It seems to me that the majority of AT readers are not people who can afford to spend hundreds of dollars on a good looking dog crate side table.

They are the people who find their treasures on craigslist and thrift stores and secondhand stores. They are the people who hack Ikea. They are the people who take old and worn and turn them into stunning and unique.

If I got the Skymall vibe here I wouldn't bother reading. It's one thing to appreciate nice pieces, it's another to shell out the big bucks that many of us do not have to get them. I see more posts about finding great deals on high end sofas, where to get good looking variations on the high end pieces they can't afford or people deciding to save for a few years to purchase those pieces they most love.

Frankly Skymall puts me in mind of rich old farts living in Miami and Pam Beach.

Glad I'm not the only one who flips through it and wonders, "Who buys this stuff?"

Never heard of it...

Most of the SkyMall stuff is expensive and McMansion-y (i.e., Frontgate). It's high-price, low-style.

http://www.doobybrain.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/sumo-table.jpg

i definitely think AT readers would love to purchase this to go with their mid century modern sofa.

Looking at the website...it looks like cheap crap to me. Not stylish at all.

i am the only 1 who has bought something from skymall! does it count if it wasn't a home furnishing item though? they had a great tube-shaped collapsible pet carrier for car usage. it is brilliant. to be honest, most of the home decor stuff is pretty ugly, but the gadgety stuff is entertaining.

My husband and I have a skymall game - we try to guess how many different hotdog roasters will be listed in the catalog.

My mom bought me a "bug vacuum" from SkyMall for my birthday a couple of years ago. Definitely the worst birthday present ever, and what's worse is I'm sure it was $100. That's the first time I ever heard of anyone really buying anything from there... I don't have it anymore.

My dad got my husband a sky mall gift certificate for his birthday once. He settled on the ultrasonic glasses cleaner which turned out to be a total waste of space. The catalogue if fun for a laugh on the plane though. Personal ice skating rink or hot dog bun toaster anyone?

I love SkyMall. It keeps me entertained for at least an hour every flight. I have never purchased anything though.

I fly-n-flip thru SkyMall frequently...
...but I always wonder who actually buys this crap?

haha bb99 those rich old farts in palm beach are my grandparents! and im not sure if they have anything from sky mall specifically but my grandad does have one of those exercise machines that flip you upside down...(its for his back lol)

Ikea's grandpa?

I haven't really purchased anything but I will say that you see some of their stuff at other big box places and I do have a kittly litter box that I bought.

That said the child's car seat that is on wheels is the best thing I have seen in use and it is in skymall.

So that said don't judge a catalog by their loss leaders that are there to get your attention, sumo table anyone?

Bell

A red pen and copyediting the latest SkyMall catalog will keep me entertained through the most boring of flights.

SkyMall was the inspiration of the best received xmas gift for my dad two years ago - a solar powered clamp on grill light. saw it in SkyMall and then googled to find one for a great price.

Like others, I have flipped through Sky Mall and wondered why America is going down the tubes with all this creative energy. The dog crate-end table is just one of many high priced useless items that you can plunk you plastic down for. Not to mention regular electronics that you can buy for regular prices on the ground.

Hey, how come AT never puts Skymall items on sale on Craigslist in its scavenger articles? I bet the items are such treasures that no one wants to part with them. Alternatively, people are too embarassed to admit buying them, even to CL browsers.

The marshmellow shooter kills me.

http://www.skymall.com/shopping/detail.htm?pid=102175304&c=10320

Yeah, spending $100 to play golf on the toilet (among other horrible gadgets and games) really didn't appeal to me. I do know a rich old fart or two that has wasted $500 on that catalog, and I've always said to myself "aren't people starving somewhere?"

I do not buy from Skymall, but I certainly laugh at Skymall. It's usually worth about 10 minutes of distraction and amusement on long, boring flights.

My favorite section is what I refer to as the "rich white paranoid people section". This includes such brilliant items as the blow up dummy doll one can put in their passenger seat to look "less like a target to carjackers"; the dummy security camera; and the "one way mirror security camera". It's a mirror, it's a security camera, it's both!

I'm also fond of the useless kitchen gadgets. The Margaritaville (tm) Margarita Maker even inspired its own South Park episode explaining the recession. My newest favorite amusing/stupid Skymall item: The Pop-Art toaster for $60.00 http://www.skymall.com/shopping/detail.htm?pid=102521711&c=10476

That said, their website has many more practical items than the in flight catalog version. Some of their single induction burners and mini-ovens would be uber practical for those with Apartment Therapy style micro-kitchens.

ephemera... I laughed out loud when I read about your "bug vacuum" gift. I have always laughed about that item and wondered who would buy such a thing. It epitomizes what I imagine to be the average skymall shopper: A bedroom community-dwelling american with a McMansion, a clean fetish, and a house full of Lladro and Longaberger baskets.

Well, I must say that I, too, think most of the stuff in that mag is insane. But I have no problem admitting that I have made two purchases from SkyMall - once about 4 years ago and once just a week ago - the same item. This one:

http://www.skymall.com/shopping/detail.htm?pid=101889377&c=

It was about $40 with shipping, and totally worth it to me. So much so that when we demo'd our shower a couple weeks ago, thus losing the first one, I ordered another one for our new shower. Installed it yesterday.

But other than that, I haven't even entertained thoughts of ordering anything else...

I can't believe this many comments and no one has pointed out the SkyMaul parody book...

http://www.kasperhauser.com/skymaul_site/FlipBook.html

probably the only thing I'd ever consider buying that is remotely related to SkyMall.

i find it a tad gross to even touch it. it's gotta be less clean than an airport toilet. at least someone wipes those down.

