Blog - Ridiculous Infomercial Review

I recently received an email from Lindsey Brooks touting this woman in the Sticky Wicky roller (www.BuyStickyWicky.com) commercial as the next Vince “From ShamWow” Offer:

There are so many products advertised via infomercial for dog and cat owners. It is great to finally see an ad that acknowledges the long underserved frog owners markets…although I was genuinely unaware that shedding was problem with pet frogs.

Unlike the opening rhymes inspired by the Snuggie commercial, the jingle here is quite brazen:

If you’ve got a
Cat or dog,
A chicken, a frog,
An alligator, giraffe or snake.
You know when they start a-shedding
What a mess those varmints make.
You need a roller, a sticky roller.

A whistled version of the tune plays as background music throughout the spot, and an at the end an encore stanza allows the host to announce the “Mini Roller” free bonus.

Like Vince Offer in the ShamWow and Slap Chop ads, this woman tries to incorporate quips in her sales presentation. At 1:04, she says, “For all that dog hair, cat har, lint, dust, your husband’s youth.” Obviously, the reference to “your husband’s youth” is supposed to be some kind of a joke…but I don’t get it. Is she saying that wives normally send their husband’s youth “right down the drain” (as she was previously discussing)? Or that wives would like to clean up their husband’s misspent youth?

Honestly, this woman’s attempt to pitch a product reminds me less of Vince Offer or Billy Mays than of Wendy “The Snapple Lady” Kaufman’s attempt to break into infomercial stardom with the EZ Cracker commercial.

So how would you feel about seeing this Sticky Wicky ad aired during every commercial break?

FreshCloz supposedly uses the power of ozone to freshen and deodorize your clothes. You hang this home dry cleaning product in your closet and place your clothes inside to keep them smelling good as new.

I have no problem with the product, but I do have a problem with the name. When I first saw the name “FreshCloz,” I assumed it was pronounced “Fresh Claws” because of the way it is spelled and the fact that they show it being used in a closet. But when I saw the infomercial, I heard them pronouncing FreshCloz as “Fresh Clothes.” I think some marketers need to get a copy of that direct marketing bestseller “Hooked on Phonics.” In English, a “silent e” indicates a long vowel sound. So if you wanted the name of the product to be pronounced “Fresh Clothes,” you should have spelled the name as “FreshCloze”—the name would still have been stupid but at least it would have been phonetically correct!

Check out the commercial for yourself:

“Flashlight Man” sounds like a really awful comic book superhero, but it is actually the name of a utility flashlight. The most interesting thing about the Flashlight Man infomercial, however, is not the product name but the audio track. The voice of the announcer sounds like it has been sped up:

I suppose they decided to speed up the voice in order to fit more of the script into the spot, but I don’t know how having a commercial that sounds like Alvin, Simon, or Theodore is doing the voice over work will increase sales.

Notice that the voice of the woman who gives the testimonial at 0:48 (”It’s so good looking, I often keep it on the counter where it’s handy.”) is not sped up at all. Also notice that the audio track seems out of sync. (The audio of the woman’s testimonial starts at 0:48 but the woman seems to appear on screen with those lines at 0:53.) The chipmunk announcer voice and this disconnect between audio and video may have something to do with one another.

Check out the official Flashlight Man page for yourself at www.FlashlightMan.com

And look for “The Adventures of Flashlight Man and Battery Boy” at your local comic book store.

Never in the history of American politics has a TV infomercial been such a point of contention! In Arizona, former congressman J. D. Hayworth is challenging Senator John McCain for his party’s nomination. Last month, video of Hayworth’s appearance on a 2007 infomercial for the “National Grants Conferences” of Mike and Irene Milin was posted online. The video shows Hayworth endorsing the seminars that instruct people how they can get “free” money from the government.

In 2008, I wrote briefly about J.D. Hayworth’s involvement with the National Grants Conferences infomercial in the post How Low the Mighty Have Fallen: Hugh Downs and Al Haig Do Infomercials. At the time, Hayworth (as well as his colleague J. C. Watts who appeared on an earlier version of the infomercial) was merely a former congressman. I thought the infomercials by Hugh Downs and Al Haig were more interesting, little knowing how controversial Hayworth’s role would become.

McCain is now slamming Hayworth for appearing on the infomercial. Hayworth has been accused of hypocrisy for running as a “small government” conservative after appearing on this infomercial gleefully encouraging viewers to grab “free money” from the taxpayer. Also problematic are reports that the National Grants Conferences are major rip offs. This calls into question either Hayworth’s judgment (if he didn’t know about the company’s shady practices) or his ethics (if he did know).

Senator McCain’s campaign produced this commercial mocking Hayworth’s turn as an infomercial pitchman.

As you can see, the McCain video features lots of cheesy infomercial celebrities such as Miss Cleo, Ron Popeil, and especially Matthew Lesko.

No doubt, the McCain ad featured Lesko so prominently because he is the most famous name associated with “free government money” infomercials. The infomercial Hayworth appeared on, however, was for an entirely different product—one not associated with Lesko. So now Matthew Lesko is bashing the McCain campaign for using his image without permission. He is considering filing a lawsuit for copyright infringement. Lesko also called the National Grants Conferences “immoral” because of the high prices charged to attendees.

The Arizona Senate primary takes place August 24, but whatever the outcome one thing is certain: No politician will ever willingly appear on an infomercial again!

—
A free, not-taxpayer-funded thanks to reader Tyler R. for giving me the link to the Lesko story.

In one of the most ironic endorsement deals in advertising history comedienne Joan Rivers, poster-child for plastic surgery excess, has gone from selling her crappy jewelry on QVC to promoting her own line of “Joan Rivers Beauty” products via infomercials. Only an appearance by Michael Vick on the DogPedic ad would convey more cognitive dissonance.

At least the face-lift freak had to good sense to avoid selling any facial care items! Instead, she does infomercials for a “leg concealer” called Right to Bare Legs and a “fill-in powder” for the scalp called Great Hair Day.

Right to Bare Legs

Are you one of those women whose web of varicose veins is so elaborate that you had a spider tattoo placed in the middle so people would think you intended your legs to look like that? Now you can cover up both the veins and the tattoo with Joan Rivers’ Right to Bare Legs concealer (www.GetBareLegs.com).

I have never noticed Joan River’s legs before, but I can completely believe that without some sort of cover up they would be nothing but a tangled patchwork of blue veins.

Right to Bare Legs has the distinction of being the first infomercial product ever named after a part of the US Constitution (namely, the “right to bear arms” of the second amendment). Joan jokes, “…this is Amercia: You have the right to bare legs. That’s what the pilgrims fought for.”—which confuses the colonial era with the constitutional period.

Maybe another infomercial marketer will get ambitious enough to name a product after the bill of attainder or ex post facto law.

Joan ends this infomercial by leading the women on a conga line around the set to show off their non-veiny legs.

Great Hair Day

The other product in the “Joan Rivers Beauty” line is Great Hair Day (www.GreatHairDaySale.com). The big idea behind this item is that balding women should just hide the bare skin patches on their scalps by covering them up with the Great Hair Day “fill in powder.” Maybe the Hair Club will be so inspired by this infomercial that they will start telling bald men to just wear baseball caps.

The announcer in this infomercial actually tries to entice viewers by promising (and I am quoting!), “You’ll have gorgeous movie star hair, just like Joan Rivers.”

Considering that Joan Rivers’ hair looks like a sun-damaged Fraggle, that seems more like a threat than a promise!