Oddity Archive: Episode 167.5 - Ben’s Junk: Ronco Mr. Microphone 

"hey good lookin'. We'll be back to pick you up later"

I saw that Mr. Microphone reference on The Simpsons "Hey good lookin', We'll be back to pick you up later!"

Hey @OddityArchive ! Just letting you know for the record that the foam wind screen was very stinky even brand new. I had this as a kid in the early 80s. It was pretty lame. Barely worked back then. :)

I'd have thought most people our generation would remember it from that episode of The Simpsons :D BTW what was the difference with Mr. Microphone II?

I had one of these. Got it at a garage sale. I'm living proof of Al Bundy's 'bigger idiot' theory of garage sales.

How does this guy only have 28K subs?

I always like the part of the commercial where you have a woman on roller skates holding Mr. Microphone in one hand and a boom box in the other, being propped up by two other women in roller skates, saying "I got a Mr. Microphone, too, and I love it!"

I can definitely see Barry Goldberg having one on the Goldbergs. That would be hysterical.

I saw this in a Kipkay tutorial many years ago, but it's nice to see a proper review of an unmodified one!

I thought this was just from the Simpsons. “Radio Bart”

10:13 All I know is you couldn't use that frequency in Bellevue, Ohio ;)

I was more of a fan of the rap master 3000 megaphone

I was 16 when this audiotrocity came out. The “hey good lookin guote became a popular catch phrase in the last days of the Disco 70’s The sound guality was dreadful compared to a ho hum cheap $19.95 plugin mic from Radio Shack(RIP). Me or none of my friends ever bought one.

I had one! But it was later in the 80's, so maybe it was a knockoff or a used one? I was in late elementary school at the time and thought it was amazing. I just pretended I was a radio DJ and did pun intros to different songs. I interviewed my friends for "morning show" segments and featured my friend's older brother (who was in a band) as a celebrity interview guest until he got fed up with me. I also used to record myself doing this on cassette.

Can't believe they had not only a Mr. Microphone but a Mr. Microphone II a few years later. And the second commercial was worse than the first one.

One of the inventions that "Weird Al" Yankovic did not mention in his song, Mr. Popeil.

5:45 Analog TV channel 6 has its audio just below the FM radio spectrum; if you have a tube TV and rabbit ears available, you should see if it tunes below the FM band. It would definitely have made an more interesting novelty device if it were capable of covering the audio portions of VHF channels

I went to the Showtime Rotisserie website a long time ago. After I exited, I got mousetrapped in As Seen On TV website! 😂😂😂

I gotten the Radio Shack version in 1992.

Hey babe, we'll be back to pick you up later!

If it doesn't transmit worth a damn I bet there is a bad cap in that thing somewhere.

You did better than I did. I bought one in a bargain bin at a Kmart in South Bend, Indiana in 1984 when I was 9. We never could get the thing to work, so we returned it. Wonder if we were missing something when we did. I dunno. Oh, and it Is "we'll".

Good episode...I actually didn't recognize your voice for a split second when you first spoke into the mic! LOL

I got one for Christmas in 1978!

A mr. Microphone from RONCO.. wow a blast from the past... OK I have my 2 cents in and willing to bet. The pocket fishermen will show up in Ben truly junk drawer. One day. I have 2 pennies to bet.

If this thing's signal is weak you can bypass a certain resistor in the RF section of the circuit and it will transmit much further.

The only one I could find was a "Supreme Toys" knockoff from the thrift store... No tuner on mine, so too bad if you have a local station close to it! But frankly, I think I might have gotten better results with my knockoff than you were getting with the real thing, at least I didn't have to tie the antennas together. Good stuff. You got a new subscriber.

If you live in an area with an analog TV Ch. 6 that "tune it all the way left on the dail" trick won't work. Because Ch.6's audio is at 87.5 FM. Remember those AM/FM/TV radios? The Orlando Ch. 6 used to even advertise that fact (on screen, ironically).

So for the scene in the ad to work, the woman would have to be listening to the same radio dead zone?

Thanks for the review George McFly..

Had a RonCo Hot Lather Machine for shaving was pretty cool

Imagine getting a restraining order for catcalling while using a Mr. Microphone. Pathetic. :(

its interesting what kind of tech-toys people used to entertain themselves before all the modern tech we have today. however I must admit if this worked better and had a much farther range this would still be pretty fun to use!

I had this, it didn’t work like it did in the commercial because the best you could do was try and use it on a static station and you could barely hear your voice. In the end it wasn’t as entertaining as the commercial, and it ended up being a glorified pretend microphone for singing along with a song on the radio. It looked more like a microphone than a hairbrush.

Id like to see you review " the ronco record cleaner "

That portable radio is uuugly, I couldn’t blame you for not carrying it around.

I hate to say this, but there's probably something wrong with that one. Perhaps the capacitors dried out or something. I had one of these back in the bad old days, and it would get out about 30feet or so. There were cheap knock-offs (yes, knock-offs of a Ronco product out of all things) that (sort of) worked on AM that were as weak as your Mr Microphone, but even those would work within about 5 feet. The foam rubber stank like that right out of the box 40 years ago...if not even more so.

There won't be an Episode 168 because Ben got MeToo'd for microaggravating whatever women heard him say that. :(

I think I had one of these when I was about 10 years old back in about 1980. My dad gave me one of these. And I think probably within about two or three months it may have ended up in the junk drawer for all I know. And then I think about two years later another relative gave me one of these things and I think within about Two months it ended up in the junk drawer.

I remember that one epsiode of the Simpsons where they poked fun at mr microphone

lol girl on the package looks like Britney

Just realized that I had one when I was little. Think either my brother or the neighbor across the street that was my brother's age got it originally. When I had it, I thought it was a broken mic as I thought the, "wire," was cut. Guess it sucked back then too which is why I had it.

Nice to see this. I think you used a commercial of this for an old oddity archive episode. I think also I've had one of these

Hey I had of those back in the early 80s. Got it as a Christmas gift. Even back then it never worked properly the damn thing just royally sucked and totally remember that damn commercial. Funny though I think you do have an earlier version of it because I remember a different packaging mine was set in a hard plastic cover with a pictured cardboard.

My mom had one of these in the 70s. I had something a lot like it in the late 90s.

But..real musicians use it for practice!

I had something like this when I was a kid. It sucked, but given I was like 6 or 7, it was the coolest thing ever

The capacitors might be dyed out or gone bad, they just need to be replaced or something

It's the future, zura!

Simpsons did it Simpsons did it

Do you know that they still make this product today but they use Bluetooth and your phone?

I never had this but I had a Donny and Marie radio with a microphone that you could do the same thing. The only weird thing is that it connected to AM radio. I remember this because then when I wasn't speaking into the mic, I could listen to WLS.

Many phones have FM radios

Yeah....I wonder how many people thought they could "sing" with this thing? I wonder how many people "sing along" to a record rip-off? Probably a lot.

You should make it into a Fleshmic!

The kid's echo microphone is better than this thing! I should have known, but it's still a shame it ended up being crap.

Should have recorded the audio from the headphone out on the radio to get a better idea of how it sounds. I think enough of your voice bled in through the speaker mic that it sounds better than it should.

I'm the 666th view and 69th like. Go me.

Centimeters .... OMG Metric... Your going to hell !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!