Something the Mighty Mendit can't fix

Billy Mays, tv pitchman extraordinaire, has died. Guess now we'll get to find out if Orange Glo, OxiClean, and other products really can sell themselves. Let's be honest: we all found his enthusiasm for these products a little catching, didn't we? I'm a secure enough person to admit I have a bottle of OxiClean in my house. I don't use it in all the ways he suggested, and I've never been quite as excited about it as he could get, but it's a good cleaning product to have in one's repertoire.

I think my favorite Billy Mays commercials were his self-spoof bit for ESPN. ESPN has a computer service, ESPN360, that sports addicts can subscribe to so they can watch live sporting events from their computers. The ad was laugh-out-loud funny (at least, I laughed out loud the first time I saw it), with Mays demonstrating exactly how the programming got to the computer monitor by following the cable that ran from the wall into the back of the CPU. I appreciated that he could poke a little fun at his energetic tv persona.

I can admit I'll miss the guy. He made commercial breaks more entertaining, just by the sheer force of his personality. Television advertising will not be the same. I really hope this doesn't mean we'll have to see more of the ShamWow guy. That guy's annoying.