Blog - Ridiculous Infomercial Review

In late 2008 and 2009, the Snuggie blanket with sleeves was all the rage. The infomercial aired constantly on TV. Comedians cracked Snuggie jokes and parody videos appeared online. Dogs got their own Snuggie and so did kids. Sports teams sponsored Snuggie days at the park. Several knock-off Snuggie products tried to cash in on the trend. There were even Snuggie pub crawls, where young hipsters got smashed while draped in blankets with sleeves.

But by 2010, the Snuggie phenomenon was played out. So how does a 2009 fad restore its former glory? By dancing the Macarena, of course.

This pathetic attempt at reviving a 2009 fad by associating it with an even more decrepit 1996 fad has to be one of the lamest and saddest attempts at relevancy since Vince Offer did an Eminem commercial.

In addition to the Macarena song and dance, the new Snuggie infomercial makes reference to several other fads such as tie-dye and peace symbols (which peaked in 1968) and hula hoops (which peaked in the 1950s). The whole thing reminds me of a middle-aged person who tries to “relate to the youth” by using hip expressions—and just ends up looking more like an old fogey than ever.

As the kids say, FAIL!

This is a little bit off topic, but I am the only one who has noticed that those annoying commercials for Totino’s Party Pizza and Pizza Rolls have been playing on TV almost constantly?

The awful rendition of that 80s pop music crap “Kids in America” that plays as background music may just drive me insane if I hear it one more time.

And, honestly, if today’s youth love eating Totino’s “best of all” out of everything in their entire lives then the “kids in America” are even worse off than anyone had feared.

The infomercial and website for the Body Gospel (www.BodyGospel.com) exercise system looks like something the old Wittenburg Door magazine might have published as a pointed satire of the commercialization of religion. But the Body Gospel “faith-based in-home DVD workout program” is no cunningly devised fable:

Look closely at the list of songs used in Body Gospel, because the next time one of those is sung at your house of worship you may notice several congregants fighting the urge to bust out squats or bicep curls.

Body Gospel was not begotten by some church or ministry but by fitness giant Beachbody, the same company responsible for P90X, Turbo Jam, Hip Hop Abs and many other infomercials. If Body Gospel were merely an aerobics program that happened to use gospel and praise music, it would have been unremarkable. The surprising thing is how blatantly words like “faith,” “spirit,” and “God” are employed to sell this thing:

“At last, you can combine the power of your faith with your desire to lose weight and get fit.”

“You have great workouts, a great meal plan, and the Lord on your side. That is a winning combo.”

“…these people finally found a way to get healthy by uniting their desire to lose weight with a power they knew they could depend on…faith.”

“Her [creator Donna Richardson Joyner's ] secret is incorporating her breakthrough workouts and healthy nutrition program with the power of faith.”

“I think it’s a cool realization that as I’m glorifying God, I’m getting fit.”

“…they’re everyday people like you who made an incredible journey to improve their physical and spiritual health with Body Gospel.”

“I have lost 59 pounds; 11 inches off my waist. I am a brand new man. I am new born!”

“…the foundation of the workout is God.”

Popular Christian products are also alluded to. The testimonial “With Body Gospel, on those days that I felt alone, He was not walking next to me He was carrying me through those days” recalls the ubiquitous (and trite) Footprints in the Sand poem, and the customer comment “This is not about you. It’s about something much bigger” echoes the opening words of Pastor Rick Warren’s bestselling book The Purpose Driven Life.

Not since Danny Vierra cited Bible verses to sell his Almighty Cleanse colon cleanser has so much religious language been employed to peddle infomercial merchandise.

Even the titles of the individual workout DVDs in this program have “spiritual” connotations:

• Body Revival
• Core Revelation
• Stretch in the Spirit
• Power & Praise
• Gospel Glory
• Strength & Spirit
• Stepping in the Spirit

Customers also receive membership in the “Fellowship of Fitness” support forum and get the “Feed Your Body, Feed Your Soul Nutrition Guide.” (No word on whether that guide includes the “Whore of Babylon Liquid Diet.”)

I was amazed when I heard about this today…but on second thought I probably should have seen it coming. Vince Offer— better known as Vince from ShamWow and Slap Chop—is rereleasing his awful Underground Comedy Movie, and a pre-prison Lindsay Lohan will play a trigger-happy Marilyn Monroe. Here is the trailer:

From the trailer, it appears that Underground Comedy 2010 is the exact same terrible movie as the one released in 1999 but with the Lindsay Lohan sketch just added to it.

Frankly, I thought a sketch about Vince Offer/Shlomi beating up a hooker would have been a lot funnier.

Check out my review of the original Underground Comedy Movie.

When I first saw this commercial for a product called PizzApartment, I thought it had to be some sort of joke or subtle prank. But after doing some poking around, I have concluded that the PizzApartment pizza box was indeed a real product that had a very short lived launch in April 2009. The official website (www.PizzApartment.com) is no longer online and their Amazon page is not selling the item, but you can still find the PizzApartment for sale on Ebay.

In refrigerators all across the land, wide pizza boxes are crowding out valuable shelf space and no one has ever thought of any way to solve this problem…until now! If there were ever a solution desperately in search of a problem, then the PizzApartment (”Tidy Living Quarters for Your Leftover Slices”) is it.

You gotta love the altruistic theme in the Pizza Apartment infomercial too. “Thankfully, with PizzApartment I can go green and not waste paper products anymore,” the host assures us. And if you get the PizzApartment in “special edition breast cancer pink” then a donation is given to breast cancer research. That will really entice all those bachelors and frat boys who consume leftover pizza as their main food group to rush out and buy.

The large consumption of pizza by bachelors and frat boys may have been what inspired that scene at 1:05 in which one hot girl in a short dress gives a PizzApartment to another hot girl in a short dress. That may count as one of the strangest and unlikeliest moments in infomercial history. And it would have failed to make any sales since the two chicks never actually end up making out.

Sometimes a really dumb product can catch on with the buying public (cf. The Snuggie), but sometimes a dumb product is just dumb—as the makers of the PizzApartment seemed to learn all too quickly!

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An extra-large thanks with pepperoni and onions to reader Chris C. for letting me know about the PizzApartment infomercial.