Billy Mays: A Look Back At A Television Legend
HI CONSUMERISTS, LAURA NORTHRUP HERE FOR THE BILLY MAYS TRIBUTE POST! Billy is no longer with us, but his oeuvre remains. Let's take a look back at the ads, products, and gentle self-mockery that made Billy a master among pitchmen.
I hadn't seen most of these commercials, since I own and obsessively use a Tivo. Did we miss your favorite ad or clip? Share it in the comments.
| Arguably, Orange Glo was his breakout product. Here's a two-minute version of the infomercial in all of its cabinet-dunking, floor-polishing glory. |
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| WOW, A YARD SALE! Watch Billy save an entire yard full of abused furniture in this Orange Glo spot. |
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In this Orange Glo outtake, Mays falls over while simulating "years of wear and tear damage" on a hardwood floor with a sander. |
| KABOOM! And the soap scum is gone. How many people can radiate this much joy while cleaning a shower door? |
| Infomercial products find a need that people didn't previously realize they had, then fill it for $19.95. In the case of the Oxi Clean detergent ball, that need was the desire not to measure and pour laundry detergent for months on end. |
| Big City Sliders: Cook tiny burgers on your stovetop for some reason. |
| Samurai Shark - Let's be honest, this product is way less cool than the name sounds. |
| We can't forget Mighty Putty. |
| He also pitched a very timely product—low-cost health insurance. |
| One of the reasons that I found Billy Mays tolerable is that he was willing to poke fun at his image, and even at his profession. Pitching baking soda as if it were a new miracle product always made me smile. |
| His series of ESPN 360 ads are also great self-parody. Here, the service is a typical infomerical miracle product that finds a need, then fills it. That need? Watching sports. |
| Or, watching sports while on the run from Japanese gangsters. |
| Finally, Billy pretended to work in an office for a day for an Electronic Retailers Association awards sketch. Too funny. (Check out the outtakes, too.) |
(Photo: azrainman)
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Comments:
As I was eating breakfast this morning I was thinking it's just a matter of time before someone makes a tribute video showing Billy Mays demonstrating the greatest cleaning product in the sky.
"It's not just sparkling, it's Heavenly!"
I'm sporting a blue shirt today for you Billy. My thoughts and well wishes are with your family. Much like Don LaFontaine, this is yet another voice we will slowly start to hear less of everyday, and our lives will be emptier and less enjoyable for it. I found this comic on Billy May's son's Twitter feed, and I thought I would post it here as well, as it's funny and heartfelt at the same time:
I agree, I didn't really care for him all that much, but after watching the Pitchmen series, while I only liked him slightly more, I gained a bit of respect for him. I loved the show though. I can just imagine Billy pitching things up in heaven... or trying to sell Peter on letting him through the Pearly Gates. Hmm... I may have to write a story on that one...
@John Henschen: Or worse, he went down to visit the devil and made a bargain that he could not refuse. :p
After having watched Pitchmen this season, I also gained a whole new respect for Billy Mays. He wasn't just a voice or a face, he had a big hand in every part of the commercials he did. Additionally, he seemed like a great guy and an awesome dad.
@valleyval: I think he BECAME and awesome dad, at least from what I have heard him say, which in my mind, is even better. He spent a lot of time away from his kids, and now that he became a success, finally was able to spend the kind of time with them and be the Dad he wanted to be.
this is sad, because i had just started to catch up on Pitchmen, and thought how full of win Billy was. I even talked to my wife about him on friday, mentioning how funny it would be if someone had hired Billy to pitch a marriage proposal to his s/o.
i would have also like to have had him do an audio clip for me to put on my outgoing voicemail.
Ugh, salesmen of all stripes drive me crazy.
I'm sure you were a nice guy, Billy, but I can't wait to not get yelled at by you in the years to come.
Pitch people like Billy Mays (the honest ones) work hard to do what they do. It's also a talent that not everyone can do. The documentary film, "Pitch People" tells the whole story. There's also a great book by Remy Stern, "But Wait... There's More" that objectively profiles the whole infomercial industry and talks about pitch people like Billy.
@pirate_panda: Hopefully Discovery doesn't pull it. That would be a shame. Billy seems like the "the show goes on" kind of guy.
i like that he wasn't a douche like the shamwow guy. i hope when he dies, people don't try to make him look like a good guy out of 'respect for the dead'.
