'Pitchmen' celebrates advertising as entertainment

Billy Mays sounds tired, which is a huge relief to me. I had braced myself for the onslaught of moon-barking enthusiasm the bearded pitchman brings to his direct-response TV ads for OxiClean, Kaboom, Mighty Putty, the Awesome Auger, the Samurai Shark sharpener. The Billy Mays in those ads seems to have the same problem as the de-hibernated Austin Powers, who can't control the volume of his voice.

But it's late in Odessa, Fla., where Mays has his five-bedroom mini-mansion, and he is worn to a frazzle. The 50-year-old Pennsylvania native has been on the road for three weeks promoting his new reality show, "Pitchmen," debuting April 15 on the Discovery Channel. After shilling dozens of products on zillions of two-minute commercials, Mays -- the most successful direct-response salesman in TV history -- is ready to breach into the pop-culture imperium like a giant, soap-selling whale.

And so I ask the question that is top-of-mind whenever one first endures a Billy Mays come-on: "Why so loud?"

"Over the years we've tried it the other way, tried backing off," Mays says. "People will say, 'What's wrong with Billy?' We do the most in-your-face approach out there, because it works. You just have to look at the numbers."

Mays believes in the hard sell, the buttonholing, the arm twisting. It's made him a millionaire. "I cut through the noise, through the clutter," Mays says. "People want to hear the pitch."

Now this is a provocative idea: Billy Mays as counterprogramming. Perhaps consumers are weary and wary of having their psychometrics used against them, angry at advertising's insinuation into every facet of their consciousness until even their digital humanity on Facebook and Twitter is co-opted by hungry marketers. Perhaps consumers want to reward Mays for his refreshing lack of guile. An honest pitch deserves an honest sale, doesn't it?

Or it could be Americans simply like to buy a lot of useful junk. A $19.95 chamois and PedEggs might be the recession-era methadone for cash-strapped shopaholics.

"Pitchmen," featuring Mays and fellow TV yell-and-seller Anthony Sullivan (he of Swivel Sweeper fame), will follow the pair as they evaluate new products and make short-form infomercials for them. Among the products Mays and Sullivan will ballyhoo are the Impact Gel shoe inserts and the Tool Band-it magnetized armband that holds tools while you work. Not exactly cold fusion, but clever.