Comedian Mike Green offering steals of crazy deals in new series

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This article was published 11/03/2025 (571 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Have you been searching for 892 white buttons ($5), a Samsung flatscreen with a pothole ($100), or an expired parachute ($199) once owned by two-time Emmy nominee Treat Williams?

Has Mike Green ever got a deal for you.

“We’ve all tried using online classifieds and had the same problem: too many great deals — you can’t pick just one,” Green’s alter-ego tells viewers of Hot Deals with Market Mike , a new FibeTV1 series that follows an energetic infomercial pitchman who escapes his TV studio box to pass the unbelievable savings on to Winnipeggers in search of a bargain.

Dressed in a crisp blue golf shirt and wrinkle-free khakis, Market Mike has a mission to connect the sellers of the hottest items — door handles, POG game boards — with hungry buyers and vice versa, using his unparalleled sales acumen to help classified-ad authors find everything from lasting friendship to patrons for their artistic output.

“I’ve been a salesman my whole life,” says Market Mike, who answers Green’s phone in character by asking whether a hot deal is waiting on the other line.

“Admittedly, on this show, I don’t have any products myself. I’m just trying to get the word out because I can’t believe more people aren’t finding these deals. I’m more of a middle man in this scenario, but I sell with all my heart, as if each product was my own, that’s for sure.”

A high-octane pitchman who bubbled up, fully formed, from a puddle of CLR, OxiClean and Flex Seal rubber sealant, Market Mike spends upwards of 18 hours per day scouring the internet for diamonds in the digital rough.

Though Market Mike is an ageless entity, Green, 36, is 16 years into a career as one of the city’s busiest comic performers and show producers; his earlier local cable programs include the late night talk show The Week Thus Far and Stand-Up Comedy Battle.

For several years, Green has been workshopping the Hot Deals concept in his standup repertoire, deploying a slideshow of ill-advised products and poorly worded descriptions as a springboard for good-spirited roasting.

But to call advertising a recent obsession would be a mischaracterization of Market Mike’s explosive ascent to the acme of the local sales pyramid.

As a 13-year-old, Green’s first paid job was at a call centre on Broadway, where he solicited donations for non-profit organizations by following a script with little wiggle room for improvisation.

“I lasted about one week there, and maybe that’s what gave me this burning desire to sell, so I’ve been in the game,” he says.

Over the last five years, Green’s been a familiar face in local scripted commercials, appearing in spots for the Steinbach Credit Union, WorkSafe Saskatchewan and the Manitoba Dental Association.

“Normally, the commercials I end up in are where somebody else has liberty — they don’t really let me talk. I’m all over these things as a super-handsome face, but when I’m cast, it’s usually non-speaking, so it’s an extra thrill to get to use my voice,” says Green.

As a pitchman, Market Mike is a distant relative of recent alt-comedy characters such as Nathan Fielder in the satirical docu-series Nathan for You and Forrest MacNeil, portrayed by Andy Daly in the underseen online-criticism mockumentary show Review.

But he also joins an extensive lineage of real-life television pitchmen (Ron Popeil, Billy Mays and Vince Offer) that sprang from the innovative approach to the medium offered by Winnipeg’s Phil Kives, the founder of direct-to-consumer pioneer K-Tel who was characterized in his 2016 New York Times obituary as “a Paganini of pitchmen.”

“I associate pitch people with unwavering enthusiasm and professionalism,” says Green, relaying the ideology of Market Mike.

“There’s a video of an infomercial blooper where a salesman is pitching a katana when it snaps in half and stabs him. He continues to pitch without blaming the katana. That’s the energy I bring to sales.

“A lot of times people look at deals at the surface level. Why would anybody possibly need a parachute that can’t open? But when you look a little harder, when you have that salesman instinct that I have, you start to read between the lines to see the value and motivation.” (The late Treat Williams was friends with Tom Selleck, and the parachute could be a would-be buyer’s conversation starter with the Blue Bloods patriarch, Market Mike explains in the pilot.)

As of press time, Market Mike, whose four-episode season is available to stream on FibeTV1, doesn’t have an extensive line of show-specific merchandise to sell, but he is in possession of some items that will blow you away.

“Message @MarketMike1 on Instagram and I’ll be sure to get you a fridge magnet,” he says. “It’s a premium fridge magnet. I mean, you can hold two, maybe even three coupons with this thing.”

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com