Name: Ron Popeil on Letterman, June 22, 1982
Uploaded: 2021-08-04T01:17:53.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Ron Popeil on Letterman, June 22, 1982' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-08-04. Transcript available. Ron's only appearance on the show.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Ron Popeil on Letterman, June 22, 1982' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-08-04. Transcript available. Ron's only appearance on the show.

also a gentleman who has sold more kitchen appliances than anyone since the
beginning
of time the originator of well let me say here he is millions and millions of
dollars
worth of products of the smokeless ashtray you've seen advertised well now he
we don't
know if he was responsible for the pocket fisherman but a good question why don't
you take a seat
behind the desk sir see you're right I was gonna say the pocket fisherman and I
was also going to
say the vegematic it's interesting even the vegematic gets a bigger hand than
the Iranian
hostages a sad state of affairs isn't it well let's call this show off we're
not going on have
I introduced the guest yet Ron Popeil is here and we'll find out just exactly
he has many many
wonderful products here tonight and I'm not sure if the pocket fisherman is one
of his and we'll
talk about the vegematic and we've got a lot of important work to do here
tonight
thank you so much if you spend a lot of time watching television this late at
night you're
probably familiar with most of these products that our lovely Carol Merrill is
now pointing to
my next guest is the man responsible for mr microphone mr dentist the miracle
broom the miracle
sander the miracle brush the legendary vegematic and a host of other products
marketed by direct TV ads
please welcome the chairman of ronco products ronald popeil
when I uh I'll just sit over here uh when I introduced you uh in the beginning
of the show
people were shouting out their favorite ronco product and as you may or may not
have heard the pocket fisherman
came up now is that one of your products it was a product that I marketed it
was manufactured by my
father under a company called Popeil brothers yeah but ronco is um today
creates and markets the
products so uh what about the uh the vegematic which is I guess the first big
product for somebody
was it you or was it Popeil well Popeil brothers uh created the product I was
the one who marketed the product
mm-hmm now is your father still in business with this company no he's no longer
in business okay so so uh it's just
the subsequent products are ronco products okay and uh let's talk about a few
of these I mentioned in the
introduction uh mr microphone uh mr dentist who uh who decides that this will
be the name for this product
I do you do you pick the names and and and how uh uh what other aspects uh are
you involved in you don't
you say you don't really invent these devices huh um no I don't invent products
um
um I would like to think I was more of an innovator um seeing a product um in
the marketplace either in
the foreign marketplace or here that uh may be too expensive uh maybe the
quality isn't built into it
um what we do is take that product and end up creating a better product at a
lower price uh are some of
these products um uh and I don't mean this in a negative fashion but some of
them seem to be more gimmick oriented
than like the pocket fisherman for example I mean uh the premise there was you
can put on your business suit
take a wallet take a comb and keep it in your car the pocket fisherman
yeah you always have a uh something very very handy
so uh are what we doing here trying to sell something to somebody that they don't
need or are these legitimate appliances
I think uh they have to be legitimate um I think there's a need for every
product that we've created
here um from the egg scrambler to clean air machines to smokeless ashtrays uh
you name it there's a need
for the product yeah and we're gonna we're gonna demonstrate a couple of well
as many as we can
and uh again another question that uh is there a lot of money to be made in
this sort of thing oh not a lot
i think since i've started in business uh i think sales are close to about a
half a billion dollars
half a billion dollars five is that 500 million is that half a billion i think
so
oh heavens i think so all right let's uh let's begin uh we're gonna start with
uh do you know the order
that we're gonna look at these things ronald i i really don't let's get this
one out of the way first
the uh the inside the eggshell egg scrambler right okay now what is the i'll
hand you of course this
comes complete with two eggs well oh i see this is the inside the shell egg the
new egg scrambler right
do you know why we created that no i don't know why it's uh let's let's see
what it is no i really don't
no it says it's terrific for kids who don't like runny egg whites that's one
reason yeah uh for those
people out in the audience or at home um i spend a lot of time in the kitchen
um one of my favorite
dishes happens to be french toast consequently um the old-fashioned way let me
have that fork for a second
okay this this would be the old-fashioned yeah you take one of these you'll
take a fork and for you
folks have seen the tv commercial uh the normal way of beating up an egg or you
get the idea now of
of course you're exhausted yeah i'm very tempted
so that's that's the it's old-fashioned reverie uh okay beating up beating an
egg with a fork the the
white of the egg it remains constant um surrounding the yolk you never really
homogenize the egg white
and yolk consequently if you make scrambled eggs you do have the whites of the
egg running through if you
make french toast you dip the bread in the egg the white of the egg sticks
along the side of the bread
consequently your french toast doesn't look good and half the time it doesn't
taste good yeah so we
created a product that homogenizes the egg white and the yolk together good now
let's uh
do you want to use this one ronald is this the are you going to show us is this
the one you're going
to use or is there another one back i take we can use this one here okay let's
