Time & Perspective Quote by Merv Griffin

Hyperbole is doing real work here, not just flattering a colleague. Merv Griffin crowns Roger King "the greatest salesman in the history of anything" and then immediately widens the frame: not just television, not just media, but the whole messy marketplace of persuasion. It lands because it treats selling less like a job title and more like a portable superpower, the kind that turns rooms, budgets, and skeptics into yeses. Coming from Griffin - an entertainer who built an empire by understanding what audiences will show up for - the compliment reads as insider testimony, not starstruck praise.

The subtext is a sly acknowledgment of how television actually gets made. We romanticize creative genius; Griffin tips his hat to the rainmakers who convince networks, advertisers, and affiliates to take the bet. In that world, "salesman" isn't pejorative, it's the engine. Griffin's "he could sell you anything" is both awe and warning: charisma can be so effective it bypasses your critical faculties. You're not just buying a product; you're buying the feeling of certainty the seller manufactures.

There's also a cultural tell in the way Griffin refuses to "limit him just to television". It positions King as a quintessential American figure: the closer as folk hero, the person whose talent is measurable only by outcomes. In one breath, Griffin mythologizes the dealmaker and admits, with a performer-producer's pragmatism, that show business is business first.