love ron popeil...

Five decades after slicing and dicing his way into television history, the pitchman who gave America the Chop-O-Matic, the Veg-O-Matic, Mr. Microphone and the Pocket Fisherman has sold something else: his company.

"But wait, there's more!" Ronco Corp. founder Ron Popeil said Monday. "This means I have the time to invent more products!"

Popeil, who made his first television commercial in the mid-1950s to sell a garden-hose-powered spray gun, has sold the business that made him a multimillionaire to a holding company, Fi-Tek VII Inc., for $55 million.

In two easy payments.

"It's $40 million now and $15 million later," said the 70-year-old Popeil, whose polished pitches made him a pop-culture icon. Comedian Dan Aykroyd parodied Popeil in a "Saturday Night Live" skit hawking the imaginary Bass-O-Matic fish pulverizer. And the Smithsonian Institution includes a Veg-O-Matic II in its collection.