"I'm Wilford Brimley. I love my flowers."

Today I was walking down Bleecker Street when some fellow walked past me with an amusing shirt featuring an illustration of Wilford Brimley that simply read "Diabeetus." And yes, it made me laugh, but my friends and I were laughing at Wilford Brimley long before that. See, back in the day we'd sit around watching Viva Variety and await commercials with Mr. Brimley selling a gardening tool called the Leverage Digger, proclaiming "Hi folks. I'm Wilford Brimley. I love m'flowers." Dick Clark was in another one that was pretty good where he sold Isis Cellular Phones, harkening "Pick up the phone, America -- it's for you!" And of course I can't forget the infomercials of crazy-ass Jay Kordich (pictured above with his woman) and his Juiceman Juicers, which promised immortality. They never explicitly proimsed eternal life, but given that Kordich, the Juiceman's inventer, is probably old enough to have surfed in the killer waves that resulted in Moses parting the Red Sea, I've always been under that impression.

Anyway, all this reminiscing made me have an epiphany: "My friends and I are ten years more advanced than the rest of the world."


Before Family Guy, before John Goodman played him on SNL, before a single Liberty Medical commercial even aired during the Price is Right, the Leverage Digger was King of Brimley Comedy.



Sadly, the commercial for the Leverage Digger is nowhere to be found on YouTube (but that video was still pretty good, you must admit). Sure, plenty of that Liberty Medical stuff and a couple of the Quaker Oats commercials are posted, but nothing from this sadly. Fortunately, there is archive.org, which still has the website. God bless them. The main photo there, also pictured somewhere around here, was my AIM icon back in the day (and is once again). I will never forget the description my friend D'amato had of that icon: "He looks pissed."

If you're looking for more Brimley goodness, you can look to Wilford Brimley World, which predates even myself and my friends in the niche comedic stylings of jesting at Wilford Brimley's expense.