This is why I didn't mind at all whenever one of his commercials came on. He did a great job of mocking himself in a way that made him seem genuine and likable. I don't know how much of that was an act and how much of it was real, but he endeared himself to me, even if I never bought any of the products he advertised. His bit on Conan last week was pretty entertaining too.
According to the coroner (CNN.com update) it looks like it was heart disease that did him in, not a bump to the head. I'll bet U.S. Airways execs are breathing a sigh of relief.
He was a big guy but not too big - I wonder if it was hereditary or he had a really bad diet? 50 is pretty young to die from that, even if you're only mildly concious of your heart health.
Just last night I saw a commcercial with Mr. Mays selling, of all things, a healthcare plan. Same Billy pitch, but at the end, he had his smiling family with him including his older son (with beard), his pretty wife, and his two year old daughter "Nothing is more important than your health".
Sigh.
RIP.
C-
The death of Billy Mays bothers me because he was a genuinely funny guy. The livemercial skit is probably my favorite followed closely by the ESPN360 commercials.
I'm sad we won't see a Mays/Vince pitchoff.
Family history, diet, stress and other factors can lead to a heart attack.
One of my college professors was a pencil thin guy, relatively active guy but out of the blue found out that had to have a quadruple bypass. The guy couldn't have been any older than in his mid 40's or early 50's.
It's just one of those things like non-smokers getting lung cancer. It can affect anyone. That's why its a good idea to start monitoring your heart health when you turn 40 or so.
I loved Billy Mays. He once went through a drive-thru for a morning TV show and did a whole pitch with it. It was awesome. Also I bet he's still going strong in the after life.
"Billy Mays here! I'm in the after life to tell you about After-Burn! It's the miracle gel that'll sooth burns from even the hottest flames in existence!
Order now and we'll throw in Gold-Polish. It's the perfect thing you need to keep your halo glowing."
(I in no way think Billy Mays is in Hell or anything like that, this is merely satirical).
I've only seen hamburgers like that in and around large metropolitan areas.
@DoubleEcho: Perhaps it was stress...from all the fees and hassles typical of flying US Air out of Philadelphia International.
@Laura Northrup: Is it?
I'd be more surprised if there's anybody who's on TV regularly that doesn't have fan-fiction written about them.
Who made that first pic? It is awesome!
Just for fun, you guys should've posted his appearance on Conan on the 22nd. I enjoyed it...
[www.tonightshowwithconanobrien.com]
it's under the Chapter 5 heading.
He was a traveling salesman working at trade shows around the country for over a decade--you've got to figure that fast food and overeating was probably a staple of his existence.
Not to mention sitting on planes immobile for hours which doesn't help things.
I met him at a Home Depot about 5-7 years ago when he was first pitching Oxy Clean--I felt bad for the guy because at that time he was an unknown and people were avoiding him like he has the plague, I recognized him from the infomercials and talked with him for a few minutes... I think we were talking about the Miami Dolphin's? who knows...
He tweeted a few days about about hip replacement #3 being scheduled for today -- not sure that was his hip, or something else, but if it was his that means probably plenty of surgery and medicines in the past plus lots of down time while recovering? Not a huge incentive to exercise either when you're in pain.
I really like that picture at the start of the article. Any way to get that as a desktop background?
I gotta say, I'm pretty disappointed that the McDonalds drive-thru skit didn't make it onto the list. Everyone needs to check it out on youtube!
I was pumped for the concept of the show. Then I watched it. Horrible staged junk of a show. It bummed me out.
I might be in the minority, but Billy Mays' death affected me more than MJ's.
i think in honor of Billy, i think tonight's dinner will be a Billy Burger made on the Big City Slider Station.
@WearingBlue4BillyMays_GitEmSteveDave: Sully can't carry it on his own. You need a funny man to his straight man act. His Abbot to his Costello.
Even though everyone is joking about Vince, he would make a great foil to Sully.
@WearingBlue4BillyMays_GitEmSteveDave: Whoa now, a funny CAD comic? That actually has less dialogue than a typical CAD one? My god...it's actually been done...
That video of him falling makes me really depressed for some reason...
@emis: Judging from Billy's build he could have played sports in High School and suffered an injury to his hip. A supervisor I had once ended up having to get a knee replacement at 32 because of an old High School football injury that had left scar tissue in the joint.
Every time I see that insurance commercial, all that runs through my head is
"I can haz insurance?"
I'd only begun to appreciate Billy Mays and Anthony Sullivan's new show, Pitchmen, when I heard about Mays' death. Really sorry to see him go like that.