Sky Mall is a specialty publishing firm headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona.[1] SkyMall produces a quarterly in-flight publication, SkyMall, with an annual circulation of approximately 20 million copies distributed in airplane seat pockets. SkyMall is a multi-channel, direct marketer offering products through direct marketers and manufacturers through its SkyMall catalog and web site, skymall.com. The SkyMall catalog is seen by approximately 88% of all domestic air passengers in the United States, reaching more than 650 million air travelers annually. SkyMall also offers turn-key merchandise and fulfillment solutions for loyalty marketing programs.
Sky Mall is a joint venture of The Greenspun Corporation and Spire Capital.
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SkyMall, Inc. was founded in 1990[2] by Bob Worsley, Alan Lobock, Matthew Del Bianco, and Graham Alcock. It originally offered goods from other companies' catalogs for same-day delivery to customers arriving at select U.S. airports or, if the customer preferred, to their home or office via express shipment. To accomplish the same-day delivery promise, SkyMall operated its own warehouses located on the grounds of or near the selected airports.
Shortly after launching, the company purchased contracts from another company that allowed it to offer catalog merchandise to travelers flying many of the nation's air carriers. This move, which did not receive the support of all of the founders, required a significant shift in SkyMall's focus and operations, ultimately forcing the company to abandon its same-day delivery service and nearly bankrupting the company. The company now offers goods from other companies' catalogs for drop-ship to the customer via third-party transport firms.
Sky Mall is often parodied for selling sometimes unusual products. For instance, comedy troupe Kasper Hauser released the book "SkyMaul: Happy Crap You Can Buy from a Plane" as an unauthorized parody of the Sky Mall catalogue. It features absurd products such as the Banana-ganizer, Self-Pepper Spray, Llamacycle, and Living-Room Beluga Aquarium. Reference in music and TV include "SkyMall" by Jonathan Coulton and the How I Met Your Mother episode The Goat. SkyMall has also been parodied in the Nickelodeon show Victorious and was mentioned in a 2010 episode of The Simpsons. In the third Blue Collar Comedy Tour film, One for the Road, Bill Engvall jokes about the addictive nature the magazine has on him, comparing it to crack cocaine. Sky Mall was referenced on Weeds (Season 6); however, the episodes cast the company in a negative light. It has also been parodied by Penny Arcade ( http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/9/26/ ). Sky Mall was also referenced on the Breaking Bad episodes Negro y Azul, when a cartel member (Danny Trejo) is demanding a list of items from the magazine in turn for helping out the DEA, and Hermanos, when a DEA agent (Dean Norris) unveils a GPS tracking device purchased from Sky Mall. Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) was seen reading a Sky Mall catalog on the plane in the movie "Get Smart." An article on cracked.com, written by an official columnist, lists "The 7 Most Useless Skymall Products", which lists 7 comically, seemingly pointless, products previously sold through Skymall.[3] Mitzi from Shin Chan has also referenced Sky Mall in the show several times, (claiming she's read and owns every Sky Mall magazine from 1987 and onward), in the episodes, "Hima Nohara in "The Creeping Terror" and in the episode, "The Girls of 34C".
In a Season 3 Parks and Recreation episode, "Camping", Tom Haverford brings a large array of gadgets and appliances with him on a camping trip that he claims to have purchased from Sky Mall.