How many thighmasters were sold

We were manufacturing the product at a small factory in Arizona. I asked him if he could make it, he said yes, and I ordered a few hundred. Within eight months, there were lines of Walmart trucks circling his factory, fighting for space. It got to the point where individual stores and chains were calling us to deliver the product directly because the demand was so high.

It was a crazy time. What happened after the craze broke? I sold Ovation in to one of my partners. I understand that Suzanne ended up subsequently buying the rights to the product. We specialize in the direct response industry and help fund media buys.

What marketing advice can you give to budding entrepreneurs? Try to change your product name, the way you present it, your distribution channels…change everything. And if you want to make a product that will become a cultural phenomenon, I recommend signing on a celebrity or making sure your product is wonky enough to get attention. Remember the pet rock? That was all marketing. They only understood how to put on a great show, and maybe that's all they needed to understand.

But my husband and I kept saying that you're missing out on a whole thing here. We could brand Chrissy Snow products! She wears the little shorts and knee socks and wedge shoes and snap-on ponytails. She came to our house and showed how it worked, how you can use it to exercise your upper body, your pecs and your arms. If you go to Suzannesomers. I really liked being Chrissy Snow on TV.

I didn't plan to be the unofficial first feminist when I demanded equal pay. Men were all making 10 to 15 times more than me, including John Ritter, and the network decided to make an example of me so that no other woman would have the audacity to ask for parity. I lost that great job and I was so devastated at the time, but life is about veiled gifts.

I was suddenly kicked out on the streets, but I kept reinventing myself, and my husband and I decided we wouldn't work for anyone ever again. She also broke ground demanding to be paid salaries similar to those of male TV sitcom stars, which led to an acrimonious firing by ABC. After leaving network television, Somers worked in Las Vegas for a while. It was a grueling schedule. So she and her husband, Alan Hamel, decided to start branding products she could sell and create passive income.

In , they began selling the ThighMaster, and the rest is infomercial history. So, have they been discontinued? As it turns out, they haven't gone too far — and they definitely haven't been discontinued. In fact, the product is still for sale on major shopping sites, including Suzanne Somers' own website. The ThighMaster may have lost its initial popularity as infomercials became a less trendy way to advertise.