The Men of Hammacher Schlemmer: Are they really happy?
May 31, 2017 8:39 AM   Subscribe

 
They're worried the garden zombie they bought from the Skymall catalog will come alive when they sleep.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:54 AM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]


In a scene showing the Giant Rubber Duckie, man and duck have been pasted onto a too-blue pool in a too-perfect McMansion backyard. Rather than reality, it’s like we’re seeing the man’s duckie dream ...
To some a dream, to others .... a nightmare ...
posted by octobersurprise at 9:04 AM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]


Winner. Friend. Ideal. Destiny. Gnome.

That solo Scrabble game is a cry for help.
posted by ejs at 9:07 AM on May 31, 2017 [26 favorites]


This article was far more rewarding than I had dared hope! Wonderful stuff.
posted by wires at 9:44 AM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]


The Pepperphile's Peppermill

WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA FOR A NAME
posted by not_the_water at 10:19 AM on May 31, 2017 [15 favorites]


Perhaps they are alone because they were unable to form a bond with female models and the dead eyed, emotionless stare they point directly at the camera.

I liked that the author suggested death themself might be present as the lone other passenger on the airplane.
posted by Emmy Rae at 10:25 AM on May 31, 2017 [4 favorites]


That fog free shower mirror is pretty sweet, though. If you shave in the shower you need one and this is made from brushed aluminum, making it far superior to the plastic one I got for $15 on Amazon.
posted by fixedgear at 10:29 AM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]


That fog free shower mirror is pretty sweet, though

Speaking as a long time shower shaver, I have to say he has a look of contentment that is nowhere else to be found in the other pictures.
posted by TedW at 10:49 AM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]


It's been a while since the last time I gazed into the pages of a Hammacher Schlemmer catalog. Is their whole business now based around selling gags to high-end prop comics?
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:11 AM on May 31, 2017 [4 favorites]


Hand to god, having never heard of this company before, I went through most of the article convinced that it did not actually exist. The peppermill link was sufficiently convincing--but wow what a weird company.
posted by librarylis at 11:17 AM on May 31, 2017 [2 favorites]


These photos remind me of the characters in Get Out that are in the sunken place.
posted by Emmy Rae at 11:34 AM on May 31, 2017


"I have everything, including a personal air purifier. But I wonder, could I have more?"
posted by tommasz at 11:40 AM on May 31, 2017


...seated on a plane, with the Rechargeable Personal Air Purifier looped like a bolo tie around the collar of his beige Oxford shirt...

...and the world's WORST drop shadow! Come on!
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 12:08 PM on May 31, 2017 [3 favorites]


The Scrabble game gets me for some reason. $12k dollars for an oversized wall-hanging Scrabble game. That will get used, what, 3-4 times, so maybe 3k a game?

Or you could take that same money and really make the day of a local charity.

It's also kind of a statement of the impermanent nature of value. You can buy a giant Scrabble game for $12k, but you would probably not then be able to turn around and sell it for $12k.
posted by emjaybee at 12:13 PM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]


Was there really a need to physically combine these two products?

"If you nail together two things that have never been nailed together before, some schmuck will buy it from you." -- George Carlin
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:09 PM on May 31, 2017 [7 favorites]


As horrifying as the day-to-day existence of the maniacally-grinning khaki dads in Hammacher Schlemmer catalogs must be, I have to imagine that some of their other in-flight magazine compatriots must have it worse. Like the slightly-terrified looking couples in the ads for matchmaking services, overdressed in a much more expensive-sweater-intensive way, who I imagine jetting endlessly and joylessly like J.G. Ballard characters between their luxury condos in Las Vegas and Miami to their timeshare in Playa del Carmen, stopping to enjoy the best Brazilian steakhouse in Atlanta and get the monthly touch up to their tooth-whitening from the best cosmetic dentist in Dallas, none of it filling the void.

Or Dr. Chester L. Karrass - what could his life possibly be like when he's not staring smugly into the middle distance and telling you that you don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate? I think Dr. Chester L. Karrass probably goes to some dark places, his 90s necktie all loosened to the second button, sitting on his futon and drinking whisky out of the bottle in his beige-walled post-divorce one bedroom in Scottsdale or Aurora or King of Prussia.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 1:24 PM on May 31, 2017 [3 favorites]


My grandfather had a shoebuffer from these guys from like the seventies. If you just put your bare foot under there and turned it on, it felt pretty awesome.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 3:20 PM on May 31, 2017 [2 favorites]


You should try getting an automotive buffer massage!

Seriously. It's great.
posted by flaterik at 3:56 PM on May 31, 2017


The article fails to note the solitary Scrabble player's first play: "FRIEND"

Truly a cry for help.

Edit: Oops, missed the earlier comment here!
posted by AndrewInDC at 4:11 PM on May 31, 2017 [1 favorite]


My grandfather had a shoebuffer from these guys from like the seventies

Oh shit, yeah, my granddad had one of those. Sometimes it was fun to buff your nose, too.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:59 PM on May 31, 2017 [2 favorites]


Pair these Go Go Gadget Men with Women Laughing Alone With Salad, and you'll have a match made in heaven (or hell, depending on your POV).
posted by cenoxo at 5:56 AM on June 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


While looking on Wikipedia to see if that was still true that the publisher of Harper's was also the owner of Hammacher Schlemmer I found that Hammacher Schlemmer is is now employee-owned, which I would not have expected.

(It wasn't that being the publisher of Harper's came with the bonus of owning Hammmacher Schlemer. It was just how things worked out for one guy.)
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:19 PM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]


The HS catalog comes randomly to us around Christmas, and my kids and I greatly enjoy mocking it. "Dad, this is the ONLY cereal bowl I will ever need."
posted by Chrysostom at 10:48 PM on June 8, 2017


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