device drawing smoke from burning cigarettes back into the ashtray itself.
  • Electric Food Dehydrator - "Instead of giving kids candy, give them apple snacks or banana chips. And it's great if you're a hunter, fisherman, backpacker, or camper. Makes beef jerky for around $3 a pound, and you know what went in it, because you made it yourself!"
  • Ronco Popeil Automatic Pasta Maker.
  • Showtime Rotisserie, a small oven designed for cooking smaller sized portions of meat such as whole chicken and lamb. "Set it, and forget it!"
  • The Cap Snaffler - "Snaffles caps off any size jug, bottle, or jar… and it really, really works."

[edit] Impact on popular culture

  • "Weird Al" Yankovic recorded the song "Mr. Popeil" on his second studio album, "Weird Al" Yankovic in 3-D. The song was a "style parody" (i.e., not a direct parody of a specific song, but emulating a performer's specific style) of the early music of the B-52's (and bore a striking resemblance to their first hit single, "Rock Lobster"). The verses are structured as pitches for unnamed but easily recognizable Ronco products, and draws upon all the catchphrases associated with the Ronco infomercials, including the phrases "It slices! It dices!", "Take advantage of this amazing TV offer!", and "Now how much would you pay?". One of Weird Al's background vocalists was Lisa Popeil, daughter of Sam Popeil, sister to Ron Popeil[2]. Lisa continues to perform backup for Weird Al's songs, including his 2006 album Straight Outta Lynwood.
  • The "Veg-O-Matic" was parodied by Dan Aykroyd in an episode of Saturday Night Live as the "Super Bass-O-Matic '76". This parody is mentioned in the Biography episode on Popeil.
  • "Dodge Veg-O-Matic" is a song by Jonathan Richman from the album Rock N Roll With The Modern Lovers (1977).
  • The "Veg-O-Matic" provided the inspiration for the "Sledge-O-Matic" routine used by comedian Gallagher for the last quarter-century.
  • In the film Major League, while hazing rookie Rick Vaughn, Roger Dorn asks if he had cut his hair using a "Veg-O-Matic".
  • In the episode "A Big Piece of Garbage", from the television series Futurama, Popeil is said to be the inventor of technology that allows heads to be kept alive in jars indefinitely (Popeil's own head, voiced by himself, appears in the episode). In the later episode "The Luck of the Fryrish" Fry keeps his lucky seven-leaf-clover in a "Ronco Record Vault"
  • In the episode of The Simpsons entitled "Radio Bart", Bart Simpson receives a "Superstar Celebrity Microphone" for his birthday. The toy and the TV advertisements for it were modeled after Ronco's "Mr. Microphone".
  • In the movie Old School during the morning-after hangover scene, Ron Popeil is on the TV Vince Vaughn and company are watching.
  • During a scene in Elizabethtown, you can see Popeil showing his knives on Orlando Bloom's television. (Bloom's character was having suicidal thoughts.)
  • The Daily Show featured a clip with the famous line "Set it and forget it!" — from the Showtime Rotisserie commercial — after showing the "catch phrase" discussions of the Senate debating over the War in Iraq.
  • Robin Williams, in his role as Mork in the TV show Mork and Mindy goes off on one of his (un)usual tangents with a kitchen gadget, saying, "It slices, it dices, it makes julienne fries, whatever those are!".
  • Popeil's fans have been inspired to repeat one of his more memorable lines, "Shoestring potatoes, shoestring carrots!"
  • The Beastie Boy's reference him in their song 'Crawlspace', when Adrock says "I got more product than Ron Popeil"
  • The character RJ Raccoon in the film adaptation of Over the Hedge uses a Popeil Pocket Fisherman several times throughout the film.
  • In Blue Man Group's How To Be A Megastar tour, the blue men purchase a "rock concert manual" from a parody company entitled Rodco for $4,000.
  • In 1993, the Ig Nobel Award for Consumer Engineering was presented to Ron Popeil, "incessant inventor and perpetual pitchman of late night television, for redefining the industrial revolution with such devices as the Veg-O-Matic, the Pocket Fisherman, Mr. Microphone, and the Inside-the-Shell Egg Scrambler."

[edit] Trivia

  • Although many people associate the phrase "It slices! it dices!" with the Veg-O-Matic, Popeil has always denied that he ever said it. He claims to have the video tape to prove it.
  • American actress Ashley Tisdale revealed on TV that she is a cousin of Popeil, although the two are distant cousins, related through Arnold Morris, Tisdale's maternal grandfather.
  • In college, Popeil was in the Alpha Epsilon Pi Jewish fraternity.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b Ron Popeil, Biography, aired August 15, 2006

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links

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