Aw, man!
Ron died.
But Wait! There's More!
Ronald Martin Popeil (May 3, 1935 – July 28, 2021), was an American inventor and marketing personality, and founder of the direct response marketing company
Ronco. He made appearances in infomercials for the Showtime Rotisserie and coined the phrase
"Set it, and forget it!" as well as popularizing the phrase,
"But wait, there's more!" on television as early as the mid-1950s.
Popeil is noted for marketing and in some cases inventing a wide variety of products. Among the better known and more successful are the Chop-O-Matic hand food processor (
"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to show you the greatest kitchen appliance ever made ... All your onions chopped to perfection without shedding a single tear."), the Dial-O-Matic successor to the Veg-O-Matic (
"Slice a tomato so thin it only has one side."), and the Ronco Pocket Fisherman. Popeil is also well known for his housewares inventions like his Giant Dehydrator and Beef Jerky Machine, his Electric Pasta Maker and his Showtime Rotisserie & BBQ. His Showtime Rotisserie & BBQ sold over eight million units in the US alone, helping Ronco's housewares sales exceed $1 billion in profits. After retiring, Popeil continued to invent products including the 5in1 Turkey Fryer & Food Cooking System which he had been developing for over ten years.
After returning from college, Popeil continued to work and learn from his father, who was also an inventor and salesman of numerous kitchen-related gadgets such as the Chop-O-Matic and the Veg-O-Matic to major department stores. The Chop-O-Matic retailed for $3.98 and sold over two million units. It indirectly spurred Ron Popeil's move into television, as it was so efficient at chopping vegetables it was impractical for salesmen to carry all they needed for their pitches. The solution was to tape the demonstration.
Popeil initially operated as a distributor of his father's kitchen products and later formed his own company, Ronco, in 1964. He continued as a distributor for his father and added additional products from other manufacturers. Ron Popeil and his father became competitors in the 1970s for the same retail store business.
Popeil received the Ig Nobel Prize in Consumer Engineering in 1993. The awards committee described him as the "incessant inventor and perpetual pitchman of late night television" and awarded the prize in recognition of his "redefining the industrial revolution" with his devices. He was a past member of the board of directors Mirage Resorts where he served for 22 years under Steve Wynn as well as a past member of the board of directors of MGM Hotels for seven years under Kirk Kerkorian. He became the recipient of the Electronic Retail Association's Lifetime Achievement award in 2001 and he is listed in the Direct Response Hall of Fame.
Parodies of Popeil's infomercials were done on the comedy show Saturday Night Live by Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy and the "Veg-O-Matic" may have provided comedian Gallagher inspiration for the "Sledge-O-Matic" routine since the 1980s. The animated series "VeggieTales" once featured a parody of the "Veg-O-Matic" dubbed as the "Forgive-O-Matic".
Following in the footsteps of his father, Popeil went on to create products himself including the
Mr. Microphone (the first Karaoke machine), the Popeil
Pocket Fisherman,
the Buttoneer,
the Smokeless Ashtray, Popeil’s Electric Food Dehydrator, the Inside-the-Egg Scrambler, GLH-9 (Great Looking Hair Formula #9)
Hair in a Can Spray, the
Rhinestone Stud Setter (later called
the Bedazzler), the Cap Snaffler, the Popeil
Automatic Pasta Maker and
the Ronco Electric Food Dehydrator.
The entrepreneur was said to have made a fortune estimated at $200 million in his career and had droves of fans who called themselves “the Rontourage.”
He also set a QVC record in 2000 selling over $1 million worth of his Showtime Rotisseries — or approximately 150 units each minute — during a one-hour live segment.
His products can be seen in the Smithsonian Museum today.