Blog - Ridiculous Infomercial Review

Boyd Jones, an American venture capitalist working in China, has captured video of some ludicrous infomercials being broadcast in the Chinese city of Jinan.

On the evidence of these videos, the infomercials in China tend to be ones selling sexual and medical products. These infomercials are, of course, in Chinese, but Boyd Jones provides play by play.

Here is an ad for a male enhancement pill that shows lots of computer-generated graphics cross-sections, including one of an enormously large male member.

In the U.S., the hard-to-believe claims of health products are supposed to be made more credible by claiming that the formulas originate in far-away lands, such as Japan or Iceland (e.g., Kinoki Foot Pads and Iceland Health). Well, in China the exotic foreign land is…the United States of America! In this infomercial for a vaginal cream, they try to build up the credibility of the product through an American pedigree:

In spite of their admiration for American goods, the Chinese have not gotten around to importing American-style political correctness on racial matters. Check out the graphics comparing the penile girth of the black, white, and yellow man:

Not only do the Chinese appreciate American-made products, they also value endorsements from prominent Americans. Look who backs a vaginal cream:

If I were a woman, I’d feel a lot better knowing a substance I smeared on my vagina had the endorsement of Bill Gates. But there are even more prominent Americans who have made endorsements:

I think we all remember that State of the Union address in which President Clinton proudly announced a breakthrough in penis enlargement technology, to the applause of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Supreme Court, members of Congress from both parties, and a grateful nation.

Strange how sex products sold on Chinese infomercials can get endorsements from Presidents and billionaire CEOs—while back in the USA ExtenZe has to settle for Ron Jeremy!

See more videos of these Chinese infomercials on YouTube.

In the 1980s, a man named Santo Victor Rigatuso started a gold jewelry business named “Santo Gold.” He also filmed a weird comedy movie called Blood Circus that featured wrestlers, mummies, space aliens, angels, and corny jokes. The fertile mind of Rigatuso decided to promote both through TV—and thus was born the Santo Gold infomercial, the strangest infomercial ever broadcast. The infomercial featured a scene from Blood Circus in which Rigatuso, as Santo Gold, sung a song called “Santo Gold.” (See the video of this song at the bottom of my review of the Santo Gold infomercial.)

So unusual was this infomercial that it inspired the names of at least two different musical acts.

Santo Gold the Lawrence, Kansas Band

“Santo Gold” was also the name of a Lawrence, Kansas indie band, which seems to have had its heyday from 2002 to 2004. The band named themselves after the infomercial, as can be seen on this 2004 interview from the TV show Turnpike.

See more of the Turnpike interview with the band here. I was not able to find out if this band is still together.

Santogold the Singer/Songwriter

Recently Santogold (one word) has burst onto the music scene. Santogold (pronounced San-too-gold) is the stage name of American singer/songwriter Santi White. Her self-titled album spent 6 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart this year. The good news is that Santogold’s name was also inspired by the infomercial. As she explained to Scotland’s Sunday Herald, “Santogold is a nickname I got when I was about 12 because I used to have big gold earrings that said Santi on them. There was an infomercial at that time in the States for this cheap gold called Santo Gold, so my friends started calling me Santogold.”

Here is Santogold’s video for her song “L.E.S. Artistes:”

A good song, but that video is not nearly as strange as the infomercial!

The Billion Dollar Return of Santo Gold

And speaking of the infomercial, the original Santo Gold, Santo Victor Rigatuso, seems to have (sort of) returned. Having served his time for mail fraud, Santo Gold has put up an “official” website at www.santogold.com. Visit it and you can see that the website is just as incoherent and incompetent as the old infomercial.

He is now claiming that he in fact has the complete negative for Blood Circus (which many thought had been lost) and is selling it along with his entire Santo Gold “empire,” including wax figures used in the movie, his outfit from the film, the gold belt featured in the film and the rights to the name “Santo Gold” for the modest price of…$1.3 Billion Dollars!!! (Hmmm…Where did I leave my checkbook??)

Having inspired the name of at least two musical acts, Rigatuso remains interested in singing and has put out a song called “Your Fired” (sic.) inspired by the famous Donald Trump phrase:

If you go to the santogold.com website, you will notice that he is selling a DVD called “The Making of Blood Circus,” which is supposed to tell the story of how the movie came to be and show scenes from the film. I would love to see this DVD. Unfortunately, the only way you can order it is by giving Santo Gold your credit card number through an unsecured web page. I’d rather not give my financial information to a convicted fraud artist. But if you’d like to, be my guest—and please let us know what the DVD is like!

I’ve uploaded new video clips from the bizarre Santo Gold infomercial. Many people think they dreamed this thing, but this mid-1980s infomercial tried to simultaneously promote a gold jewelry money making scheme and a “space wrestling comedy” movie called Blood Circus.

First, I’ve replaced the clip of Santo singing the “Santo Gold” song with a longer version that includes more scenes from Blood Circus.

I’ve included a promo for the movie Blood Circus that occurs at the very beginning of the infomercial.

And I’ve included a scene titled “The Making of Santo Gold Process Jewelry” which is typical of the combination of dullness and strangeness that characterizes most of the Santo Gold infomercial.

Watch all the clips at the bottom of my review of the Santo Gold infomercial.

I came across this article in the St. Petersburg Times describing an infomercial shoot in which longtime infomercial pitchman Billy Mays fires a “bug bazooka” filled with crickets at a windshield to demo a windshield wiper called the “GatorBlade.” You’ll want to check out the picture of Billy Mays holding the bug bazooka, which is priceless.

More interesting than the main article, however, is the info in the box at the end of the article. Apparently Billy Mays and Anthony Sullivan (best known for the Swivel Sweeper) have signed a production deal with the producers of The Deadliest Catch for a reality TV show called Pitch Men about their lives in the infomercial and direct sales business.

(Now if we could only get them to teach a class at the Learning Annex…)

Remember the 80s? I’m in heaven after I found this video for an old 80s TV commercial.

Apparently, the child actor Alfonso Ribeiro of Silver Spoons (and later Fresh Prince of Bel-Air) lent his name to an instructional book called “Breakin’ and Poppin’” teaching kids how to break dance and pop. The greatest thing about this endeavor was the TV commercial they made for it:

Sometimes you just have to feel sorry for your fellow human beings.

According to one online source, this aired on MTV in 1985, which would explain why I don’t remember seeing it because my family didn’t get cable until 1990.

I love how a big piece of cardboard with Alfonso Ribeiro’s face on it is supposed to be some kind of a selling point.

What could the “rap sheet” mentioned possibly have had written on it that could help someone to rap? In any case, I’m sure it gave “street cred” to the dorky, white suburban 11-year-olds who bought this thing to be able to tell their friends that they had a “rap sheet.”

Although any street cred this package might have had went out the window as soon as Alfonso said, “And tell Mom and Dad it’s the safe way to break and pop, not the things you shouldn’t try.” I’m sure every true hip hopper most of all wants his parents to know what he is doing is safe.

The most humiliating part of this commercial, however, is the part that features a bunch of boys doing some sort of synchronized popping to “Genius of Love” by The Tom Tom Club (“I’m in heaven…”). Stripped of their manhood before they even reached puberty!