There’s more…

The Washington Post today has an “appreciation,” written by Paul Farhi, of Arthur Schiff, creator of 1800-plus infomercials or “long form” ads, and, evidently, creator of the phrase “But wait, there’s more!” Schiff died last week.

“But wait, there’s more!” was Schiff’s signature creation, his “Hamlet” and “Moby-Dick.” It eclipsed his other immortal catchphrases: “Isn’t that amazing?” “Now how much would you pay?” and “Act now and you’ll also receive . . . ” He wrote “Wait, there’s more” for a spot for Ginsu knives (a product Schiff himself named, supposedly in his sleep), which has become one of the best-known commercials ever, and surely one of the most parodied.

Ginsu, incidentally, is a nonsense, made-up word. My fondest memory of those ads is the announcer saying, “In Japan, the fooot can split wood” — here they showed a guy in a karate outfit kicking a board in half — “but it can’t split a watermelon!” And they’d show the guy kicking a watermelon. Hilarious.

Farhi describes a variation of this, with a hand chopping a board, but merely squashing a tomato. I remember, that, too, but I’m pretty sure they did this watermelon bit as well — or else I’ve somehow invented it along the way.