Blog - Ridiculous Infomercial Review

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…

Here is a video that compiles all those black-and-white moments at the beginning of infomercials where people are having a surprising amount of trouble accomplishing very simple tasks:

Some of this “As Seen On TV” products I recognized here include Shoedini, Snuggie, Tiddy Bear, Perfect Fit Button, Twin Draft Guard, EZ Cracker, PediPaws, Egg Genie, Perfect Brownie, Cami Secret, Bottle Tops, and Tushee but there were lots of others included as well.

I like the Beatles, but found “Help!” as the background music kind of annoying here. Plus, there was no signature “Waaa-waaa” sound featured.

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Thanks to reader Scott Mercer for letting us know about this video.

Infomercial products such as Strap Perfect and Straplesse can hide unsighly bra straps, but two new products sold on TV go a step further by eliminating the straps—and the bra itself—entirely. Instead they use adhesive tape (!) as an alternative to lift the bustline.

Behold Bare Lifts (www.FreeBareLifts.com):

This infomercial feels compelled to tell us that Bare Lifts was “invented by a woman”; otherwise many would have assumed some man discovered this product while experimenting with various bondage techniques in his S&M dungeon.

The geniuses in the infomercial marketing world are so convinced this type of product will be the next hot thing in women’s fashion that Bare Lifts already has a competitor called Liftys. Like the Straplesse commercial, this video features the voiceover work of a woman with a really annoying European accent:

I do not personally own a pair of breasts, but the Bare Lifts and Liftys products look like they would be really uncomfortable—if not downright painful—to use.

One problem in demonstrating a product like this on television is the need to blur out the unfortunate nipple. But this commercial for Liftys has found a way around this difficulty by using a computer-generated woman:

Too bad they didn’t invent adhesive tape that could have synched up their video and audio correctly!

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A well-lifted thanks to reader Chris P. for giving me the heads-up on the Bare Lifts tape infomercial!