You can’t have a television turned on for five minutes without someone trying to sell you something. Beer, soda, pick-up trucks, sex…take your pick. Thanks to DVR we can fast-forward through a lot of it, but during sports, it’s either have a back-up program ready and hit the “last” button on your remote or simply endure. Inevitably, one of our “contestants” below will make an appearance (or a hundred), usually sprawled on a couch or mattress or doing something not really furniture-related that borders on creepy. So out of the “big three” headboard tycoons, who do you love? But more important, who makes you want to embark on a multi-state killing spree?
Bernie and Phyl. One of the first discount furniture teams to build an empire. Their commercials were always uncomfortable in a way I could never put my finger on, then they started introducing the whole family and it just got weirder. To this day I don’t know which is Bernie and which is Phyl.
Not to be confused with Jordan Marsh. Main Street to Moody Street. Left on Spitbrook, right on Daniel Webster. Barry and Elliot took it to a new level (although I believe Elliot is flying solo these days): from a single store in Waltham to an enterprise that has everything from amusement park rides to IMAX theaters to trapezes. And folks like Red scored free furniture when the Sox swept the World Series…not a bad deal.
The latest big thing on the furniture store scene is uber-geek “Bob” of Bob’s furniture. The dorky “I’m one of you guys” look with the jeans and the grating voice should have made his career last about as long as Blaine Neal’s. Yet everywhere you turn, Bob is there. Anyone else get the feeling he’s personally tested his “goof proof” guarantee?
I’ll start this party with a vote for Bernie and Phyl. I still blame them for Tim Wakefield’s bad season in ’06 after appearing in a few commercials with them.
