I would love to say that the reason I’m writing way too many words about Ron Popeil, the infomercial king, is because of some kind of broader commentary on the state of consumerism in 2024 or perhaps thoughts on the origins of influencer culture or even the evolution of retail away from brick and mortar. Any of those things (or even tangentially related thoughts) would hit the mark of being both relevant and making me sound somewhat intellectual. Moreover, I wish this were a more cogent and thoughtful piece that had a point. It does not; but if you have ever wanted to read about someone else’s Wikipedia safari, please join me on this journey.
This morning, I woke up at 5 AM with only one thought on my mind: how many people who bought the Ron Popeil Pasta Maker ever made that chocolate pasta so prominently featured and, for those who did, what did they use for sauce?
The problem with this type of question, besides being a likely red flag for “ruminating” which medical professionals don’t love when you’re already depression-prone, is that there is no answer. Apart from the fact that I can barely find out how many people bought the Pasta Maker at all, there’s no data on who used it to make chocolate pasta. And I can’t even confirm whether chocolate pasta was a “but wait there’s more” Ron Popeil Hail Mary to make sure people saw the versatility of the pasta maker (savory and sweet) or an actual pre-mid 1990s food trend.
As a side note, Ron is largely credited with coining the phrase “but wait there’s more,” which cannot possibly be true. Surely with the number of women interrupted by men mid-sentence from the beginning of time, someone said it first. I’m willing to give Ron credit for bringing it to the sales pitch from a context standpoint.
A guy I dated in DC made me a dinner of ground turkey stuffed bell peppers (under seasoned) and chocolate pasta for dessert (but no sauce) and claimed no inspiration from Ron Popeil (probably the only thing that might have redeemed him that evening). He also didn’t want to discuss mid-90s infomercial culture with me at all, but that’s not surprising given that he was as bland as his menu.
Googling for “chocolate pasta recipes” was the first time I learned that Google no longer shows the number of search results (a change that was apparently made in 2020 so my attention to detail has gone to shit) and searching for “how many recipes for chocolate pasta are there?” did not return a number. A Pinterest user named “mevans1234” shared her 61 favorite chocolate pasta recipes so it’s more than 61. Colavita shared these three all of which look revolting and reflective of the mediocre olive oil that inspired them.
Yet again, none of the results that I scanned gave any credit at all to Ron Popeil.
Since it wasn’t even 6 AM, I decided to turn my attention to the man himself and discovered just how deeply connected Ron and I are: he died on my birthday in 2021. He keeps esteemed company with a July 28 death including Vivaldi, Bach and Robespierre — the former two both taking spots on my 2023 Spotify wrapped and the latter unfortunately dying by execution.
I learned the Chop-o-Matic was his most famous invention and the Showtime Rotisserie & BBQ the top selling (over eight million units in the US alone) with, again, no real data on that pasta maker. It was the Chop-o-Matic that ultimately created the infomercial format because door to door salesmen couldn’t practically bring that many vegetables around with them when they were selling and a longer form TV pitch format was needed.
I think I loved infomercials so much for two reasons: first, I have a history of very disordered sleep and infomercials reliably ran at 4 AM and second, I am on an eternal quest for self-improvement and so totally want to believe that a large multi-tray food dehydrator making me all the jerky I (don’t) want will make me a happier and better person. Or that maybe had I bought P90X years ago, I’d be able to do a pull-up the way I never once did in over a decade of taking the Presidential Physical Fitness test. In some ways, Ron Popeil was the earliest proponent of the point solution: why use “just” your oven when you can buy a single purpose appliance that requires storage and sometimes special equipment? I have to believe had he lived longer, Ron Popeil would have been all over the air fryer.
Perhaps it’s less about infomercials and more a combination between a deep fascination with inventors and curiosity about the needs they were trying to address. Did Ben Franklin know when he attached a wire to a kite to draw the connection between lightning and electricity that 200 years later, Americans would attach a razor to a vacuum to speed up haircuts?
When Jeff and I got married at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, we knew it would be a celebration of American innovation — after all our reception was in the same room as Thomas Edison’s bottled last breath (which I still think needs to be talked about as one the creepier acts of obsession between Ford and Edison). Jeff’s one job for the entire wedding was to name the tables because he had a genius idea that we should have tables named after fun inventors to go along with the space. Except he didn’t do it. Less than a week before the wedding, he fired up ye olde wikipedia and tried to come up with his own list of inventors and didn’t include Ben Franklin because he didn’t think anyone really associated Ben Franklin with innovation.
I am a semi-proud Philadelphian in that I don’t have much of an accent and I can’t really care about sports but I believe this area has perfected sandwiches/hoagies and we have a fabulous arts scene and being 90 minutes from NYC/two and a half hours from DC is far superior to being four hours from Chicago. In today’s red flag culture, there were a lot of reasons to pause about marrying my beloved and handsome husband (among them him lying* on the pre-marital compatibility test we had to take as part of pastoral counseling) but his sheer lack of respect for one of our greatest founding fathers was the top reason the week of our wedding that I considered backing out.
To be clear, I do not consider Ron Popeil and Ben Franklin to be in the same league — and we did give Ben a table at our wedding, an honor not bestowed to Ron (which feels like an oversight given some of Jeff’s other selections). We’ve recently been watching “John Adams” on HBO and I can’t imagine Ron Popeil showing up to Independence Hall in a red apron helping to convince the Carolinas to get on board with independence. However, Ben Franklin was a noted bon vivant and loved a roast turkey and might have appreciated the ease of use of that Showtime Rotisserie & BBQ. I doubt he would have cared for chocolate pasta regardless of preparation or sauce status.
There will be no factual citations in this because no one launches a Substack to have to attribute every fact but 90% is from Wikipedia or articles on the first page of search results when you look up Ron Popeil.
*Jeff denies that he lied but God knows the truth.
I am always 100% down to talk about the Ford/Edison relationship. Growing up in Dearborn, we learned it as "Ford deeply admired and respected him!" but as an adult it fully reads as "Ford was obsessed to the point of discomfort and definitely picked through Edison's trash on multiple occasions."