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:

I recently received an email from Ridiculous Infomercial Review reader Joren tipping me off that Mr. T, star of the 1980s TV show The A-Team, was hosting an infomercial. Frankly, I thought he was just making it up, but after a Web search I found out it is absolutely true.

Mr. T appears in the infomercial for Flavor Wave Oven Turbo. I have never seen this infomercial on TV but I did find this clip online:

I guess Mr. T agreed to do an infomercial because he didn’t think his persona had become cheesy enough already. The lines “And of course it had to be low fat” and “I pity the fool that keeps Mr. T waiting” are just priceless. I can’t wait to see the entire Mr. T Flavor Wave Oven Turbo infomercial for myself!

For those of you who just can get enough Mr. T, here he is performing the song “Treat Your Mother Right” from his excellent motivational video Be Somebody or Be Somebody’s Fool:

Stunts have long been one of the tricks of the infomercial biz. For example, one common stunt demonstrates a product’s sturdiness by having some kind of a large and exotic vehicle run over it. In the current WalkFit infomercial they have a bulldozer roll over a WalkFit orthodic. Another common stunt is to saw through a tin can with a knife and then use that same knife to easily slice a tomato or cut thin slices of bread. These stunts are supposed to make the viewers say to themselves something like, “Wow! If the WalkFit can withstand a bulldozer then it can certainly support my feet with ease.”

The latest infomercial stunt comes from the Flavor Wave Oven Deluxe. To show how the FlavorWave Oven can cook frozen food without a need for defrosting, they cryogenically freeze two roasts. On-screen graphics even label these frozen hunks of meat “Cryo-Roast.” I know when I go out to eat, my mouth always waters when I see a “Cryo-Roast” on the menu. To prove that these Cryo-Roasts are really, really frozen solid, they get on a lift and drop one of them to the ground, where it shatters into bits. Check out the video:

This is actually the second take of this scene. In the first take, the cryogenics guy accidentally picked up Walt Disney’s head.

Probably the most famous catch phrase to come from an infomercial is “Set It and Forget It” from the Ronco Showtime Rotisserie infomercial with Ron Popeil. I would have thought that his motto was so well known that nobody would ever try to copy it.

I guess not. In fact, “Set It and Forget It” may become the most copied infomercial slogan ever. I wrote earlier how the infomercial for Patch Perfect grass seed ripped off the phrase with its “Spread It and Forget It.”

At least Patch Perfect is a very different product from the Showtime Rotisserie. The Flavor Wave Oven Deluxe, on the other hand, is a counter-top cooker like the Ronco Showtime Rotisserie, and now they’ve ripped off Ron Popeil’s famous phrase as well. On the infomercial for the Flavor Wave Oven Deluxe, veteran host Jan Muller tells people to “Set It & Walk Away.”

That, however, is not the only catch phrase promoted by the Flavor Wave Oven Deluxe infomercial. In addition to the stolen motto, they promote a motto which is downright strange: “I See the Light.” I suppose “I See the Light” obliquely refers both to the halogen light that produces the infrared cooking waves as well to some amazing moment of realization that the FlavorWave Oven Deluxe is superior to other cooking methods. However, when people hear the phrase “I See the Light” uttered endlessly on this infomercial I doubt many have a clue what it is supposed to mean.

Here are some clips of both phrases being uttered on the FlavorWave Oven Deluxe Infomercial:

Is that creepy or what?

“I See the Light” is surely one of the lamest, oddest, and most convoluted infomercial taglines of all time. It’s more reminiscent of the mantra of a religious cult than something designed to sell a kitchen appliance.

I suspect that some advertising wizard came up with the idiotic slogan “I see the light,” thinking it was oh so witty and clever. Then someone else realized how confusing and pointless it was and decided to steal a page from Ron “King of Infomercials” Popeil by using “Set It & Walk Away” as well.