Ridiculous Infomercial Review Blog

I have at last seen the latest infomercial for the Flavor Wave Oven Turbo hosted by the one and only Mr. T, best known for his role on The A-Team. Joining Mr. T is veteran infomercial hostess Darla Haun, best known for getting dry humped by Tony Little.

Now, Mr. T has never been renowned for his acting prowess, but his stiff and awkward attempts to read cue cards on the Flavor Wave Oven infomercial makes his performance as B. A. Baracus look like Olivier’s Hamlet.

Here are six minutes of “highlights” from Mr. T:

The cheesy script repeatedly forces Mr. T to utter his old catch phrases from the A-Team and apply them to the FlavorWave Oven Turbo. Thus we have:

“I pity the fool that tries to get this down. I want to eat right now.”

“Now enough of this jibber jabber. It’s time for you to pick up the phone and order your very own FlavorWave Turbo Oven.”

“I pity the fool who would do that. Let me have a piece [of chocolate cake].”

And even:

“I love it when a plan comes together, Darla.”

Which as every A-Team fan knows wasn’t even Mr. T’s line on the show! “I love it when a plan comes together” was the signature line of A-Team ringleader Hannibal played by George Peppard, who won’t be appearing on an infomercial anytime soon.

Mr. T does, however, get some lines here which might become catchphrases all on their own including, “My taste buds is going wild” and “I love crisp, crunchy crust.” Mr. T also uses the expression “cool” on more than one occasion. (“This is the cook?…That’s cool!”) And for some reason Mr. T occasionally moves his forearms in a rhythmic back and forth, like he is anxious to start dancing. (Maybe he is remembering Darla Haun’s performance on the Tony Little infomercial.)

The Flavor Wave Oven isn’t content to steal lines from the A-Team. This embarrassing infomercial blatantly copies the famous Ron Popeil phrase for the Showtime Rotisserie, “Set It and Forget It,” with their own knock-off: “You Just Set It to Cook and You’re Off the Hook.” This is actually the second time the FlavorWave Oven has tried to rip off the Ron Popeil phrase with one of their own. On the infomercial for the Flavor Wave Oven Deluxe hosted by Jan Muller, they used the phrase, “Set It and Walk Away.”

Before he can deliver any humiliating dialogue, Mr. T makes a dramatic entrance by busting open a door. The studio audience greets this with an enthusiastic ovation. I personally never realized that Mr. T had such an eager fan base among 80-year-old women:

Mr. T does not wear his trademark gold chains during the demo with Darla Haun. But “for being such a super-duper good sport” Darla gives him a chain attached to a FlavorWave Oven logo. What a great way to restore the man’s dignity!

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For those who missed my earlier post, here is Mr. T in the intro to the Flavor Wave Oven Turbo infomercial:

Infomercial fans recognize Cathy Mitchell as the veteran hostess who has used her matronly charms to pitch countless kitchen products, such as GreenBags and the Flat Fold Colander. Because of her iconic status, the producers of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! on Adult Swim tapped Mitchell to play herself in an infomercial parody sketch. In this sketch, Cathy Mitchell plays it straight as the hostess of an infomercial for a cooking product called the Griddleman Griddle. The Griddleman is similar to the GT Xpress 101 product that Mitchell endorses in real life—except that I don’t remember any “Horse Grease” on the GT Xpress infomercial! All the other humor in this sketch comes from her co-host, Dr. Steve Brule, played by the well-know comedic actor John C. Reilly. Cathy Mitchell gently tries to guide Dr. Brule, who is as clueless as can be:

Big thanks to Ridiculous Infomercial Review reader Jennifer for letting me know about this Cathy Mitchell sketch.

Years ago I was watching some Ronco infomercial (I’m not sure which one) and a cute blonde girl about 9 years old introduced Ron Popeil, who it turned out was her father. An earlier Ronco infomercial also featured one of his daughters, but that daughter was a full-grown woman with dark hair who pretty much looked like a female Ron Popeil. I made the conjecture that the older daughter was from Ron’s marriage to his plain-looking first wife and that the younger was from the marriage to his blond trophy wife after he made the infomercial millions. (Later, I briefly glanced at Popeil’s autobiography, The Salesman of the Century, and learned that the man gets married pretty much every 7 years.)

In the recent infomercial for Ronco Knives, Ron once again introduces his two daughters, Shannon and Lauren Popeil. Later in the infomercial Shannon again appears briefly, handing “Cousin Arnold” various knives. Lauren, however, does nothing on the infomercial after being introduced and appears on screen for a grand total of three seconds. But it is still enough time to see that Lauren Popeil—the younger, blonde daughter—has grown up into a stone-cold hottie!

