Uncle John’s Fast-Acting Long-Lasting Bathroom Reader (73 page)

BUT WAIT! THERE’S
STILL
MORE!

Here’s Part II of the story of Ron Popeil. (Part I is on
page 131
.)

A
MAZING SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGH!
Ron Popeil wasn’t particularly eager to follow in his father’s footsteps—or even to be near him for that matter. Born in 1935, Ron’s early childhood was spent in a boarding school (where his parents never visited). At age seven, he went to live with his grandparents, and didn’t reunite with his father in Chicago until he was 16. At that point he was immediately put to work doing demonstrations of Popeil products at Sears and Woolworth’s.

One day while at Chicago’s Maxwell Street Marketplace, an outdoor bazaar, he had a revelation: Popeil suddenly felt he could convince total strangers to buy anything, if he were willing to give it his all. He realized he had to go into business for himself.

In 1951, at the age of 16, Popeil bought a gross of products—vegetable choppers and shoe shine kits—from his father (who sold them to Ron at normal supplier prices, making a full profit). The younger Popeil then set up a booth at the Maxwell Street market on a Sunday afternoon and hawked wildly. By the end of the day, his pockets were stuffed with cash.

He continued performing demonstrations for his father’s company, set up permanently just inside the front door of Chicago’s Woolworth’s. At a time when the average American earned $500 a month, Popeil was making over $1,000 a week. In the summer, he even went on the county fair circuit. By dealing with customers one-on-one, he learned to anticipate what kind of objections or questions people might have to his products. Popeil honed his pitch, learning to answer those questions before they were even asked.

NOT AVAILABLE IN STORES!

In 1964 Ron Popeil went out on his own. He founded Ronco Teleproducts with his college roommate, Mel Korey. Rather than make their own products like the Popeil brothers did, Ronco contracted with other companies, avoiding the headaches and overhead of operating a factory. Popeil found a television station in Tampa, Florida, that charged $500 to produce an ad. (He made four: a 30-second, a 60-second, a 90-second, and a 120-second.) The product: the Ronco Spray Gun, a garden hose nozzle with a chamber inside to hold soap, car wax, fertilizer, or insecticide. The first commercial ran in Illinois and Wisconsin, near Popeil’s Chicago base, to save shipping costs. They sold over a million Spray Guns.

The average American uses 25 barrels of oil per year. The average Japanese, about 15.

Ronco’s next success was London Aire Hosiery, women’s nylon stockings “guaranteed in writing” not to run. Their durability was tested in the commercial, as they were subjected to a nail file, a scouring pad, and a lit cigarette. Ronco began manufacturing its own items in 1967 with the Cordless Power Scissors (they were battery-operated, but Popeil called them “cordless electric” to describe it and all future battery-operated Ronco products). All of the ads featured Ron Popeil himself. Doing his own ads saved on production costs, but it also made good business sense: Popeil had hawked so many items at fairs and stores that he was a natural salesman, and no one could sell his products better than him. He didn’t even need a script. Ronco products earned $200,000 in 1964, its first year. By 1973 Ronco had annual sales of $20 million.

SUPPLIES ARE LIMITED!

Among the many Ronco gadgets of the 1970s:

•
Smokeless Ashtray
(1970). An ashtray with a cylinder above it, which houses a “cordless electric” filtering fan.

•
Pocket Fisherman
(1972). A portable, retractable fishing rod.

•
Presco-Lator
(1976). A plastic version of a French press-style coffeemaker. It bombed because it hit the market at the same time as the Mr. Coffee coffeemaker.

•
Mr. Microphone
(1978). A wireless transmitter inside a microphone. It broadcast the user’s voice to any properly tuned FM radio up to 100 feet away.

•
Inside-the-Shell Egg Scrambler
(1978). An egg is impaled on the device’s needle. The needle spins inside the shell to create a perfectly blended egg without having to use a mixing bowl.

In 2003 Katie Hnida became the first woman to score in a Division 1-A football game
.

•
Sit-On Trash Compactor
(1978). It worked without electricity: the user sat on a plunging platform that squished the garbage.

