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Jun 26, 2008

Oxi Clean in the Postmodern Generation

Today I arrived back from a trip from Peru. My biggest frustration with the country is that 87% of television stations at my hostels were in Spanish, which left me little to watch besides the BBC. Although I'm a devout fan of British broadcastings, three solid weeks of nothing but news tonic for the intellectual really made me start to miss some of the brighter and more entertaining sides of television like Fear Factor and Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader.

So immediately upon returning home, I have parked myself for a front seat row to my grandparents television. While brooding in the comical erudition of American TV, I couldn't help but notice something that has been going on in television since my childhood. This "little something" may be the biggest contribution to infomercial mania and laundry solutions that this country has ever seen. I'm going to take a quick break from my theological postings and write about the entrepreneurial phenomenon of the Oxi Clean company.

When I was a child I remember watching the Oxi Clean guy come on between episodes of Sanford and Son at three o'clock in the morning. He would bedazzle my mind with his magical soup dust that he sprinkled on literally any kind of stain. He would pour oxi clean on grass stains, wine stains, ink stains, nuclear spill off ooze stains, and that stuff would literally dissipate the mark and leave the laundry perfectly clean, every time. It's almost as if the oxi clean contains some kind of molecular formula to actually synthesize stains into new clothes that look exactly like the ones the stain formed on. It's was incredible.

Anyways, watching the Oxi Clean on on television this week, I've noticed that he has really come a long with personally and as a company. First of all, his commercials production value has increased exponentially. In the late 80's when Oxi Clean was just hitting the market, the Oxi Clean guy's brother Ralph was the camera operator and commercial director. He was all the Oxi Clean guy could afford. Ralph used their mother's large over the shoulder beta cam to tape these low budget commercials of the black bearded Oxi Clean guy pouring wine on a white blouse, putting the blouse in a clear tupperware container, then magically cleaning the shirt with oxi clean. These commercials were usually filmed in the Oxi Clean guy's disheveled basement and often his wife could be seen in the background bringing down groceries to put in the refrigerator. Since then, the Oxi Clean guy has gone HD and built a state of the art production studio in Ralph's backyard. Likewise, the packaging of his product, restructuring his corporate management system, and bringing Oxi Clean stock public in the Mongolian stock market have all enhanced the company's overall value.

Two things that haven't changed is the Oxi Clean guy's TV personality and his beard. The Oxi Clean guy has and will forever remain a slightly over weight obnoxious bastard. Now, let me make myself extremely clear here as not to tarnish the Oxi Clean's blog social status; I think the Oxi Clean guy is probably a totally different guy in real life than he is in his commercials. By that I mean I bet he is quite genial if one were bump into him on the street and talk to him about the Milwaukee Brewers. However, put him in front of the camera and he corroborates a Hulk like transformation, only instead of becoming a green angry sasquatch he becomes a scratchy voiced, over zealous about selling laundry detergent son of a bitch.

Similarly, his beard has not changed over the years. Most biologically functioning male human beings have a tendency to "go grey" from ages 40-45. The Oxi Clean man is a unique exception to this rule. What is the secret to keeping lush black hair and beard? Yes, you guessed it. The answer lies in the chemical properties of Oxi Clean itself. It keeps men from going grey. And that is where Oxi Clean is headed in the future; they're taking on male hair dying companies "head on" and the Oxi Clean guy is going to show the age altering qualities of already the greatest product in infomercial history.

Maybe Oxi Clean is our next option for a clean renewable energy source? How about it Oxi Clean guy?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I wonder if anyone doesn't find the oxy-clean guy annoying and/or obnoxious. And here's a scary thought: What if he speaks/acts just like he does in the commercials? God have mercy! Even if he wasn't, could anyone have a conversation with him without thinking of laundry detergent or his T.V. personality which beckons one to choke the life out of the nearest living thing.

Well said: "he becomes a scratchy voiced, over zealous about selling laundry detergent son of a bitch."