The Greek Tragedy of Billy Mays

I can still hear his voice when I close my eyes. The voice of a man long passed, but kept alive by the mark he has left on the world. A deity of cleanliness in a grimy world.

“Hi, Billy Mays here!”

These words could put a nation at ease. When Billy Mays was on top there wasn’t a pitchman that could match his raw charisma, emotion, and ability to sell. When I was young Billy Mays was the man. To illustrate this point, what’s one of the worst things in the world to a child? I’d put “chores” pretty high on that list. What did Billy Mays sell primarily? STUFF FOR CHORES. Like most people, I remember my first time seeing Oxiclean in action. I had no idea that stain removal technology had come so far and I remember pulling my mom into the TV room like “are you seeing this shit??” She tried to play it off like it wasn’t a big deal, but I could tell she was pretty impressed.

This is all to say that Billy Mays, from a very young age, was a personal hero of mine. He was the James Dean of daytime infomercial adspots- nobody could step to the king, and frankly nobody wanted to. Around this time a show called “Pitchmen” premiered on the Discovery Channel. The show followed Billy Mays and Anthony Sullivan- another personal hero of mine. “Pitchmen” was a behind-the-scenes look at the lives of these men and as a six year old I was absolutely obsessed. At the time I had only seen Billy Mays in 30–60 second ad spots, but now? I was getting an hour of 43 minutes of straight Billy, plus commercial breaks that very likely included at least one Billy Mays pitch. To say I was hooked would be an understatement. I was so into this show to the point where my parents picked up on it, leading to Pitchmen reruns becoming a staple in our house.

But as quickly as Pitchmen started, it was snuffed out. Just two months after the premiere of the first episode, Billy Mays was called back home. An entire country- no, an entire world was devastated. How could he leave so soon? Billy Mays was our North Star and now? He was just another memory.

On June 29th, 2009 my sister and I were asked by our parents to meet them in the living room for a family meeting. Being five and six we didn’t exactly have the facilities to do that much damage to anything so we knew we weren’t in trouble. Looking back I wish we had been in trouble, as what they told us would impact our lives heavily.

Bills Mays was dead.

With heavy hearts we proceeded with our lives- it’s what Billy Mays would want. Did Billy Mays give up when his childhood favorite TV pitchman died? Absolutely not, and I wouldn’t either.

Recently I was in a Billy Mays hole on the internet and I saw some pictures from his funeral. One really stuck out to me- in the image Mays’ coffin is being carried by eight pallbearers all wearing his iconic blue shirt/khaki combination. Billy Mays was loved, not just by six year olds in flyover states who had nothing better to do than obsess about infomercials, but by his family and his friends.

May we all be so beloved that our pallbearers cosplay as us at our funerals.