Well, it turns out that Lauren Popeil had a (very) brief appearance in the gossip pages back in 2006. (The fact that I found out about this only now, two years later, shows that I really need to do a better job of following the daily gossip!) In June 2006, the Perez Hilton website reported that Lauren Popeil went to the exclusive Hyde nightclub in West Hollywood with singer Justin Timberlake, who at the time was supposed to be an item with Cameron Diaz. I couldn’t find the original story at PerezHilton.com but did find it cited at Celebitchy and TMZ.

I could find no subsequent reports about Lauren Popeil. So it appears that she blew her chance at becoming a fixture in the gossip pages by dating celebrities and hanging out at L.A. clubs. If Lauren Popeil had played her cards right, this daughter of a mildly famous man could have achieved the fame of a Nicole Ritchie or Kim Kardashian. She might have even scored her own reality show on the E! network.

Recently I received a copy of the Harriet Carter catalog in the mail and saw an unbelievably strange product called “Snuggie” that claimed it was “As Seen On TV.” Snuggie is a “blanket with sleeves” that you can wear like a robe. I did a search online and found video of the commercial:

As with the Hawaii Chair and the Shuffles Shoe Mop ads, many people will just assume the Snuggie commercial is some sort of joke. But, dear readers, I can assure you that the Snuggie blanket is a real product you can buy for yourself at www.SnuggieBlanket.com.

One great thing about infomercials for stupid products is that they tell you about problems you never knew anyone had. If not for the Tiddy Bear commercial, I never would have known that seat belts slicing into people like razor blades was such a common difficulty. Likewise, until I saw this Snuggie commercial I never realized just how incredibly difficult it was for many people to get their hands out from under a blanket! (“…when you need to reach for something your hands are trapped inside.”)

They tout Snuggie as being “one size fits” all and proclaim it “great for the whole family.” Yes, now you can finally make your family look like the members of a medieval monastery, only co-ed and with kids.

Even more absurdly, this commercial actually encourages you to wear Snuggie outdoors at “sporting events.” Hmmm…this could be a good or bad thing. Wear Snuggie to a football or hockey game and perhaps people will steer clear of you, thinking you are a Hare Krishna who will either try to brainwash them or hit them up for a donation. On the other hand, the rough and tumble sports enthusiasts may simply beat the living crap out of you, in which case you should wear the Burgundy Snuggie, so that massive amounts of your own blood won’t be as noticeable on it.

That reminds me: Halloween is coming up, so any of you Star Wars geeks who want to dress up as a member of the Emperor’s Royal Guard should buy your Snuggie today!

Just by chance I came across infomercial video of a product called Shuffles, which is a mop you wear on your foot like a shoe. Click below to play the video:

I’m afraid that this commercial—much like the Hawaii Chair—is so ridiculous that many people will refuse to believe it is real; they’ll assume the ad for the Shuffles shoe mop is some sort of a prank or joke. But this is an actual product that people expect you to pay money for. You can buy yourself a pair of Shuffles at www.GetShuffles.com.

I love how the infomercial shows women gracefully gliding across the floor in rhythm, like they are dancing—not dragging their aching legs like some kind of prisoner on a chain gang.

One woman claims with a straight face, “My husband and my daughter actually help me clean. They fight over who is going to use the Shuffles.” If the members of your household are fighting over who gets to clean your floors with a shoe mop, then perhaps your family has serious anger management problems and needs to see a licensed therapist. Or maybe they are just really bored around the house, in which case a DVD player might be a better investment.

It is also pretty nasty that they show people using this thing in their bare feet.

After seeing this video I remembered that years ago, some woman who worked at an infomercial production company emailed me and told me about an infomercial her company had made for a product called the “Schmop,” which was a shoe mop like Shuffles. She told me she would send me a copy of the infomercial but she never did. After doing a search I found the website for the Schmops product as well (although I can’t be sure if it is exactly the same product that woman wrote me about).

Wondering if there were any more of these incredible shoe mop products around, I found another one named the MopShoe. And the MopShoe also has an infomercial. This ad isn’t as absurd as the one for Shuffles (mainly because half the time they show people using it on the hand), but it does have a neato jingle at the end! (Click below to play the video.)

Ya gotta love that song:

Make a little mess?
Don’t know what to do?
Put it on your feet now
MopShoe!

The perfect tune to clean floors by!

Neither the Shuffles nor the MopShoe commercial makes the case that using the product will not only clean your house but will help you burn calories as you use it. (Clean floors and lose weight all at once! Amazing!)

After seeing the Shuffles and MopShoe infomercial videos and the Schmops website, we now know that there really and truly are people alive on planet Earth who think the public is dumb enough to spend money on a shoe mop!