PHILADELPHIA — Bernie D’Angelo, the owner of family-run Fantasy Island Adult Book Store — the retailer located next door to Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia — has spoken about their store's sudden brush with fame after media attending Saturday’s Trump campaign press conference made their name known around the world.
Slate published yesterday a lengthy interview with D’Angelo, who told them he “could never have afforded the advertising his business has received since Saturday's press conference.
“I don't know if I'll ever trend like this ever again,” D’Angelo said.
D’Angelo told Slate the Fantasy Island adult bookstore has been family-owned and operated since 1978 by his parents.
“I’ve been there since I was out of high school, and then I’ve been back-and-forth,” he added. “I went back to school to become an electrician, and then I went out and opened up a few other businesses, pizza places and bulk food stores. And then my father asked me to come back to work and I’ve been there ever since. I’m 57 now.”
An Unusual Venue
D’Angelo said he had not been aware of the campaign event until the organizers started arriving next door.
“I was inside and we didn’t know what was going on,” he told Slate. “One of our customers said, ‘There’s something happening, it looks kind of crazy out there.’ And I walked out and we saw all these vehicles pulling in. And I [thought] they were definitely in the wrong location, because we’re an industrial commercial area. I couldn’t understand why they would bring something of this caliber to our location, because there’s no real venue that would support something of this sort.”
D’Angelo said he quickly figured out that there must have been some misunderstanding between “the Four Seasons [Hotel] in Philadelphia, inside town” and the Four Seasons Total Landscaping company on the outskirts of northeast Philadelphia.
“There was no reason why they would be in this area,” D’Angelo quipped. “It’s funny. I’ve stayed at the Four Seasons. I know the difference between the two Four Seasons. One’s a landscaping business, and one’s a nice hotel.”
Attention Bump
D’Angelo immediately noticed a bump in attention for his shop, named in the late 1970s after the popular mainstream TV show starring Ricardo Montalban and Hervé Villechaize.
“My Fantasy Island Facebook page has been blown up,” he said. “I’m past 7,000 people commenting on everything that’s been going on. I had to order some more stuff and ask the companies if they could physically pick up some stuff at my distributors or actually ask UPS if we could fast-track some of it. People in the neighborhood forget about us because we haven’t done any major, major advertising. We could never afford advertising like this. This is worldwide.”
The Fantasy Island owner told Slate that he stocks a variety of popular adult products, “from Dick Rambone to a lubricant called FuckWater, to basic normal vibes, six-to-eight-inch vibes, multispeed, multifunctions. The Fleshlight, the Main Squeeze. And basically, we sell all types of harnesses. A lot of just normal-type vibrating things. Male enhancement pills, and female stimulation pills.”
“And we even sell hand sanitizer and stuff because the times have changed at the moment,” D’Angelo added. “So we’re following CDC guidelines.”
To read the full interview with Bernie D’Angelo, visit Slate.
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Image source: Fantasy Island Adult Books on Facebook.
