I Hate This Guy

Posted by ScuzzBuster

October 26, 2008

I was really hoping to sit down today to try to watch 30 consecutive minutes of television without having to see this guy, but it appears that this is becoming increasingly unlikely these days. Is there anyone left in North America that doesn’t hate Billy Mays?

Maybe “hate” is a strong word. I’m sure had I never seen any of these ads that if I met the guy at a business lunch or in line at the grocery store that some glorious friendship may have ensued. But as it stands today, I’m sick to death of this guy coming into my living room, squinting, raising his voice and trying to sell me a bunch of crap.

Many years ago when I was doing production work in television we all had a name for that inexperienced “fill-in” sports or news anchor who never seemed to be comfortable being under the studio lights. “He’s a squinter,” we’d say. As soon as the studio lights would come up, queue The Vapors and their 80’s rock classic Turning Japanese.

Billy Mays is a squinter. A bad one. In fact, I’ve seen no photographic evidence to date that this guy has eyeballs. Somehow though, for a man that never opens his eyes, he’s become an excellent queue card reader.

Because I have a sickness, I did some research on Mr. Mays to see if there is some cross-section of America that may know him from some previous run of celebrity. Maybe at some point in his life, at a time when I was completely oblivious to most mass media, he had some type of popularity from something else that would give him credibility with people. Maybe he was some obscure Oscar winning actor that passed me by or he had 15 minutes of fame pulling a family of 5 out of burning building or saving a cat from a tree.

No. The guy is a pitchman/salesman and always has been. He “rose to fame” traveling the country hitting fairs and tradeshows doing exactly what he does on TV now. Pitching whatever crap product was put in front of him, presumably while screaming and squinting.

According to Wikipedia, some time around 1993, Orange Glo International decided “hey, what we need to pitch our cleaning products is a pudgy, squinting, screaming, monotone pitchman!” It was a match made in heaven. Well, Wikipedia didn’t word it exactly like that.

Of course, none of this would work if they didn’t continue to dress him like he just got home from his job as a Sears delivery driver. If you can squirt it, streak it, turn it on, or roll it out, Mays will sell it for you.

What really irritates the hell out of me though is that apparently there is some segment of the population that eats his shit up. You don’t keep getting hired over and over again to do something unless there seems to be some financial success in it. I don’t get it, I just don’t get it.

And that tub of Oxiclean in my laundry room has absolutely nothing to do with Billy Mays.

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