Has-Been Celebrities, The Surreal Life, Infomercials, and Miss Cleo

What do has-been or D-list celebrities, in need of money and desperate to jump-start their careers, do? They might host an infomercial. Or appear on VH1’s bottom-of-the-barrel reality show The Surreal Life.

And in some cases they’ll do both. Season 2 of The Surreal Life included Erik Estrada and Ron Jeremy in its cast—both of whom appeared in infomercials featured on the Ridiculous Infomercial Review (California Pines and ExtenZe).

Other Surreal Life cast members who have appeared in infomercials include Christopher “Peter Brady” Knight (Ab Lounge) and Florence “Carol Brady” Henderson (Expressware Infusion Cooking System; Chromatrim Diet Gum).

There are two types of “celebrities” featured on infomercials: those who were made famous by something else, and those who were made famous entirely through their infomercials. People such as Ron Popeil and the Juiceman are well known to the public only through their infomercials. So far, The Surreal Life has featured only celebs made famous before resorting to infomercials (Estrada - ChiPs; Jeremy - porn; Kight and Henderson - The Brady Bunch). However, that may change in Season 7 of The Surreal Life.

According to this Wikipedia article, the confirmed cast of The Surreal Life 7 includes “psychic Youree Harris” which attentive readers of the Ridiculous Infomercial Review will recognize as the real name of Miss Cleo!

I have done a lot of searching on the Web and so far I can find nothing outside of this Wikipedia article to confirm that Miss Cleo will appear in The Surreal Life 7. If anyone knows of any other websites or other sources that confirm this fact, please add them in the comments of this post or send me an email.