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The Most Obnoxious TV Pitchman

T

The Voice of Reason

My vote goes to Billy Mays. I have to laugh at his latest commercial which is a device that allows gardeners to plant flowers and scrubs easier than using a shovel or pick by tilling the soil.
If you notice on the commercial the ground has already been rotor-tilled so that a person could use their hands to plant anything. And everything costs $19.95. (of course by the time you add in the S&H that price is more like $40.00. Anyways this guy, who should also be a pitchman for Grecian Formula, since its obvious he uses it on his beard, has a $1.8 million dollar house in Florida; so apparently the guy is making some big bucks.
Then we have this local car salesman. He's this overweight guy with some blond dolly on his arm and his pitch line is "Huge." While I personally wouldn't buy a bicycle from the guy, he has dealerships all over New York State; which goes to prove that P.T. Barnum was right about a sucker being born every minute.
 
The Voice of Reason said:
My vote goes to Billy Mays. I have to laugh at his latest commercial which is a device that allows gardeners to plant flowers and scrubs easier than using a shovel or pick by tilling the soil.
If you notice on the commercial the ground has already been rotor-tilled so that a person could use their hands to plant anything. And everything costs $19.95. (of course by the time you add in the S&H that price is more like $40.00. Anyways this guy, who should also be a pitchman for Grecian Formula, since its obvious he uses it on his beard, has a $1.8 million dollar house in Florida; so apparently the guy is making some big bucks.
Then we have this local car salesman. He's this overweight guy with some blond dolly on his arm and his pitch line is "Huge." While I personally wouldn't buy a bicycle from the guy, he has dealerships all over New York State; which goes to prove that P.T. Barnum was right about a sucker being born every minute.
Click to expand...

All I can say is thank goodness for the remote button and the ability to mute sound.
 
Here in PhoenixLand we used to have an import from SoCal who sold cars:

"Hi folks, I'm Cal Worthington and this is my dog <what's his name?>.

Really dumb. He disappeared back to SoCal without notice some years ago and we assume he still entertains there. The dealership he once ran turned over countless times since.

Not to be outdone however we grew one of our own:

"Hi folks, my name is Tex Earnhardt and these are my sons Hal and Jim-Babe and this ain't no bull". This is as he sits his Brahma bull with horns a mile wide and a belt buckle that could receive interstellar radio traffic.

Tex is a local lad and owns most of the dealerships in the Valley it seems. He just might be the hardest working car dealer in history but he must recruit his sales staff from McDonald's drop outs.
 
Billy Mays also hawks health insurance now. The first time I saw making that insurance pitch, I almost threw up.

Car dealership owners who appear in their own ads often are the most obnoxious. It seems like car dealerships are the only people who can afford local broadcast TV ad rates (in Atlanta at least).
 
jal41 said:
Car dealership owners who appear in their own ads often are the most obnoxious. It seems like car dealerships are the only people who can afford local broadcast TV ad rates (in Atlanta at least).
Click to expand...

What I always found interesting is that some car dealers file for Chapter 11, then they re-appear either a few months, or years later, back on TV. And you're right; they always seem to be able to afford local broadcast TV ads.
As for the products Mays hawks, how many of them actually work?
 
Billy Mays is an icon for gay males. The worst is Kevin Trudeau, from debt cures to vitamins, to god knows what else, he's been fined by the FCC, but always comes back.

I actually liked Don Lapre, he was a sleeze but he was personable.
 
Don't forget those dumbasses doing the Sonic spots. I refuse to eat at Sonic as long as those guys are doing the spots.
 
In Raleigh, a local dealer uses a badger character with a gravelly voice that can get rather annoying...also from my Indiana days....Buddy of Buddy's carpets (annoying but likable) and Don of Don's Guns ("I don't want to make any money, I just looooovvve to sell guns!")
 