•
Food Dehydrator
(1979). A product of the health food craze of the 1970s, it made fruit leather, beef jerky, banana chips, and yogurt.

OPERATORS ARE STANDING BY!

But in the early 1980s, Ronco started falling apart. From 1982 to June 1983, sales dropped 31 percent. And that same year one of their biggest retailers—Woolco—closed all its stores. Then in a few months, claiming they were owed $2 million, three companies that made products for Ronco filed suit in bankruptcy court to force Ronco to sell off its assets and pay its debts. But Ronco also owed $8 million to First National Bank of Chicago and Wells Fargo Bank. (Business was so bad, Ronco had been operating on credit.) Popeil had no choice but to declare Ronco bankrupt.

The banks planned to auction off Ronco’s assets, but before they could, Popeil offered $2 million of his own money to buy the company back. The banks refused and held the auction, but got a high bid of only $1.2 million, so they sold it back to Ron Popeil, who spent the next year doing what he’d done as a teenager: in-person demonstrations at department stores and county fairs.

EASY PAYMENT PLAN

The story might have ended there. But in 1984, the same year Popeil filed for bankruptcy, the FCC deregulated TV advertising. Ads no longer had to be under two minutes in length, which gave birth to a new form of advertising: the infomercial. Suddenly, products that had relied on rapid-fire pitches in short commercials (kitchen gadgets, exercise equipment, car waxes) were being pitched in half-hour advertisements designed to look like real TV programs. Broadcast and cable networks used infomercials to fill holes in their schedules, usually late at night and on weekends.

When Ginsu knives became the first major product sold this way (over $50 million in sales), Popeil realized the way to rebuild Ronco was through infomercials. “The longer you have to talk, the better chance you have of selling something,” Popeil said in 1985. He went into semi-retirement in 1987, leaving day-to-day operation to others while he continued the role of TV pitchman.

A typical thunderstorm measures 15 miles in diameter and lasts about 30 minutes.

Beginning with a redesigned Food Dehydrator in the early 1990s, Ronco has used infomercials exclusively. One product sold was GLH Formula #9, an aerosol can of hair-thickening powder, better known as “hair in a can” (Popeil sprayed it on his own bald spots in the infomercial). Another was the Showtime Rotisserie, a compact countertop rotisserie cooker. Popeil calls it his best invention and has sold three million units to date. But unlike the early days, Popeil now sells only items he’s personally developed. “I’m an inventor first and a marketer second,” he says. “Other people in our business take the spaghetti approach. They throw a lot of stuff against the wall and hope something sticks.”

*        *        *

CON LETTER

An old man lived alone in the country. He wanted to plant a tomato garden, but it was difficult work, and his only son, Vincent, who used to help him, was in prison. The old man described the predicament in a letter to his son.

Dear Vincent,

I’m feeling bad. It looks like I won’t be able to put in my tomatoes this year. I’m just too old to be digging up a garden. I wish you were here to dig it for me. Love, Dad

A few days later he received a letter from his son.

Dear Dad,

Sorry I’m not there to help, but whatever you do, don’t dig up that garden. That’s where I buried the BODIES. Love, Vincent

At 4 a.m. the next morning, FBI agents and local police arrived and dug up the entire area without finding any bodies. They apologized to the old man and left. That same day the old man received another letter from his son.

Dear Dad,

Go ahead and plant the tomatoes now. That’s the best I could do under the circumstances.
Love, Vinnie

Most popular flowers grown in American gardens: Sunflowers, zinnias, and impatiens.

THE DIVINE WIND

If you study history, you may find instances where it seems that fate really can intervene and miracles really do happen. But don’t
expect
that miracle, or you may be disappointed…as this story attests
.

K
ING OF THE WORLD
When it came to wealth and power, Kublai Khan had it all. In 1274 the Mongol emperor’s dominion stretched for thousands of miles across Asia. His army was the best equipped and best trained in the world. Disciplined and battle-hardened, the Khan’s soldiers also had the 13th-century equivalent of a super weapon—a burning cannonball full of gunpowder called a
teppo
that they could hurl with devastating efficiency against an enemy. With all of this military power, the great Khan wasn’t content to just rule—he wanted new worlds to conquer. So he set his sights on Japan.

