BassOmatic - SNL
Here’s one of my favorite skits from the early days of Saturday Night Live that I found on Hulu, the BassOmatic!
Dan Aykroyd plays the part of the sleazy TV salesman. As you might gather, the skit spoofs Ronco products. Oddly enough Ronco products and their sales methods have more or less survived to this day, just like SNL.
Another little bit of trivia about this skit is that Phil Zimmermann, who invented PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), borrowed the name to describe a cryptographic algorithm he developed for his original version of PGP. He said that it did to data what the BassOmatic did to the fish. He later replaced this algorithm as he improved upon his program.
Are you ancient like me and remember when this skit was first shown on TV? Are you an old geek like me and had heard of it’s connection to cryptography? Or is this your first time seeing this disgustingly funny skit?
One of my all-time favorites … second only to “Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger …” on my list.
I’d never heard of the cryptography connection, but the BassOmatic has always been one of my favorite SNL bits.
I remember being really grossed out by this skit on Saturday Night Live. It was really daring at the time. My favorite skits were the Coneheads and Killer Trees.
I love watching the early Saturday Night Live episodes. Bass-O-Matic is such a great spoof on veg-o-matic commercials!
That is so gross and so hilarious! I thought on that first spin the darn thing was going to fall over and spill out. He does a great job at spoofing the infomercials.
Dan is a classic comedian. I love his role on the Blues Brothers.:`’