1 Boring Old Man

Barry Becher, co-creator of the Ginsu knife TV commercials,
dies at 71
Washington Post
By Matt Schudel
June 27, 2012

Barry Becher, the co-creator of the classic over-the-top Ginsu knife commercials of the 1970s, and who, with his business partner Ed Valenti, helped develop television infomercial marketing, died June 22 at a hospital in Deerfield Beach, Fla. He was 71 and had complications from surgery for kidney cancer. His wife, Leslie Becher, confirmed his death… All of their products sold for an amazing, low, low price, and viewers were urged to “order now” because “operators are standing by.” But wait, there’s more!… “We were mindful,” Valenti told the Palm Beach Post in 2001, “that the last thing anyone wanted was another set of knives. The challenge was to position the product so that it made every other knife you owned obsolete.” The original Ginsu commercial, first aired in 1978, opened with a narrator intoning, “In Japan, the hand can be used like a knife,” as a hand — Valenti’s — broke two boards with a karate chop. “But this method,” the narrator continued, “doesn’t work with a tomato.” Ginsu commercials contained demonstrations of the knife cutting through nails, cans, hoses, tree branches and blocks of wood — yet remaining sharp enough for a chef to work his magic.

“Can it really cut through a nail and still go through a pineapple like this?” the commercial asked rhetorically. “Incredible!” To sell their various products, Mr. Becher and Valenti flooded the airwaves, buying as much as $20 million in commercials a year — more than Coca-Cola. The outlandish demonstrations of their products’ durability, coupled with their cheesy but unforgettable slogans — Isn’t that amazing? — became an indelible part of American pop culture, often parodied on late-night comedy shows. Over a 15-year period, the endlessly rerun commercials helped Mr. Becher and Valenti sell as much as $500 million worth of knives, kitchen bowls, pots and pans.

^{Their famous cutlery began as Quikut knives, made by a company in Fremont, Ohio [since bought by Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett’s company]. “Who would buy a set of knives made in Ohio?” Mr. Becher once mused. “We had to add some mystery. We thought about where we could say they came from.” He and Valenti and copywriter Arthur Schiff kicked around the idea of samurai warriors and somehow came up with the name Ginsu. “It doesn’t mean anything in any language,” Mr. Becher said in 2005. “We like to say that it means, ‘I never have to work again.’ ”…}

I think they call it Branding, and it’s a big deal in the advertising business. So after reading this Obituary, I did the next sensible thing. I googled Prozac to see where the name came from [I guess the name Ginsu made me think of doing it]. And here‘s what I found on my first try:

Prozac

^{When Prozac [fluoxetine] launched in 1987, it was a sensation, representing new beginnings and opportunities for those suffering from depression. It has since achieved iconic status in popular culture. Why? Because we realized that in order for it to succeed, we would have to tackle depression head-on, and destigmatize the condition by raising social consciousness. We created the name, Prozac, by intentionally distancing the name from everything typically associated with anti-depressants – strong chemicals, side effects, and mood swings. The easy and accessible language provided patients a platform to talk comfortably and openly about their condition. As a result of its wide use, Prozac has since been entered into the Oxford English Dictionary, proving that a great brand can have context well beyond its category.}

Talking along with the pitchman ads is only one symptom of my illness. There’s a more malignant version. I talk back to Direct-To-Consumer ads for psychoactive drugs – spouting counterarguments to the fluffy pitches or asking the beautiful actors if they know what they’re doing, know how they’re promoting the drugging of America. I turn up the adverse effects and add things that they downplay. And then they get to "Ask your doctor if … is right for you" and I rise from my chair and begin to say unpublishable things, muttering "Don’t …ing ask." The symptoms have gotten worse over the years. Fortunately, the patients I saw before I retired didn’t "ask" and now I’m working in charity clinics, where I only use generic drugs [but they do "ask"].

This isn’t actually a joke with me. I got to thinking about it after a couple of recent comments here. Several psychiatrists were talking about the large number of patients asking for medications, sometimes by name. Another commenter asked why doctors respond to that pressure? I agree with both complaints, am sympathetic to both commenters. And I also cringe when I detect that the patient has a specific agenda – "ADD", "Bipolar", some designer med they’ve heard about or seen on television. Another cringe, "my <antidepressant> isn’t working anymore," sometimes followed by a list of other <antidepressants> they’ve tried [shades of STAR*D, CO-MED, TMAP]. I’ve been particularly hostile about the campaigns of the drug companies to get Primary Care Physicians prescribing these drugs, not because I want the business for Psychiatrists, but because of the reason they have these campaigns – Primary Care people prescribe a lot more. And it’s not lost on me that that’s where the speaker’s bureaus aim the psychiatric KOLs – Primary Care Physicians. But my biggest complaint of all is that most patients I see on <antidepressants> don’t have anything close to Major Depressive Disorder [even with its funky definition] – not by any stretch of the imagination. They’re people who are unhappy with their lives, wives, husbands, kids, fate, job, lot in life, friends, lack of friends, etc. They might be helped, but it’s sure not with <antidepressants>. This overusage trivializes the medications and keeps us from knowing precisely which patients they actually help, are indicated for.