1.) The most obnoxious pitchman is the person (name unknown) for the investment firm Hal Holbrook talks up. ( can't remember the name, but the President of the firm always comes on after Holbrook and tells us unvesting is a LOOOOONF journey.) Anyway, their line, "and if you have more than $500,000 to invest, we will send you a certificate for a FREE consultation with one of our advisors." WOW - I don't have to pay to be given a sales pitch. What a guy! I think I will lie. I only have $385,000 to invest with them. Will they let me in their office?
2.) There was also some insurance guy a while back who always said, "I am proud to be their paid spokesman." His pride is easily bought, I bet. I can see him saying I am proud to be the representative for this vacuum pack.
3.) From a long time ago - John Lance Ford in Cleveland had a man who screamed, "and look at this car HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERE." Always screaming and extending the word "here" as he pointed to each car. John Lance got tired of paying for a spokesman and tried the same commerical and the same HEEEEEERE himself. He looked old and tired copying. He was no Ed Stinn, C. Miller, or Dick Bass.
 
Central Alabama has Suzukiman. It's not so much that he's severely obnoxious, it's just that he's on EVERY CHANNEL, throughout the day, and he has not gone away after 2 years of his stuff. Must be the only Suzuki dealer in the world who can afford to advertise as much as he does. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnhnlqLlwgE

I also must nominate that scrawny little rat-looking dude that does the ads for ShamWOW.
 
The Voice of Reason said:
Then we have this local car salesman. He's this overweight guy with some blond dolly on his arm and his pitch line is "Huge." While I personally wouldn't buy a bicycle from the guy, he has dealerships all over New York State; which goes to prove that P.T. Barnum was right about a sucker being born every minute.
Click to expand...
You're talking about Billy Fucillo. His catch-phrase is Huge-JA. Tom Park used to be his sidekick, but then this blonde suddenly showed up with Fucillio. Even though his commercials are obnoxious, apparently the guy is making money since he's spending a small fortune on TV ads, plus recently built a new dealership in the suburb of Greece.
 
Nationally, if Mr. Opportunity knocks one more time on TV and/or radio, I'm going to knock him upside the head. Am I the only one who can't stand this
animated jerk?
 
fussbudget said:
Nationally, if Mr. Opportunity knocks one more time on TV and/or radio, I'm going to knock him upside the head. Am I the only one who can't stand this
animated jerk?
Click to expand...

It sounds like he's saying "Missed Your Opportunity."

Nuff 'sed. :-D

--Russell
 
The new love-to-hate pitchman has to be Joey (is that his name?) for ShamWow. Obnoxious East Coast dude with a headset-mike like the guys who hawk stuff in the merchant buildings at state fairs. My favorite line is when he's cleaning some stain with his ShamWow and in the middle of describing the whole process, he asks, "Ya followin' me, camera guy?" That, or when he says, "It's made in Germany...You know the Germans make good stuff!"
 
The ShamWow guy sounds like he's stretching to fill time using the tried-and-true carny/state fair product hawker standbys.

The only thing keeping Billy Mays ahead of him in "obnoxious" levels is the fact that Billy Mays has been around longer, and now is selling the insurance.b :eek: :eek: ??? ???
 
Jimme said:
1.) The most obnoxious pitchman is the person (name unknown) for the investment firm Hal Holbrook talks up. ( can't remember the name, but the President of the firm always comes on after Holbrook and tells us unvesting is a LOOOOONF journey.) Anyway, their line, "and if you have more than $500,000 to invest, we will send you a certificate for a FREE consultation with one of our advisors." WOW - I don't have to pay to be given a sales pitch. What a guy! I think I will lie. I only have $385,000 to invest with them. Will they let me in their office?
Click to expand...

The company is Fisher Investments. I've seen their ads (including full informercials) on CNBC before.
 
In the Phoenix area, at least on the radio side (I think he’s only recently begun experimenting with TV), there’s a guy named Michael Crawford who I assume runs a Kia dealership in the suburb of Peoria. His tagline is “Michael Crawford wants to seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ya in a Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiia!” It was funny at first but it got REALLY old, really fast.
 
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