Blog - Ridiculous Infomercial Review

I’ve added this clip from the 2000 California Pines infomercial to my review page. Here, host Ken Dab-Row wears flamboyant clothes and uses flamboyant language to pitch property located at “California Pines” in Northern California.

In my review, I spelled his name as “Ken Dabrow,” but according to his website, the correct spelling is “Dab-Row” although he never gives a reason for the unorthodox use of the hyphen.

Later versions of the California Pines infomercial featured actor Erik Estrada, Ponch from CHiPs, as the host. Estrada may have been better known, but he did not bring anywhere near the enthusiasm and flair to the infomercial that Ken Dab-Row did.

An appeals court has thrown out the 30-day jail sentence Kevin Trudeau faced for contempt of court. These news stories give details:

Reuters: No jail, contempt for TV pitchman Trudeau

AP: Infomercial Pitchman Avoids Jail

Chicago Sun-Times: Kevin Trudeau off the hook for contempt citation

Kevin Trudeau is involved in an ongoing legal battle over claims he made about his book The Weight Loss Cure “They” Don’t Want You to Know About. One day Kevin Trudeau asked the listeners of his radio show to email Judge Robert Gettleman about the case, prompting the judge to issue a contempt of court ruling and a 30-day jail sentence. Now an appeals court has vacated the contempt ruling, although the original issue of his sentence for fraud will continue.

No doubt Kevin Trudeau and his acolytes will cite this development as proof that the “magic genie” unleashed by his Your Wish Is Your Command CDs really works! (Or maybe his colleagues in the Global Information Network just pulled some strings with their peeps in the Illuminati.)

Before seeing the infomercial for the No! No! Hair removal system, I had never heard of Kassie DePaiva. Apparently, she is famous for her career as a country singer and an actress on One Life to Live, but for those people who don’t follow country music or daytime soap operas Mrs. DePaiva is unknown.

Kassie DePaiva’s hosting stint on the NoNo hair removal infomercial, however, will likely extend her celebrity to a whole new audience. On the No No infomercial, she speaks at length about her personal struggles with body and facial hair.

A “milk mustache” sticking to a woman’s hairy lip? Legs with five o’clock shadow? Not since the infamous appearance of “bearded lady” Mary Ann Roth on the old Nad’s infomercial have we had such frank talk about the gross topic of female body hair before.

Fortunately for Kassie DePaiva, the No! No! product came along just in time so that her career in the entertainment industry would not be limited to the role of carnival sideshow attraction.

Unfortunately for me, I will never look at those “Got Milk?” ads with a stable stomach again.

The infomercial for GEM Keep It Cool is, for the most part, a pretty straightforward infomercial that sells a drink for women to relieve menopause symptoms. Marie Osmond, who is identified here as an “Entertainment Icon,” does a good job as the host.

The thing that makes the GEM Keep It Cool infomercial notable is the bizarre logo for the product:

This round orange female face with one eye haunts this infomercial. The image of this lady cyclops flashes on the screen between scenes. While Marie Osmond interviews guests, the oddly menacing visage hovers above the set like an anthropomorphic sun in a faraway galaxy.

The other thing that struck me as interesting is the way one of the people who gives a testimonial is labeled:

Andy Warhol made the famous statement about everyone getting their fifteen minutes of fame, but the thousands of people who have given testimonials on TV infomercials have gotten more like 30 seconds of fame. This man’s celebrity moment consists of being a “Supportive Husband” who, in the nicest way possible, tells how his menopausal wife is less bitchy after drinking GEM Keep It Cool.

There are thousands of videos online that parody infomercials. Some of these videos are produced by humor websites or TV comedy shows; many others come from rank amateurs; the vast majority of them are painfully unfunny.

I cannot, however, recall a TV commercial for a real product that parodied an infomercial for an entirely different product…until now. A commercial from Colgate for a product called Wisp is an obvious take-off of the Vince from ShamWow infomercial:

I wouldn’t say this Colgate Wisp mockery of Vince Offer (aka Vince Shlomi) is the greatest comedy ever, but it’s not too bad (and certainly superior to the hundreds of 12-year-olds making infomercial parodies with their camcorders in an attempt to be funny on YouTube).

Now if only the Colgate Wisp commercial would have had its pitchman beating up a hooker…