Posted on 01/24/2015 10:51:11 AM PST by Slings and Arrows
On Thursday, the company behind the nearly ubiquitous in-flight catalog SkyMall filed for bankruptcy. As the Wall Street Journal put it, the institution was simply a “victim of evolving rules and technology that now lets airline passengers keep their smartphones and tablets powered up during flight.”
For those who spent the majority of their early ’90s flights thumbing through the quarterly magazine, this is a tragedy. Like the mall staple Sharper Image, the catalog pushed the boundaries of absurdity in almost every category of domestic existence. Rather than attempt to fill the space of a practical retailer, the SkyMall catalog enticed you with overpriced items you never dreamed existed, items like hair-growing laser headsets or kitty litterboxes that resemble the Death Star.
They were all wildly expensive and impractical but all a tantalizing possibility when you were stuck on a delayed six-hour flight.
Below, we offer some of the more ingenious products the forlorn catalog brought us (some sourced from this wonderful Tumblr). Rest in peace, SkyMall, on your glorious and weird neck pillow in the sky.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
LOL!
Especially since Jesus has been hogging all that action.
Now that is awesome!!
Geniuses walk among us.
Thanks.
Truly we live in a vale of tears.
At least we still have Johnson Smith Company.
Wut?
Is Spencer’s still around?
I remember a chain of stores and a catalog from the 80’s that sold these types of gadgets, there was one in Faneuil Hall in Boston.
Can’t remember the name though...
It’s right at the tip of my tongue....arg
Pocket change, you betcha.
SkyMall Kitties:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpfbbolyOKY
At 1:20 it shows the pic that I always look for when I flip through SkyMall. It’s this super cute abyssinian stepping out of a cat box with one paw. Anybody else familiar with this pic?
I miss the J C Whitney catalog.
Spray on shag carpet!
Oh yeah! Where else are you going to get those 16Kbyte computing powerhouses?
Another victim of the Obamaeconomy.
Nope. Despite my demand they stop, Hamlacher and Schlamlacher are still jamming my mailboxes regularly, especially at Christmas. I’ve never requested a catalog, nor bought anything from them. I don’t know if Brookstone is still around, but now “Frontgate” seems to be the new silly, overpriced catalog.
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