Billy Mays, 1958-2009
William Darrell Mays, Jr., the modern-day colporteur whose stentorian tones helped overcome Americans' innate distrust of barbate concessionaires, passed away this weekend, possibly as a result of being struck on the head by a heavy object during a difficult commercial airplane landing. Mays, whose legacy of encumbering consumers with gimmicky products of dubious utility was a microcosm of the Long Boom and its senseless spending patterns, was 50 years old, which means that both he and Michael Jackson were older than the President of the United States. Weird, right?
I'm not easily impressed but two things about this post impressed me. 1: Colporteur. 2: The amazing stain-fighting power of OxyClean.
Keep an eye on what David Cross called "CSI: Law Hospital" for an upcoming episode featuring a celebrity who dies a few days after a suitcase hits him on the head.
Hmmmm, not going with "Death of a Salesman" like the classy folks over at Today, huh?
At last, I can nod off in front of the teevee and not be scared senseless when he starts screaming about Orange-Glo. His long reign of terror is ended.
The echoes remain.
Is there a product for that?
Great to know there's another way planes can kill you.
**BREAKING** The plane did not kill him. Heart disease did. CNN says so. http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/TV/06/29/mays.death/index.html
I guess we're all stuck with the hooker-punching ShamWow guy now, eh? He's not nearly as endearing as Billy was.
The 3am paid programming industry may never recover.
it's weird to me that almost none of these obituaries mention his stint as the model in the original "Joy of Sex"
So, OxiClean really does remove stains. Who knew?
Michael Jackson was pretty much dead to me decades ago (and I love his music), but Billy Mays I miss.