A few years back I was hospitalized with pneumonia. There wasn’t much to do in the hospital except catch up on bad TV I’d been magically missing with not having cable at home. I watched a biography of the Ronco guy who cooked up the In The Egg Scambler and other crazy old school infomercial products. It was interesting that his dad was a street huckster who sold things at carnivals and such using all the same techniques he used on tv, and particularly the crazy price cuts. It’s apparently a well known technique among people who do that kind of performance selling to set the price like, “what would you pay???” “$20?” “How would you feel if I said it was only 9.99?..and you get TWO for that price!?” As well the way he’d demo the product was very honed and based on his father’s selling techniques.
Also I learned that over time the Ronco guy’s wives got younger and younger and younger until his forth was much younger than his oldest kids.
