If you’re wondering what happened to The Sharper Image, America’s one-stop shop for overpriced junk, this sad tête-à-tête from their website sums it up nicely:
Q. What happened to the Sharper Image retail stores?
A. All Sharper Image retail stores have closed.
After filing for bankruptcy in 2008, the gadget emporium was acquired by a joint venture firm that now operates its website and has nothing to do with the original retailer. In other words, The Sharper Image as you or I know it is dead.
All that remains are old catalogs, and inside each of these is a precious glimpse into a bygone era when we all blissfully teetered on the edge of catastrophic consumer stupidity. The following products were all sold in Sharper Image catalogs from 1987 to 1989 and they each taught us a valuable lesson about what life was like back then.
The 1980s were so dangerous, if you didn’t have a large man by your side at all times, an 18-wheeler would appear out of nowhere and smash you into smithereens. That scenario serves as catalog copy for Gregory, a “burly six-footer” whose “stern appearance is no accident”:
“His rugged cleft chin, square-set jaw, firm expression, and broad shoulders telegraph to criminals that this is a man to avoid.” Men want to be this doll, women want to be with this doll.
Some notable features of the $500 mannequin:
-Gregory has no lower legs.
-Gregory can be “changed with cosmetics to any age or race.” It should be noted that, in his original state, he looked like a six-foot white baby.
-Like all us real macho men, he is “also available unclothed.”
-You can “garb him in sports, casual, or business attire…or put him in a tux for formal occasions.” This Gregory didn’t get the memo, and showed up to a ritzy new year’s celebration in a turtleneck:
The dilemma: You bought great tickets to a San Francisco 49ers game, but you were up all night watching Qhe Pat Sajak Show and need three quarts of coffee to stay awake.
The solution: The Sit N Sip, a seat cushion that stores and insulates three quarts of your favorite hot beverage and dispenses it from a spout placed in between your legs. An invention so simple and elegant, nothing could possibly go wrong to the person using it.
Make that copy of Beaches haul ass with the AutoWinder, a machine that rewinds video cassettes and, uh, looks like a car. The catalog boasts that it “rewinds a two-hour movie in just under four minutes” and “saves your VCR from unnecessary wear and tear.” Think of the money you’re throwing away by not rewinding your VHS tapes in a tiny plastic car.
The Sharper Image was prescient enough to foresee the cellular phone boom, but too status-obsessed to profit on it with anything other than a fake antenna that you put on your car to make people think you were rich.
“Drive to class reunions with this new Phone-E antenna on your car,” the catalog’s description states, “and even Mr. Most-Likely-To-Succeed will be envious. Everyone will assume you have a cellular phone—the mark of success in the 80s.” And if you’re worried about someone breaking into your car to steal your rich-person’s radio, I know a guy named Gregory who’s not to be messed with.
Stepping on a scale can be a humiliating experience, but with the Weight Talker II, it’s a humiliating experience narrated by a disappointed robot. The scale uses a “pleasant male voice,” giving you the terse Ukrainian gymnastics coach you never knew you wanted.
“Hello, this is Stetson. No, I can talk, I’m just working out and reading about my stocks. Yes, I too can’t wait to see what kind of trouble Alf gets into next. Alright, nice talking with you , President Reagan.”
Little Colby here just had a five martini lunch and he’s speeding back to work in his Porsche so he can fire your ass before heading up to the Hamptons.
