Vivica A. Fox Appears on New Psychic Friends Network Infomercial (or Not)

Break out your tarot cards and chicken entrails: It’s psychic infomercials week here at the Ridiculous Infomercial Review. Today, we examine an attempt to revive the old Psychic Friends Network.

Channel surfers old enough to remember the 1990s will recall the heavily broadcast infomercial for the Psychic Friends Network. Has-been songstress Dionne Warwick touted the soothsaying powers of her phone-in psychic “friends.”

The original Psychic Friends Network went bankrupt in 1998, but recently there was an attempt air an infomercial for a “new” Psychic Friends Network.

This new infomercial featured actress Vivica A. Fox, who soon after taping the infomercial went to the press to denounce the company for “using her unauthorized likeness, footage, voice and photographs as an endorsement of their service” and demanding they “cease and desist immediately.” Check out Vivica on this clip from the infomercial:

How sneaky of Psychic Friends Network to lure Vivica onto a set and trick her into reading a glowing endorsement of their services into a camera! Obviously, Vivica knew exactly what she was doing when she appeared on that infomercial. She must have just been embarrassed about it later and then came up with that nonsense about the “unauthorized” use of her image.

One interesting coincidence is that current Price is Right announcer Rich Fields appears in this infomercial, and previous Price is Right announcer Rod Roddy appeared on an infomercial for the original Psychic Friends Network :

I have never seen the new Psychic Friends Network infomercial on broadcast TV and it may never have been aired—probably because of the controversy surrounding Vivica A. Fox. That’s a major loss to infomercial fans, because we won’t get to see this guy in action:

His name is Christian Dion and he could become this decade’s Gary Spivey. You can read Mr. Dion’s biography at the PFN website.

In attempting to find out more about Christian Dion, I came across various interesting bits of info.

In 1998 he attempted put up a website called Psychic Dish, which looks like a typical cheap and crappy 1990s-era website. (Ooops…I hope I didn’t hurt his feelings and provoke him into posting prissy comments.) In fact most of the text on the home page is hidden (select Ctrl+A or use your cursor to highlight the text). On this website, Christian Dion was planning to “tell What the Gossip will be BEFORE IT HAPPENS!!!!” Too bad it never got off the ground. (And by the way, why didn’t Christian Dion predict that celeb Vivica A. Fox would back out of the infomercial?)

Perhaps even stranger than celebrity psychic gossip is news in an October 2008 press release from kiosk maker KioskCom that announces Christian Dion’s participation in a “psychic” kiosk project fronted by fellow clairvoyant Walter Mercado:

The WALTER MERCADO PSYCHIC NETWORK KIOSK is linked to a global
call-center network, based in Puerto Rico and Mexico City
(www.telewalter.com) and supported by a multi-million dollar
advertising campaign. Soon, it can be found in bi-lingual communities,
in shopping malls, airport waiting rooms, supermarkets and
mega-retailers. Under the auspices of an exclusive agreement with
International Celebrity Psychic, Walter Mercado, a large staff of
bi-lingual psychics offer readings in astrology and other psychic
entertainment services. Christian Dion, Kiosk Entertainment’s “Psychic
to the Stars,” will offer Free Psychic Readings…Noon – 4PM (October
15-16) in booth 465. Though thousands of miles away…he will appear,
LIVE on the WALTER MERCADO KIOSK screen, giving
LIVE…FACE-TO-FACE…Psychic Readings.

Seems like a perfect match as Christian Dion and Walter Mercado share both telepathic powers and a certain kind of fashion sense. A person needs a bit of psychic ability to figure out the gender of either one.

(By the way, I can’t wait for those psychic kiosks to arrive at my local shopping mall. I hope they put one next to Wetzel’s Pretzels!)

I also found Christian Dion’s Twitter feed which led me to his YouTube channel which led me to this video with the very curious name of “Bollox”:

So I guess Christian Dion’s vision for doing “psychic gossip” came true after all. Why he uses a mechanical head instead of his own visage to foretell the celebrity dish remains an unexplained mystery.

As I gaze into my crystal ball, I am sad to predict that the latest Pyschic Friends Network infomercial will never be widely broadcast and—as in the case of Yenz von Tilborg—the public at large will be deprived of the chance to laugh at an androgynous weirdo.

Prediction for my next post: What ever happened to Miss Cleo?