just pull this out
this is what you get yeah and uh so this uh ends the drudgery that we saw there
can i try this or is this well let me first do it and show you how okay great
you have a really nice
jacket on okay this is the ronco inside the shell egg scrambler as
yeah do you understand let me finish my comment with regard to the the white of
the egg when you
homogenize the egg white and the yolk together when you dip the bread in the
bread absorbs all the egg
right do you cook uh no i don't but you know i may start tonight but with the
advent of this thing
couldn't turn me around on this topic balance the egg on the pin okay when you
breaks the shell yeah
okay you push it too hard though it's going to get all over you you're going to
bust okay the needle
is inside the egg right now all right and if you push down
that's right the needle inside is whirling around at pretty high revolutions
that's it okay you want to try yeah now now what happens just press down on it
just for a second
okay all right right so it's not very very difficult that's great okay okay now
uh we're
now you hard-boiled it you end up with a hard-boiled egg with no yolk in the
middle let me squeeze
that through okay well i tell you what we're going to go away we'll come back
and take a look at the
result of the inside the egg scrambler right after you folks take a look
back we're here with uh ronald popeel let me open this can i do it you can open
it okay quickly
because we want to get some more of your products on here
okay so this is how this is the difference between the regular eggs and the uh
inside the shell
scrambled eggs and it's uh truly a sight to be seen there you go okay that's uh
let's go on here to
this is a product i've seen advertised recently this is mr dentist and what
does mr dentist do mr
dentists polishes your teeth the same way the dentist does uses the same rubber
tip and spins
around except it costs a lot less money to use it now you're so you're saying
here if you get one
of these you don't have to go to the dentist at all no i didn't say that oh if
you want to have your
teeth polished you can't do the scrapings with the and this comes with uh one
of these yeah for someone
else to use it yeah and you can use this on yourself yeah okay i hope so then
then a mirror and a little
flashlight dental mirror so you can see the back part of your mouth or the
inside of your teeth
uh-huh and then it all hooks up to this thing that's already attached that's
for a second person
well you could you know do work this with the eggs too i think
okay that's mr dentist and um i know you had to discontinue mr brain surgeon
had some problems
this is mr microphone this this i think everybody has seen advertised and uh
what is who decided that we
needed mr microphone what is it okay and and why and why i mean how i really
wanted to make a lot of
money yeah this is a essentially a toy for kids it can be it's used christmas
time basically uh as
gifts for for children but adults can use it as an amplifying system and this
was am radio included
with eight foot connecting cord complete broadcasting system right how ted turner
started ladies and gentlemen
so show us what this does here you just turn the radio on you talk in and you
broadcast through the
radio uh-huh that's basically all you do so i do that for you well if you can i
don't know so much
stuff going on here that uh is this a really popular item very successful yeah
testing one two three but it
has a button on the back that allows you to uh it has a button on the back that
when the music plays
on the am am radio that you can sing along with the music or the am radio won't
work or i'd like to
i don't sing too well no it's it's we're probably getting some interference
from this cheap rca equipment
the uh this differs from the mr microphone which doesn't use a radio this is
the complete system
then no this is the mr microphone too it comes with the radio a regular mr
microphone such as back
here right here we have the you turn your fm radio to an fm station and it
broadcasts through the fm
station without any attaching wires okay okay what is it it's alive what is um
you better what is the uh
let me turn that up that's good what is the uh best selling item in the line
currently probably the
clean air machine clean air machine have we got one that we have one of those
well first let me because
this is something that i might use this is yeah show us how this works what is
i've seen this advertised
what do you do there it was designed for people who um are on their way to work
in the morning in
their car and they'd like a hot cup of coffee or tea and it allows them to uh
move in a vehicle
whether it be a boat or a car and drink liquid so and this because of this
right oh heavens oh i see
and it just it pours out of the top just like that there you go it comes
completely with liquid in it
then that's nice liquid included uh i mean this is let me just turn this off
because we're getting uh
i don't know what we're getting there you go now the uh you mentioned one other
one the clean air
clean air machine all right sir let me get mr sponge and kind of clean up here
okay now this is the clean air machine and this is this is the one that you're
the most proud of
right i think the finest product that we've ever produced all right well there's
nothing better
and it was designed to remove cigarette smoke pollen dust odors from a room and
i think it's the best
product ever made yeah and it uh just it sucks the air through the continuously
it works 24 hours a day
and this would be good for people who are uh allergenic well in the summer time
yes because
it takes out pollen and dust out of the air yeah um bathrooms in kitchens for
odors etc is is is the
veg-o-matic still being made i know you mentioned that with your father's it's
it's off the market
all together uh can maybe go home and fire that one up huh uh this is this is
fascinating i'm i'm happy
that you came by here with your stuff and uh good heavens continued success not
that you need any uh
good luck from us but thank you very much ronald popeel ladies and gentlemen uh
we'll we'll be right back