by Tom Pantera
Columnist

I did something recently that I almost never do. I bought something off a late-night TV ad.

I got a “Grip-n-Go,” a cell-phone holder for my car. I’d been looking for something like that for some time. I’m one of these guys who sticks things in a pocket and then, when I need something, I wind up frisking myself (which is dubiously legal in most states) because I can’t remember which pocket it’s in. Even though the ringing of a cell phone narrows down the choices, if you’re sitting in a car it’s a pain to have to dig it out of your pocket while you’re driving (as well as unsafe).

The doodad I bought attaches to either your window, which I believe is illegal, or your dashboard by a suction cup. It has a pad made of some sort of space-age silicone (according to the ad) and you just slap your phone on it and go (hence the name), supposedly. The jury’s still out on how well it works. In order to stick it on your dashboard, you attach a little disk with stickum on both sides to the dashboard, then a plastic disk onto that, to which you attach the suction cup. The stickum on the first disk doesn’t work very well, so I wound up supergluing the plastic disk onto that and it seems to be holding. I probably should’ve used duct tape, that miracle substance, but I didn’t need the thing to look any cheesier than it does. So, we’ll see.

I think that’s only the second thing I’ve ever bought off a TV commercial. The first was a Civil War chess set, which I have and is actually pretty cool. The pieces, of course, are far smaller than they look on TV, but it’s still attractive.

But I’ve been sorely tempted to buy a lot of things I’ve seen on TV, if only because the commercials are pretty convincing. Still, I realize that nine times out of 10 the thing won’t work as well as the TV pitchman makes it appear. I have fairly decent sales resistance.

The ads can be hard to resist, especially because they almost always offer a twofer.

The commercials themselves are fascinating. I get a big charge out of the pitchmen, who always act like a.) you know who they are, b.) you’re good pals and c.) they have any credibility whatsoever. If the guy is really good, you don’t realize any of those things until about halfway through the commercial when you say to yourself, “Hey, who in hell is this guy?”

The gold standard in pitchmen, at least during what I’ll call “the modern era” of TV sales, was Billy Mays. Until he died from consuming too much Bolivian marching power, Billy was omnipresent. If the guy worked on commission, he must have been able to buy a lot of powder.

Then there’s the “Shamwow” guy, who is the heir to Mays’ gold-foil crown. His enthusiasm over being able to wipe up any spill or buff any car is a bit creepy; Mays looked like a big old teddy bear, but the Shamwow guy just has that lean and hungry look. He looks a bit like the guy who probably sold Mays his cocaine.

Of course, not every TV pitchperson is successful. The woman on the Quibids commercials has a voice that could etch glass. Every time that commercial comes on, which is about once every 10 seconds, I want to punch out my eardrums. And the pitchman for that company that buys cell phones, a skinny kid who looks like a wannabe hipster, seems like the kind of person who’s such a dork that even Mother Teresa would want to punch him out. The tragic haircut doesn’t help, either.

I’ve always kind of considered myself a connoisseur of direct-sale television pitches. Since I have that pretty good sales resistance, if it even makes me briefly consider buying the widget being sold I score it as a success.

I particularly love infomercials. It fascinates me how the people who make them can extend their hot-air generation over a half-hour. Most of them, of course, are for kitchen implements. And those nearly always include a studio audience; during the actual product demonstrations, the camera will cut away to a bunch of people in folding chairs, all of whom are grinning like they’ve just huffed a tank or two of nitrous oxide.

My all-time favorite informercial was for a machine to vacuum-pack stuff. Like the best infomercials, this one actually had a story arc. The guy was going camping and was vacuum packing all the food he was going to take with to save space. A vacuum-packed plastic bag of homemade beef jerky is a beautiful thing.

But then he starts showing everything else you can vacuum pack and after a bit, it’s pretty apparent the guy has boarded the bus to Crazytown. He vacuum packs his shirts (I’m not making this up) and various other items of clothing. The first time I saw it, I started waiting for him to produce a vacuum-packed baby; “No more worries about a dirty diaper smelling up the car during that long drive.” It was a bit much. The guy took a fairly useful product and flogged it to the point of absurdity.

The God of pitchmen, of course, was Ron Popeil, he of the spray-on hair and rotisserie chicken (“Set it and forget it!”). The man could have sold freezers to Eskimos. And he became fabulously wealthy off his stuff. If I were a salesman, Ron Popeil would be my god.

Say what you want about television, which is the same vast wasteland it was two generations ago when that term was first used. But you gotta admit, if you’re looking for a phone holder, a vacuum pack machine or spray-on hair, it’s the marketplace of your dreams.