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. May 3 is the 123rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (124th in leap years). ... 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar). ... New York, NY redirects here. ... For other uses, see Inventor (disambiguation). ... Direct response marketing is a form of marketing designed to solicit a direct response which is specific and quantifiable. ... Ronco is a company that manufactures and sells a variety of items and devices, most commonly those used in the kitchen. ... Infomercials are television commercials that run as long as a typical television program (roughly thirty minutes or an hour). ...

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. Carny is the singular slang for a carnival employee, as well as the language they employ. ... ISO 4217 Code USD User(s) the United States, the British Indian Ocean Territory,[1] the British Virgin Islands, Cambodia, East Timor, Ecuador, El Salvador, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Panama, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the insular areas of the United States Inflation 2. ... An invention is an object, process, or technique which displays an element of novelty. ... Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and/or video signals which transmit programs to an audience. ... Commercialism redirects here. ...

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. Flying frog. ... For other uses, see Inventor (disambiguation). ... Infomercials are television commercials that run as long as a typical television program (roughly thirty minutes or an hour). ...

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. Beverly Hills is a city in the western part of Los Angeles County, California. ...

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."

Veg-O-Matic was the name of one of the first food-processing appliances to gain widespread use in the United States. ... Biography is a documentary television program. ... Oven depicted in a painting by Millet An oven is an enclosed compartment for heating, baking or drying. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... See also lamb (disambiguation) An unweaned lamb The terms lamb, hoggett or mutton are used to describe the meat of a domestic sheep. ...

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).

• Professional wrestling tag team The Midnight Express dubbed their "finisher" the Veg-O-Matic.

• 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".

• Also on Saturday Night Live (September 25, 1982), Eddie Murphy did a commercial spoof for the "Popeil Galactic Prophylactic".

• 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"

• The Ronco Showtime infomercial plays in the background of a scene in the Paul Thomas Anderson film Magnolia.

• In the film Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, the character Crow T. Robot uses the phrase "Snaffles caps of any size jug, bottle or jar...and it really really works."

• 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 Boys 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."

Weird Al Yankovic (album) Alfred Matthew Weird Al Yankovic (IPA pronunciation: ; born October 23, 1959) is an American musician, satirist, parodist, accordionist, and television producer. ... Weird Al Yankovic in 3-D, sometimes referred to simply as In 3-D, is the second album by Weird Al Yankovic, released in 1984. ... The B-52s are a New Wave rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, an important center of alternative rock. ... This article is about the song; for the animal, see Rock lobster. ... A catch phrase is a phrase or expression that is popularized, usually through repeated use, by a real person or fictional character. ... Straight Outta Lynwood is the 12th album by Weird Al Yankovic. ... Daniel Edward Aykroyd CM (born July 1, 1952 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) is an Academy Award-nominated Canadian comedian, actor, screenwriter, and musician. ... Saturday Night Live (SNL) is a weekly late night 90-minute American comedy-variety show based in New York City which has been broadcast live by NBC on Saturday nights since October 11, 1975. ... Jonathan Richman (born May 16, 1951), musician, is an American proto-punk icon and one of the progenitors of indie rock. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... A professional wrestling tag-team consists of two or occasionally three wrestlers who are working together as a team. ... The Midnight Express is a professional wrestling tag team that has had various members and achieved most of its success in the 1980s. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Major League is a 1989 movie starring Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen and Corbin Bernsen. ... September 25 is the 268th day of the year (269th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Edward Eddie Regan Murphy (born April 3, 1961, Brooklyn, New York City) is a Golden Globe-winning and Academy Award-nominated American actor and comedian. ... The Saturday Night Live commercial is usually a spoof of a real commercial found on television at that time, and is commonly shown after the hosts opening monologue. ... A Big Piece of Garbage is episode 8 in season 1 of Futurama. ... Futurama is an Emmy Award-winning animated sitcom created by Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons) and David X. Cohen for the Fox Network, and will resume airing in 2008 on Comedy Central. ... The Luck of the Fryrish is the 4th episode in season 3 of Futurama. ... Paul Thomas Anderson at Cannes 2002 Paul Thomas Anderson (born June 26, 1970[1] in Studio City, California) is an American filmmaker. ... It has been suggested that Magnolia (album) be merged into this article or section. ... Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie (1996, produced by Best Brains, Inc. ... Simpsons redirects here. ... Radio Bart is the thirteenth episode of The Simpsons third season. ... Old School is a comedy motion picture released by DreamWorks SKG in 2003, about three thirty-somethings who seek to re-live their college days by starting a fraternity, and the tribulations they encounter in doing so. ... Vincent Anthony Vaughn (born March 28, 1970) is an American film actor. ... Elizabethtown is the name of several places in the United States of America: Elizabethtown, Illinois Elizabethtown, Indiana Elizabethtown, Kentucky Elizabethtown, New York Elizabethtown, North Carolina Elizabethtown, Ohio Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania Elizabethtown, Texas These should not be confused with Elizabethton, Tennessee (without the w). Also see Elizabeth. ... Orlando Jonathan Blanchard Bloom[1] (born January 13, 1977) is an English actor. ... Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart on the set of The Daily Show The Daily Show (currently The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, also known as TDS to fans and staffers) is a half-hour satirical fake news program produced by and run on the Comedy Central cable television network in... For other persons named Robin Williams, see Robin Williams (disambiguation). ... Mork may mean: Character on an American sitcom Mork and Mindy (1978-1983) Mork, a god of the Orks in the fictional Warhammer universe Mork (file format), a computer file format used by Mozilla-based web browsers This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same... Mork & Mindy was a sci-fi-based American sitcom broadcast from 1978 until 1982 on the American Broadcasting Company. ... The Beastie Boys are a group from the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan. ... Over the Hedge is a computer-animated film based on the United Media comic strip of the same name. ... Blue Man Group founders (L to R) Phil Stanton, Chris Wink & Matt Goldman Blue Man Group (Blue Man, BMG) is a creative organization centered on a trio of mute performers, called Blue Men, that present themselves in blue grease paint, latex bald caps, and black clothing. ... The Ig Nobel Prizes are a parody of the Nobel Prizes and are given each year in early fall — a week or two before the recipients of the genuine Nobel Prizes are announced — for ten achievements that cannot or should not be reproduced. Sponsored by the scientific humor...

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.
• Malcolm Gladwell wrote about Popeil for the New Yorker (October 30th 2000), in an article entitled 'The Pitchman'. The article was a winner for Best Profile at the 2001 National Magazine Awards, and is included in the collection The Best American Magazine Writing 2001 as well as on Gladwell's website[3].

Ashley Michelle Tisdale (born July 2, 1985)[1] is an American actress, singer and model. ... Alpha Epsilon Pi (ΑΕΠ or AEPi) is currently the only international Jewish college fraternity in the United States and Canada. ...

Notes

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

August 15 is the 227th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (228th in leap years), with 138 days remaining. ...

Further reading

• Timothy Samuelson (2002). But Wait! There's More!. Rizzoli. ISBN 0-8478-2431-4. 

External links

• A short biography of Ron Popeil
• Ronco.com
• But Wait, There's More! from FreeEnterpriseLand.com
• Slide show of Ronco products
• He Invents! Markets! Makes Millions!
• All Things Popeil gallery
• But Wait! There's More! NPR coverage of a 2002 biography by that title
• Biography profile of Popeil
• Watch Classic Ronco Infomercials