Blog - Ridiculous Infomercial Review

Ladies, let’s talk about your breasts.

The above is the opening line of the infomercial for Bosom Buddy. No, it’s not that 1980s TV series starring Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari, although their characters on the show might have benefited from it.

Bosom Buddy is an exercise device like Easy Curves that promises larger, firmer breasts. The Bosom Buddy is wishbone-shaped and every woman who pushes and pulls its handles wishes this thing will really work to give her bodacious ta-tas.

The most magical thing about the Easy Curves commercial, however, is not the product, but the line at 1:35:

“I had the Snoopy nose. I wanted the perky boobs!” may be the greatest testimonial ever uttered on a broadcast infomercial.

Not being an expert on mammary terminology, I don’t know if “Snoopy nose” is a common phrase used to describe a particular breast shape or if that woman just made it up herself.

All I know is that I’ll never read Peanuts the same way again.

Here’s a blast from the past. Wendy Kaufman—better known as “Wendy the Snapple Lady”—appears in the latest infomercial for the EZ Cracker. (If you didn’t know the EZ Cracker is a kitchen device designed to spare you from the grueling agony of cracking an egg.) Check out Wendy’s debut as an infomercial pitchman (pitchwoman? pitchperson?):

Infomercials often use A-list celebs from past decades to sell products (such as Mr. T and Lee Majors). But this may be the first time an infomercial has tried to use a D-List celebrity from a past decade to sell a product.

(Wendy Kaufman also appeared on the first season of Celebrity Fit Club, which from the looks of this ad didn’t stick. I remember one episode of that program had a gruff drill sergeant on to whip the contestants into shape. The drill sergeant declared, “These celebrities have everything done for them! They never have to work for themselves!” At which point I thought, “Do Biz Markie and Wendy the Snapple Lady really get to have everything done for them?”)

Someone in the DRTV biz apparently thinks Wendy could be the next Cathy Mitchell, Vince Offer, or Billy Mays. Notice how the producers are trying so hard to make “Hellooooooo from Wendy!” (spoken with outstretched arms) the next great infomercial/pop-culture catchphrase on the order of “Hi, Billy Mays here” or “Are you following me, camera guy?” With all due respect to Ms. Kaufman, I hope they don’t succeed, because Wendy is, quite frankly, as annoying as the squealing of a tortured chipmunk with the orchestral accompaniment of forks scraped against plates.

For those who haven’t seen the original EZ Cracker commercial, here it is. Don’t miss the woman getting a mouthful of muffin loaded with egg shells.

There are lots of infomercials for “personal sound amplifier” products on the air. (By the way, the definition of a “personal sound amplifier” is “cheap hearing aid.”) This crowded genre of infomercial includes Listen Up, Loud N Clear, Silver Sonic XL, Lee Majors Bionic Hearing Aid, and Sonic Earz.

Although a personal sound amplifier is a pretty boring product, for some reason many of these TV commercials are strange and goofy. These hearing aid commercials have presented us with:

• Perverted men eavesdropping on hot women at the gym and at a party
• Hot women in bikinis lusting after another hot woman in a bikini at the beach.
• Paranoid home owners snooping on neighbors.
• A shrill old wife nagging her husband.

You might think that with such a crowded market there wouldn’t be room for yet another sound amplifier device. And you would think that its infomercial wouldn’t be able to match the goofiness of its predecessors. But the commercial for the IntelliEAR defies our expectations:

That woman at the beginning who storms in on her husband shrieking, “Would you please turn down the TV!” manages to be an even more psychotic shrew than the woman who bitches at her hubby in the Listen Up ad.

The signature of the IntelliEAR infomercial is the sudden materialization of the device on a person’s ear, accompanied by a ding, a British voice saying “IntelliEAR,” and a ditzy expression on the face of the recipient. (If some gadget suddenly and mysteriously attached itself to your ear, I don’t think a pleasant smile would be your reaction.)

But IntelliEAR must be a really good product. The hunter not only hears far-away sound but also detects the exact species of animal scurrying in the forest by sound alone.

The acting in the IntelliEAR infomercial is so awful that one wonders if the producers were intentionally trying to make a dumb ad in a pathetic attempt to turn this thing into a viral video.

I wrote a complete review of the HealthMaster blender infomercial starring former talk show host Montel Williams, Forbes Riley, and psychic Sylvia Browne. Check it out:

http://www.infomercial-hell.com/healthmaster/

And don’t miss the video clip of “highlights” from Sylvia Browne at the bottom of the page.

Here are some more things about the HealthMaster infomercial I didn’t mention in the review:

• There are actually two versions of the “Living Well with Montel” infomercial for the HealthMaster. The half-hour version is pretty boring and mostly features Montel and Forbes making recipes with the Health Master “emulsifier.” The full-length hour-long version is the one I review. It has a lot of extraneous crap that turns it into a real freak show.
• If you watch the video clip, “Sylvia Browne Highlights” you will see the tease that starts the infomercial.

  At around 0:19-0:28, the announcer says, “Don’t miss Sylvia’s…shocking psychic predictions, including a frightening revelation about one woman…”

  Sylvia says, “I call this the desert period.”

  And the announcer concludes, “…that could save her life and yours.”

  All while we see images of this crying woman:

  

  Near the end of the infomercial, Sylvia makes predictions for 3 women. However, the crying woman shown in the beginning is never seen again. Nor do we ever hear Sylvia Browne explain what she means by the “desert period.”

  I wonder if any viewers watched this program just to find out about that lady, only to be tricked into watching an hour long infomercial and still have their curiosity unallayed.

• As I imply in my review, I strongly suspect (though I certainly can’t prove) that the segment with the fat kid (Brent Jr.) is scripted. But I also think that kid is a great actor who really pulls off being upset and surly at the beginning. The thing that most makes me think it was a foregone conclusion that Brent Jr. would love his veggie juice is the way he positions his upper lip after drinking it. It is as if he is making sure the cameras get a good shot of the green mustache left behind.

Imagine life as a pet fish.

Instead of getting an entire pond, stream, or lake to roam in, you are imprisoned within the confines of an aquarium or goldfish bowl for the rest of your life. You have little or no privacy, and strange faces periodically gaze at you through the glass walls of your cell. These large creatures will sometimes even shake you to the core by tapping on the glass, the reason for which eludes your comprehension.

Even worse comes when your owners decide to teach their 8-year-old “responsibility” by having the kid take care of you. Your feeding schedule suddenly becomes erratic. And the time between tank cleanings grows longer and longer, forcing you to swim in cloudy water infused with your own feces.

But the one single, solitary benefit of being someone’s pet is that you don’t have to do any work: Your owners just drop food in front of you.

Until now:

Fish School promises to get your pet guppy to perform tricks like Shamu at SeaWorld. You apparently use the “same mammal training techniques” pros use to train performing dolphins. (Of course, your pet fish isn’t a mammal at all, but never mind.)

While dog owners are pampering their animals with memory foam beds and indoor bathrooms, fish owners are forcing their animals start earning a living by using Fish School’s “patented feeding wand” to give “positive reinforcement” to make their little swimmers work their tails off. No trick, no food!

Pity the poor pet fish. His life just got worse.