Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Bye Billy

I cannot remember a week with more celebrity deaths than the past 7 days -- Ed McMahon, Farrah, MJ, Fred Travalena, Gayle Storm and on Sunday, one Billy Mays.

If you have not caught it yet, his show with Anthony Sullivan, with whom he worked in direct response marketing -- Pitchmen -- is terrific. It is a behind the scenes look at how they choose products, test market them, design the pitch, film the demo, and then test the commercial in key markets and time slots to see which products ultimately get the thumbs up or the thumbs down.

Mr. Kirby teaches marketing in high school, and has used the show to teach his students the marketing process. The thing I really liked about Billy was that he was in on the joke. He could goof on himself and laugh all the way to the bank. What a shame he didn't get much time to enjoy it.

Here are a couple of laughs for you
ESPN 360 commercial

Appearances on Tonight Show

6 comments:

West Haven Bob said...

"but wait...there's MORE!"

(BTW: password for this post is "oxylad"...subtly ironic, eh?)

Anonymous said...

Yes, it has been a sad week.

Billy Mays' commercials could be annoying, but in a campy, enjoyable sort of way. And, he always came across as a nice guy.

I just heard the news and came over here to see if CT Bob was alright. Having seen photos of the two of them, I've sometimes suspected that being Billy Mays was CT Bob's secret day job.

Cunning_Linguist said...

I used to despise Billy. I don't think I ever quite really warmed up to him. But then I thought about it really long..... do I really want Vince Schlomi selling me garden weasels and miracle scrubbers? The answer, was of course no. Unfortunately we no longer have a choice now.

Kirby said...

While Bob and Billy Mays were no doubt separated at birth, it looks like Bob finally got a good week to spend on the boat. I'm here to keep the blog warm. K

West Haven Bob said...

c'mon, K---

ramp it back up!

Yr thoughts on Sen. Franken? Gov. Sanford's never-ending disclosure?

vagabondblogger said...

I love Billy and will miss him more than the others. Just watched the last Pitchmen last night. I think his son, Billy Mays Jr (the third) should replace him. He's just as good as his dad.