Tony Little Interview

TCC: In a world where most people are skeptics, believing that products sold on television are never going to work, how are you able to sell so much through infomercials?

TL: Because I don’t sell anything that I don’t believe in. I don’t sell anything that I don’t think has value or really truly think that customer’s won’t like. If you look at the industry now and the fitness people that are out there. Richard Simmons is gone. Kathy Smith is gone. Don’t see Denise Austin anymore. Don’t see Susan Powter anymore. I mean there’s very few people left and I’m still building categories. I now exercise you, I now feed you and I now put you to sleep. I build a lifestyle business out of it and I build a customer base of over 45 million customers and over 3 billion dollars in sales. It doesn’t come from selling a product that people are unhappy with, it comes from selling a product that people love. You’re never going to please everyone, but your goal is to always do the best job you can at the right price range and try to help people change something. I’ve really been very strict about what I represent.

TCC: You’ve conquered bodybuilding and the business world as you’re talking about 45 million and selling over 4 billion. Have you ever considered going into Hollywood or acting?

TL: No, it’s funny the early days you talked about family. In the early days in the mid-90s, early-90s, I was offered to go into a comedy training program at Paramount Studios by the head of comedy at the time and that they would take care of it for me. As much as it would have been so much fun because I love humor and I love comedy and stuff like that, my kids lived in Florida and I wasn’t going to leave them. So I turned it down. I look back at parts and roles that I turned down at the time. I remember "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air."

TCC: Will Smith?

TL: Yeah, they had called, they wanted me to play the part of the president of “Overspenders Anonymous” for the show and it would have been the greatest thing in the world to do. I would have loved to do it. You know, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. I couldn’t do it because I was on the air at a shopping channel. I couldn’t justify at the time going out and doing a killer show like that and giving up 50 to 100 thousand dollars to do it.

TCC: Do you think that would have led down other avenues if that got rave reviews, your part?

TL: Yeah, it would have led down there. I think I’m quite live and entertaining. I’ve done three Lenos. My infomercials are the most used infomercial footage in motion picture history. Obviously people love that high energy, the crazy type personality, the Mr. Hyperactive stuff. It’s been used in everything. It’s just amazing. Even to this day, it’s still used in stuff. It was in "Juno," when "Juno" was an award winner, they talked about me. It was in "Jennifer’s Body" just recently. The thing with Kevin James which he’s doing called "The Zookeeper." I did the Geico commercial. I was the first actual named celebrity that was one Geico. I was the first. I was doing “Yeah, baby. You Can Do It” with the Geico thing. “You Can Do It” is an actual trademark phrase that I own. I know that probably eight months ago I was in the New York Post and a bunch of different newspapers because I was opposed to a Dunkin Donuts, “You Can Do It” campaign.

TCC: Did you develop your catchphrases over time?

TL: Oh, yeah. “You Can Do It”, I own the trademark in five to six different categories.

TCC: Where do you get all your spunkiness and charisma from?

TL: I think I get it from learning when we do live television and we have to sell something. I used to tell people that my first four infomercials outgrossed – by a lot – George Clooney’s first four movies. The difference was people had to watch my shows, but they might have to open their wallet and spend three or four hundred dollars at that time. So it was a much bigger success. I mean, if we could spend 150 to 200 thousand dollars on an infomercial and it would make 200 or 300 million.

TCC: Did you have the same personality when you were younger or your saying it just developed?

TL: I think I became more fun and more realizing to just be myself as I got older. But in the beginning I was a pretty intense, hyper, crazy, intense person on-air. I mean it was like scary. I remember the first infomercial I did which was called Target Training, which was three videos, the investor out of Philadelphia, the owner called up another friend and said, “I just bought a quarter of a million dollars on a guy yelling and screaming.” I blew all the records. I had three videos that I sold. And all three were the top three selling videos on Billboard’s sales at the same time. I sold eight million copies.