C'mon, You Can Do Better Than "Wow"

"Wow".

That's what I said when that news story appeared about the prostitute biting Sham Wow spokesman Vince's tongue and him pounding on her face until she let him go. He was lucky it was his tongue, otherwise Vince might've been saying a lot more than "wow"! But I digress...

What the heck makes Sham Wow so damn popular? And the ad, according to the Sham Wow website, is popular, too, ranking as the #1 informercial of all time! Wow! But try to convince Bill O'Reilly of the claims Vince makes...

Let's look at what Sham Wow claims:
It is made in Germany
Easily removes cola, wine and pet stains
Doesn't drip, doesn't make a mess
Washes, dries, and polishes any surface
Won't scratch any surface
Machine washable and bleachable
Lasts ten years

Big deal. What's so catchy about that. There's nothin' there that would convince me to buy a product called a "sham". And no wonder poor old Bill was upset. Thesaurus.com equates sham with: burlesque, cant, caricature, cheat, counterfeit, cover-up, deceit, deception, facade, fake, fakery, false front, farce, feint, flimflam*, forgery, fraud, hypocrisy, hypocriticalness, imitation, impostor, imposture, jive*, mock, mockery, pharisaism, phoniness, pretend, pretense, pretext, pseudo*, put-on, sell, smoke*, snow job*, spoof, travesty, whitewash ... "wow"!

Remember Bounty? It was "the quicker picker upper". Yeah, that sounds neater than the unimaginative "wow".

And what about Mr. Clean (M. Net for my francophone friends). He "cleans your whole house and everything that's in it".

Here's an old fave: Ajax. Ajax was "stronger than dirt".

And the marketers of Pine-Sol at least used a little imagination to demonstrate how their product worked better than others...

Geez, even Vince's nemesis Billy Mays of Oxiclean fame proclaimed "you don't need a cabinet full of cleaners" - sort of. Nevertheless, it beats "wow" hands down.

Now, Vince, you see how imaginative the makers of other products are? But don't beat yourself up over it...or anyone else for that matter!

The Polka Dot Door

A long time ago, when I was 22, my first child was born. That kid grew up on a little Canadian kid's show called Polka Dot Door, produced by the TV Ontario network. And Dad, more often than not, sat through those shows with his little one. Nine or so years later when a brother, and a year after that when a sister came along number one son was moving on to Knight Rider and The Dukes of Hazzard. But there was a nice overlap where his siblings picked up where he had left off with Polka Dot Door. And Dad was right there to welcome them. So you're looking at a Polka Dot Door veteran. The show began in 1971 and ran to 1993. I didn't watch the full run but I did get in my fair share. The formula was pretty simple. A young male and female host, which seemed to change every week, sang songs, told stories, made crafts and generally did their best stimulate little brains. The show opened as follows... Imagination Day! Oh boy! ...

30 Days of Photos III #4 Sour

Check out Ziva's Inferno for the rest of today's photos.

I Am Charlie, I'm A Bore

Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise, Colin Farrel...you know the list, it goes on and on. The list of Hollywood hick-ups who not content to meltdown behind closed doors have to drag each and every detail out into the light of day and share it with all of us. Well, add Charlie Sheen to that luckless and lascivious list of losers. In the past few days he's been on every major media soapbox complaining abut how he's been treated and how he's misunderstood. Last night he spent an hour on ABC's 20/20 "in his own words". Charlie, you should have stuck to the script. "I have a highly evolved brain". You know I never did like that song by Helen Reddy in the 70s "I Am Woman". But I have to say the melody really leant itself well to a parody of Hollywood's latest flame-out, Charlie Sheen. Although I never thought I'd hear myself say this, my sincerest apologies to Helen Reddy. And now if you're ready (a little play on wor...

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