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Halloween is nearly a month old but I m finally getting around to recounting the results of the Where s Billy Mays HallowClean contest And Sadly yours truly didn t even make the top 500 A travesty I m sure If you weren t aware of the contest you probably should leave your cave once in a while or at least use the wi fi in your cave to visit some other websites I heard about it through WOM but the contest was covered by a variety of media outlets from TMZ to the Huffington Post to People And according to his son Billy Mays III the contest received more than 1500 entries including this that I took in our pristine Renegade m

n s room The awesome thing is I was planning this costume since last Halloween And the Kaboom did I buy it at the grocery store just for this special day No I took it right out from under my counter And the next day I used it to clean my shower which had turned a lovely shade of black from the combination of hairspray and mascara I used to get the full Billy Mays effect You can view the finalists at wheresbillymays com I m not quite sure what put those 3 winners over the top Personally I loved the Billies who paired themselves up with full sized bottles of Kaboom and tubs of Oxi Clean But I am jealous I won t get the autographed picture to frame and put on my bare office wall Too much time being brilliant no time to decorate On the bright side I did win our office Halloween contest and the costume was a huge hit at the Halloween wedding I attended the next day And no at no point did I consider putting some white powder under my nose as was recommended to me by about a dozen people But to make sure I got the details right I looked at a few pictures of Billy and watched a few of his informercials Aside from the obvious blue shirt which he didn t always wear and the khaki pants I noticed a few things I d never realized before He always rolled up his sleeves Did that give the viewer the subtle message that Billy was a man who wasn t afraid of hard work and getting dirty In both the Ding King and Dual Saw spots two of the few where you see his feet Billy is wearing sneakers Not fancy dress shoes or loafers regular sneakers And the beard The beard has had its ups and downs throughout history but in many circles beards equate to strength and manliness My old roommate frequently laments how after a month he still can t grow more than a sad attempt at a 9th grader s stubble and cries just a little Sorry Adam Yes I m sure there are many arguments on both sides of this point and you can feel free to tell them to King Leonidas or any Hell s Angel you run into I m simply saying Billy s Paul Bunyan esque beard and powerful delivery could both be received by the viewer as signs of strength Now granted this all may simply have been Billy s style but much like watching Pitchmen it shows me Billy Mays was more than a guy yelling about cleaning products He knew plenty about how to sell Anyway this Halloween I paid tribute to an ad man I very much admire And here s another tribute from a Billy fan Enjoy And Billy I hope to continue seeing the Dual Saw Ding King and Mighty Mendit infomercials for a long time George Convery Copywriter