For Friday's video fun, I'll share something from my travels. When I'm traveling through central Florida and have to spend the night, it's inevitable I'll come across a commercial like these as I'm flipping through the channels. Good ol' Sam pops up on the cable system, and I can't tear myself away. With his enthusiasm for appliances, his unusual demonstrations, and the mesmerizing green-and-yellow suit worn by his assistant, I can't change the channel.
But the one I'll always remember is this one. It happened to be playing the weekend last year that I went down for the launch of STS-124. I remember spending that morning in my motel room waiting for the call from the guy who was providing my transportation. The cable channel that carried NASA TV ran these ads during lulls in the coverage. So for the rest of the day, while I was there to see this great moment I'd waited my whole life to experience firsthand...in the back of my mind, all I could think about was Sam loading red velvet cake into dishwashers. What a moment.
A close second was the morning in Daytona Beach when I was flipping through the channels and found the Ronco Showtime Rotisserie infomercial...dubbed into Spanish. Seeing Ron Popeil on the television, but with his voice dubbed over with this really suave voice speaking in another language, was on that border between "weird" and "awesome," with the balance tipping towards "awesome."
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