[5][6] Kives had worked at a number of jobs as a young man, including selling cookware door-to-door and in a department store, and as a pitch-man on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City.

[7] He made a deal with the Eaton's department store to carry the product and with a local television station to air the commercials on a per-inquiry basis with a guaranteed minimum.

The failure of this and several other high-risk ventures forced the publicly traded US entity, K-tel International, to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1984.

Elfenbein's son, Mark, produced the company's highest selling music products of the 1990s with the creation of the "Club Mix" series[15] which reached RIAA gold and platinum sales success.

[16] K-tel increased its worldwide sales, primarily of music-related products, and had a successful NASDAQ IPO trading under the symbol KTEL.

In mid-April 1998, during the dot-com bubble, news that the company was expanding its business to the Internet sent the thinly traded stock shooting from about $3 to over $7 in one day (3:1 split adjusted).

Tracks include "The Twist" by Chubby Checker, "What I Like About You" by the Romantics, "Tutti Frutti" by Little Richard, "Surfin’ Bird" by the Trashmen, and "Help Me Make It Through the Night" by Sammi Smith.

[citation needed] K-tel distributes 200,000 songs worldwide per year on digital platforms, including Amazon, Spotify and iTunes, and licenses songs from its catalogue for use in commercials (e.g., Nike, Fiat, Coke and KFC), films (e.g., Spider-Man, Baby Driver,[21] The Dallas Buyers Club and Hotel Transylvania 2) and television programs (e.g., Stranger Things,[22] Ray Donovan, Breaking Bad, Californication, Mad Men and Transparent).

From 1983 to 1986, K-tel distributed original records for the popular youth-oriented television series Kids Incorporated, featuring two self-titled LP's (1983 Pilot, 1984), The Chart Hits (1985) and New Attitude (1986).

These recordings included at least five spoken word tapes released in 1988, and made in partnership with ITV Central's popular satirical puppet show Spitting Image.

Examples and the impersonations therein include: In 1970 the company briefly began distributing foreign films in the United States, beginning with Mr. Superinvisible.

[39] In 2013, Dave Grohl, the front man of Foo Fighters, gave a keynote speech at SXSW, praising K-tel for exposing him to music early in his life, specifically "Frankenstein" by the Edgar Winter Group: "Grohl told the crowd earnestly that the song's inclusion on a 1975 K-tel Records Blockbuster compilation – the first album that he ever owned – was 'the record that changed my life.

'"[40] K-tel infomercials were spoofed on late night television, leading to skits such as Dave Thomas's character Harvey K-tel pitching Stairways to Heaven and 50 Psalms by 50 Stars on SCTV, Dan Aykroyd’s "Bass-o-Matic" Saturday Night Live performance, and The Simpsons cartoon series, where the fictional B-movie actor Troy McClure promotes widgets on a show called I Can’t Believe They Invented It!.