I made a SkyMall quilt--depicting different products. By the time I was done with it, I wanted EVERYTHING in the catalog. Seriously...my dog totally needs a coolaroo dog bed.

See it here in the 2008 section:

http://brittanypowell.com/

I've considered it... but decided I could live without the King Tut cabinet after all.

Jeez - snob much? The catalog is entertaining, and there are some useful items in there such as this:
http://www.skymall.com/shopping/detail.htm?pid=203072842&c=10720
I still need to look around for a cheaper version though as skymall seems to jack up their prices. It looks like an actual solution to my cat throwing her food all over the floor and a tray under the bowl has not worked.

The Pet Observation Portal entertains me to no end - I have visions of installing it in the wall separating the bedroom from the livingroom in our apt, unfortunately it is sold out on their website, but here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/fashion/30skymall.html

brittanykate: Your skymall quilt is brilliant. And I love your Victory Garden and West Elm installations, too. Thanks for the link.

Brittany: your skymall quilt is awesome!

I think the demographic probably reflects more who are the most frequent airplane travellers; I'd imagine that by far the most sold items in skymall are small neat solutions -- like the pet carrier oleenyc123 bought.

Johan already said it but, that's the demographic of people who fly.
I imagine that the same people that shop Sky Mall also buy stuff from QVC.

I bought something from Overstock once and then saw it in Skymall. It's lost it's appeal now.

There was a vertical aquarium in their catalog at one time which I thought was a decorative torture device for aquatic creatures, fishes swim horizontally not up and down.

Ahhh, come on! Who doesn't want to buy a slanket?

I never buy anything there even tho I subscribed to their newsletter. Most of their gadget are interesting to have but definitely can live without. I agree that SkyMall = QVC = Overstock and they all have the same target.

my favorite are the bigfoot garden statues. i love skymall. you can make friends with your new seat partners by each finding the most hilarious thing in the first 10 pages. sometimes, you find the same thing!

Hey! I always wanted the bug vacuum.

Then again, I live in Hawaii and we have 3-4" cockroaches that FLY.

Love that dog crate.

SkyMall really is what it says: a mall in the sky. The products are all available elsewhere. I think they just find widest variety of things people could own in hopes of having something for everyone. I definitely think it's for older, less tech-savvy people who don't know that they can get it elsewhere for a less ridiculous price.

The Sky Mall knows they have a captive audience. It was probably worse when there were phones on the plane and you got extra frequent flier miles for ordering during the flight. I think the safety stuff is a riot. If your house catches fire, you can don your Sky Mall gas mask (more like a plastic bag you put over your head) and climb out the window and down your new Sky Mall rope ladder.

ugh, bb99, please do get over yourself

SkyMall Jokes:
http://hoklife.com/2009/07/30/sky-mall/

cherrybomb--

Holy crap, the pet observation portal makes any animal look like they're in space. I wish I had a use for one.

Like most, I would never buy any of the home decor items, because they are not my taste.

However, I bought a Slanket 3 years ago (before the dawn of the Snuggie) and I get a lot of use out of it. The Snuggie is not useless if you can get past the info-mercial making regular blankets seem rediculous.

The golfball polisher looked good for a while....then i remembered.....they got guys for that at the clubhouse.
So instead i ordered the "Personal Pool Bartender"
what could be safer and more fun than drinking hard liquor in a pool!

We don't have skymall here but we have various similar things - Innovations is the most ubiquitous, geared towards the older generation. I love to flip through it and chuckle, but I often find that halfway through I find myself thinking 'gee! That's a great idea! Maybe I'll buy one!' before I 1) look at the price and 2) wake up in horror and have to walk away!

Allisonharris, i'm sorry. I am sometimes a tad dislexic and I thought you bought a skanklet, not a slanket. I was wondering what that might be, so I googled it and realized I had it all wrong. Again, sorry.

Brittanykate, I love your quilts.

A couple years ago, my boyfriend bought me the world's largest crossword puzzle. It's still one of my favorite gifts of all time.

And to all the readers who think they hate Skymall: Have you SEEN the flashlight-toed slippers?? ... brilliant.

So funny, I've never even looked at a SkyMall. I wasn't even sure what was sold in the SkyMall catalogue. In fact, I didn't even know it was a catalogue--I thought it was just some airline magazine. Now you people have me curious. SkyMall is sort of sounding silly and entertaining in a weird, controversial kind of way. I can't wait until my next flight. I can't stop thinking about how my dog would look inside of an end table....

I like to flip thru, and see if there are any good ideas that I can either steal (i.e. make myself), or find elsewhere for cheaper.

I've always giggled at skymall, and never made a purchased.

i have however, purchased that marshmallow shooter at REI.

GUILTY!

I got a wood baby gate that you can open and close (rather than having to take down or step over). I have an old craftsman house, and the wood on the gate almost perfectly matches the trim in my house. It was perfect, and I had never seen it anywhere else.

Friends of mine purchased the bronzesque BigFoot statue from SkyMall for me for my birthday.

It is the focal point of my garden and one of the finest pieces of garden art you can get North of Tiajuana.

Paint that dog crate white and add a pillow in a brightly colored, trendy fabric and half of AT would be writing in wanting to know where you got it. (Tell 'em you bought it at a flea market...)

My parents never let me have any of the crap I ardently desired en route, but I've since found that the on-board perfumes and nylon Longchamp bags make people feel like you didn't forget them in the duty-free shop.

I will admit that I own a Sunrise clock, and a Sonic Boom clock but I maintain that I bought those *before* it was in Skymall. I got it off the Deaf stuff websites.

Other than that, I agree it tends to be relatively useless ways to spend money. Just give me my clock and we'll all be fine.