Recently I had to stay up late - like, late-late - to take some family members to the airport to catch a flight that was either ridiculously late or insanely early. Having waited that late I effectively missed at least three "tiredness waves" and was kicking around the house with little to do, so I turned on the television.
Bad idea.
For the first time in about five years, I was assaulted with the lunacy of Guthy Renker Direct and pals, hawking everything from fitness equipment to cooking doodads to crockery personally blessed by the hand of our lord and saviour, Jesus Christ.
It was like that moment in
Six Feet Under (which, naturally, you'll just have to trust me on) where Nate stumbles upon a late-night TV scene of three hamsters having a "dinner" of lettuce. I was completely bemused - and totally captivated.
Mr T was pimping the FlavorWave! What does it do? I have no idea! Despite watching the advertorial for approximately fifteen minutes, all I could deduce was that a) it looks like a robot from
Star Wars, b) it has water in it (maybe) and c) it makes frozen meat into steaks in, like, five seconds.
Well, I'll take three.
The low-key insanity of these infomercials brought back many happy memories. My first introduction to the loopy land of late night telemarketing was Danoz Direct's Thunderstick Pro, a stick blender so powerful it claimed to be able to make whipped cream out of milk and "delicious, low-fat dessert" out of water and instant coffee.
Naturally, my younger brother and I
still ask for one each Christmas.
That was back in the days when Danoz was still hip and happening, and the Innovations Catalogue was something you actually looked forward to receiving in the mail. These days, Home Shopping Network has infiltrated pay-TV, and American infomercials clog the arteries of late-night broadcasting.
Once upon a time it was a big deal if you got to see P. Diddy advise us to use ProActiv, as he did (evidently because "I gotta make sure that my sexy is way right"); these days, you might as well be staying up late in Duluth.
The strangest thing about these ads is how they all seem to be filmed inside the same anonymous display home, and how low-rent they all are - and yet, presumably, these "inventions" (usually commercialised versions of existing ideas carried out far more convincingly by other companies) presumably shift many, many units.
There's the Snuggie, the Slanket, the FlavorWave and the ShamWow, the latter being, well, a chamois. Yes, those weird rubbery cloth things that gym nuts in the '90s used to take to Step Reebok class in little plastic tubes. They are hawked by the perma-enthused "Vince", who looks like an *NSYNC reject and takes pride in spilling everything except blood in order to convey the powers of this yellow square of... stuff.
ShamWow dude Vince also appears on the truly mystifying SlapChop commercials:
Stop having a boring tuna, stop having a boring life - words to live by.
The Slanket and its pretender/competitor, the Snuggie, were previously my most hysterically pointless of all late-night infomercial products, and that's saying something - but then, like many people who use the internet, I discovered the Comfort Wipe:
As easy as using a shower brush, eh? Well, given that I can't use one without accidentally whacking myself in the face with it, when I see Comfort Wipe, all I can think of is GETTING WHACKED IN THE FACE WITH SHIT ON A STICK.
Fortunately, the Comfort Wipe hasn't made its presence known on Australian late-night television, but it must surely be only a matter of time. Has anyone ever bought anything from an infomercial? My brief romance with the idea of the Thunderstick Pro was about as close as I ever came, so I'd be very interested to hear from anyone who actually Called Now and received Two For The Price Of One At No Extra Charge.
In closing, and while you consider that, I'd like to leave you with this masterful work by Jack's Films: