Billy Mays on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
March 2nd, 2009 Paul Lucas
Last month on The Tonight Show, Jay Leno did a segment where he took questions from the audience. In this case, a teacher asked Jay how she could get her students more interested in the plays of William Shakespeare. Jay’s solution was to bring out infomercial superstar Billy Mays to sell the kids on “Billy Shakespeare.”
This sketch relies on the seemingly endless number of products Billy Mays has pitched over the years. Mentioned here were:
Orange Glo:
Oxi Clean:
They could easily have included a few dozen more of Billy’s infomercial products (Mighty Mendit, Mighty Putty, Samurai Shark, Hercules Hook, etc., etc.) but they would have run out of time.
Poor Vince Offer only has ShamWow and Slap Chop.
Thank you for sharing that. Maybe Leno is not as unfunny as I had previously assumed.
Comment by Pip — March 2nd, 2009 at 1:42 pm
I’ve always like Leno. But what I would like to see is Vince Offer and Billy Mays settling it all out at the Springer’s.
Comment by Znkp — March 2nd, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Most infomercial hosts don’t get a whole lot of respect. I imagine some of this is for good reason and just natural public aversion to someone who we only hear from when they want us to buy something of (perhaps) questionable quality.
But from what I’ve seen of Billy Mays in this video and several other things around the net and airwaves, people seem to have a respect for him and his pitchman antics, regardless of their desire to buy the products. They kind of sit back and respect his routine and what he has to say. Billy Mays and his routine, however, is of course not without some potentially irksome antics while he does his pitch–as are all pitchman–but even so he seems to have found a respectable niche in our entertainment/
infomercial culture.
He has his critics everywhere, I’m sure. But overall I say, “Good for him.” And he was quite good in the Leno segment, too.
Comment by Nils Barton — March 2nd, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Have you done anything chronicling the actors in these things? The guy who bangs his shin on the table in the Handy Switch ad is also the popcorn-eater in the Snuggie ad, for example. And the lady he’s in bed with (in Handy Switch) is the same lady who can’t figure out how to use a blanket at the beginning of the Snuggie ad, I’m pretty sure.
Comment by john — March 3rd, 2009 at 4:06 am
Billy Mays may have more products, but it seems like Vince is getting all the internet buzz…you have to see this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsQcyhBsSjI
Comment by Jill Jenkins — March 3rd, 2009 at 8:17 am
“Out damned spot”- perfect Macbeth reference for OxiClean.
Comment by Puyer — March 4th, 2009 at 8:01 pm