It's not the TV products - the veggie slicers, snore stoppers and miracle cures - that sucker me. Nor is it how I find myself actually expecting to pay at least twice as much for the kind of "I didn't know I needed that!" items being pitched on TeleBrands Inventors Day by what had to be the most upbeat cast of characters since the last "American Idol" call.  No, what never fails to grab me is the doubt-killing final offer that always accompanies these products. I'm talking the end-pitch that comes with the "As Seen On TV" line pioneered by the self-made A.J. Khubani. You know, the Doggy Steps, Windshield Wonder, the famous Ped Egg, the Go Duster and the amazing Jupiter Jack - "It turns your car radio into a cell phone!"That big offer, the one that always yanks me right in, attaches itself like catnip to the entire range of clever inventions that always make me shout at that barely contained voice-over, "What do I get if I order right now!?" I'll tell you what you get: hope, happiness, instant gratification and a bottle of Heel Tastic dry skin ointment (a $10 value) absolutely free! And it all begins - this road to riches - on an overcast Wednesday morning on the 18th floor of the decidedly early-1960s LAX Marriott, in a pair of crowded, overly warm, glass-walled rooms overlooking the United Cargo Terminal and the busy taxiways beyond.

A.J. Khubani himself is on hand, come west for the first time from his usual Fairfield, N.J., open talent calls. Jersey being the natty, 50-year-old Indian-American entrepreneur's home state, the place where he began his mass marketing career while still a student at Montclair State University. On this day, 30 inventors (culled from 100 applicants) get five minutes in front of a panel headed by the man who invented the genre that can be seen in drug and household goods stores everywhere. The process, as you might expect, is equal parts reality show and get-rich-quick promise. Khubani has his own PR staff and video team on hand and they have somehow managed to gather a crowd of badly dressed reporters who, like me, obviously have nothing better to do. There are, of course, no fuel cells secreted in the bags of the inventors who sit suited, scrunched up and ready on rows of upright banquet chairs. There is nothing here to raise mpg or mph, no nothing except some innovative products of somewhat questionable value. That and some wonderfully cheerful inventors come here from across the land to pitch what PR rep Andrea Pass calls "consumer tchothkes," mass-appeal, solve-a-problem, everybody-can-relate items that practically walk off the shelves at $10 in hard times. "We can't afford $100 anymore, but we can afford $10," the Jersey-based spokesman said in the kind of happy, for-the-camera voice that permeates this crowd as certainly as it does our entire media-sensitive society.The inventors likewise enthuse and are so endearing and hopeful I found myself wishing that they all have with them the next 30-million-selling Ped Egg. Fact is, many of these products are already for sale, but it's Khubani and the thought of that $10-times-$30-million, dead-skin-sluffing egg that dangles like the pole star in these crowded rooms.

Naturally, I had favorites, people like Victoria Ricker and Martha Curnow, a pair of absolutely delightful commercial real estate women from Schaumburg, Ill., who met in sixth grade and have been best pals ever since. Together they perfected the Perslock, a gold metal chain with attached charms that hooks to the handle loop of any purse. Born of a desire to keep handbags safe in crowded places, the chain can be secured around a chair leg or ankle while another clip holds the bag's zipper shut. Nearby sits Russell Smith, a drawling nuclear power plant planner from Sandusky, Ohio, who stood to ask a serious question, "Are you tired of blinding car lights reflecting in your outside rear-view mirrors?"  You know, I am! And it happens that he invented a mirror-shaped piece of glare-reducing film that affixes to a car's side windows to solve yet another pressing problem! Chad Hassell of Salt Lake City showed up with the Cozy Trim, a neck pillow, blanket and double-arm sling combination guaranteed to make flying comfortable or your money back. Tired of hanging pictures unevenly? Rick Schlais of Hallandale Beach, Fla., invented the Qwik Pix Hanger, a simple flat metal bar that finally makes easy an always pesky task. If they gave an enthusiasm award it would go to the only local in the bunch, Michelle Reuven of Long Beach, who was pitching TeleBrands for a third time with a microwaveable turban designed to enhance hair and scalp treatments. Seriously, if I had hair, I'd be absolutely prepared to order right now!

But most thoughtful was Joseph Berto, a helicopter-flying horse rancher from White City, Ore., whom you probably know as the inventor of the Shake'n Fork, a battery-operated, vibrating rake that comes in two sizes, one for sifting cat litter and a larger one for cleaning horse stalls. So maybe you haven't heard of Berto, a tall, slender 51-year-old who camps in a horse trailer when he's out pitching the 12 inventions he has patented for use on snowmobiles, power saws and other manly outdoor goods. For him, inventing is an obsession, something that can't be turned off or left behind even at the risk of being ridiculed. He spent three years on the vibrating fork with one huge question hovering over him the entire time. "When do you quit trying to sell an invention? The fact is, unless you do this full-time and are able to bring at least three inventions (as he did) to a show like this, there really is no chance of making it," he said.

Not that estimating real chances much intrudes on a day of wishes and dreams.

JOHN BOGERT: Part 2

I received a number of calls concerning last week's TeleBrands Inventors Day at the LAX Marriott. Who was selected? You didn't say," asked Sarah Janes. "I think that people who work hard to make it in this world deserve recognition." They do. And I should add that more than a few people pitching low-cost, non-seasonal, impulse-buy items to TeleBrands owner A.J. Khubani were out of work. There was, and I didn't stress this in the piece, a slight air of desperation in the place. It wasn't quite like hanging with people hoping to win the lottery with the grocery money, but it was a little sad as this supposedly over recession continues to take its toll.

Selected out of 40 entries was Joseph Berto's Shake 'N Fork, a vibrating (actually, it's an up-and-down motion) pitchfork device that comes in two sizes, one for cleaning horse stalls and a much smaller version for kitty litter boxes. Berto, of White City, Ore., is a laid-off firefighting helicopter pilot. Also selected was the only local inventor in the lot, Lakewood resident Michelle Reuven, who brought along her Hair Therapy Wrap, a microwaveable turban design that helps infuse hair products. This was Reuven's third try and I was happy to hear that someone with such boundless enthusiasm might get some reward for her efforts. Also selected was Chad Hassell's Cozy Traveler, a neck pillow, eye mask, blanket and double arm sling combo that might actually make air travel a bit less wretched.

From Salt Lake City, Hassell e-mailed this: "AJ and his team will now take these products back to NJ and discuss them with his extended team. They will make a decision on what to do in two to three weeks. Once they decide to move forward on one, none or all, they will contact us to let us know. Not sure what happens past that point."

To reader Stephanie Devlin and the 10 others who asked, the next inventors audition will take place in New Jersey in June. Contact Andrea Pass (apass@scompr) for more information.

I want to hear your comments. Connect with me at john.bogert@dailybreeze.com. "Grounded," my book of column favorites, is available at donegalbooks.com.