The Japanese must have seemed an easy mark. They fought with antique weaponry—bows and arrows, swords, bamboo spears, and wooden shields. What’s more, a century of constant warfare between rival warlords had left Japan’s armies exhausted and weak.

Knowing this, Kublai Khan assembled a substantial attack force—a fleet of 900 ships and 40,000 soldiers—and had them set sail for Japan. The armada was met by 10,000 samurai on the beach at Hakata Bay on the island of Kyushu. But the samurai, who excelled in individual combat, were no match for the organized tactics of the Mongols. Defeat seemed certain.

A LUCKY WIND

Then a miracle occurred: a violent storm overwhelmed the Mongol fleet, sinking 200 ships and drowning 13,000 men. Japan was saved.

When the defeated survivors returned to China, a furious Kublai Khan vowed revenge. And so, five years later, the Mongols invaded again, this time stronger than ever. The Khan’s Northern Fleet had 900 ships and 40,000 soldiers. The Southern Fleet was even larger, with 3,500 ships and 100,000 soldiers. In the summer of 1279, the armada sailed once again for Hakata Bay.

Find ’em all: In the
Godfather
movies, oranges represent an upcoming death (or close call).

The Japanese warlords knew that the only way to stop the Mongol force was on the beach, before their dreaded artillery could be hauled ashore and put into action. They built a defensive wall 13 miles long bordering the bay—a first for the Japanese, who had never used fortifications before.

The Northern Fleet reached Japan first. When the initial wave of Mongol soldiers came ashore, they were startled to find the entrenched samurai waiting for them behind their wall. The fighting was fierce, lasting for days, but the Japanese defenders held fast. When the Mongols couldn’t secure the beach, they retreated to their ships. But despite their victory, the samurai had little opportunity to celebrate: the huge Southern Fleet had arrived, and now the combined armada was sailing off to the south to renew the attack. And this time they were going
around
the wall.

The Japanese samurai were desperate. Although they had fought magnificently, they were badly outnumbered and, without the protection of the wall, they were exposed to the full onslaught of the Mongol invaders. As they waited on the beach to fight what they were sure was their last battle, all the samurai could do was pray for deliverance.

Amazingly, it came.

SAVED…AGAIN

Out of the south a typhoon swept up and ripped through the invading armada. The devastation was astonishing. Almost 4,000 ships sunk and 100,000 soldiers were lost. The Japanese were jubilant. A “divine wind” had saved them from invasion, not once, but twice. Over time the legend grew: the divine wind would protect them from foreign invaders forever.

Six hundred fifty years later the Japanese empire was once again in dire straits, facing invasion as Allied forces closed in during the final days of World War II. In a desperate attempt to turn the tide of war, the Japanese military sacrificed 5,000 young and untrained pilots in suicide missions against Allied warships.

Their last-ditch effort to save Japan failed, but the suicide bombers became known by the Japanese word for “divine wind”—
kamikaze
.

Six snowflake types: Needles, columns, plates, columns topped with plates, dendrites, and stars.

SPY HUNT: GRAY DECEIVER, PART III

Here’s part III of our story on one of the biggest mole hunts in FBI history. (Part II is on
page 342
.)

F
INGERED
The FBI mole hunters had never suspected Robert Hanssen of spying before, but all residual doubt that he was their man disappeared when the KGB officer who sold them Hanssen’s file began to interpret the file’s contents.

What about that mysterious sealed envelope marked “Don’t Open This”? The FBI waited until the retired KGB officer arrived to open it. The officer explained that when the spy left documents and computer discs at a dead drop, he wrapped them in two plastic garbage bags to protect them from the elements. The envelope contained one of the spy’s garbage bags. The KGB officer explained that only he and the spy had touched the bag; if Hanssen was the spy (and wasn’t wearing gloves when he wrapped the package), it would likely contain his fingerprints.