Dual Action Cleanse 2

Everyone’s favorite Maestro of the Bowel Movement, Klee Irwin, is back with an all new infomercial for his Dual Action Cleanse colon cleanser. (If you haven’t seen Klee’s earlier masterpiece, please read my review of the original Dual Action Cleanse infomercial.) Once again, Klee Irwin discusses his usually delightful array of subjects: impacted fecal matter, stool size, constipation, parasites in the colon, and “unusual, foul-smelling bowel movements.” Joining Klee in this latest romp through the intestinal tract is “Master Herbalist” Dr. James Chappell.

Klee starts off by bragging about all the colons his products have cleansed: “According to the stats, as best we can tell, Dual Action Cleanse is the number one selling cleansing product in America, knock on wood…So we have a pretty powerful word of mouth movement happening all around the country”—although I think “word of bowel movement” might be a more accurate description. Paranoid health nuts watching infomercials in the middle of the night aren’t the only people buying Dual Action Cleanse either; Klee assures us that glamorous elites like to clean out their caca with it as well: “There’s celebrities using it, politicians, doctors, and just countless numbers of people have experienced it.” Curiously, Klee never names any of these constipated celebrities and politicians who have tried Dual Action Cleanse. (Presumably we can rule out John Wayne and Elvis Presley.) A little research on the Web, however, uncovers one possible Dual Action Cleanse user from the world of politics. It appears that Klee Irwin donated $500 to the campaign of Iowa Senator Tom Harkin in 2005. The junior senator from Iowa has a well-earned reputation for being full of crap. Could Senator Harkin, then, be among the unnamed “politicians” Klee mentioned who use Dual Action Cleanse?

Dual Action Cleanse Reveals the Golden Age of Health

Perhaps because of his reputation in the “natural healing” community, the host of this infomercial, Dr. James Chappell, seems to speak a lot more than the typical infomercial host—most of whom just toss brain-dead questions to whatever expert they are “interviewing.” During the course of the Dual Action Cleanse infomercial, Dr. Chappell goes on to clear up a question I have long had. I’ve written about how health-oriented TV and radio infomercials lament the pollution, chemicals, and processed foods that plague contemporary life and pine for the past when people ate a healthier, more natural diet. These infomercials, however, never specify when this idyllic healthy era occurred…until now:

The human body was created to live off of a diet similar to how Americans ate 50 years ago.

50 years ago?? The United States circa 1957? That’s the golden age of health these infomercials are always talking about? Upon hearing that the American diet of the late Eisenhower era is ideal for human well-being, I promptly ate a big hunk of meat loaf, washed it down with a chocolate malt, and finished up with three martinis and a pack of Lucky Strikes.

But maybe the true golden age occured earlier than that. This latest version of the Dual Action Cleanse infomercial strikes a bold new direction: It may be the first colon cleanser infomercial on TV or radio that does not mention the urban legends about John Wayne and Elvis dying with multiple pounds of fecal matter wedged inside of them. Instead, Dr. James Chappell tells us the story of Thomas Parr, who was born in A.D. 1483 and lived for 152 years. He married for the first time at age 80, the second time at age 122, and had his first child at 130—which makes him the Hugh Hefner of the Tudor age. “After his death an English doctor named William Harvey was hired by King Charles to perform an autopsy to find out why he lived so long…[The autopsy] says Parr’s organs were in perfect condition and his colon was as clean and healthy as that of a child.” Dr. Chappell concludes, “The moral of this true story is: Keep your colon clean and you may have a very long and healthy life.” Perhaps colon cleansing infomercials will now stop telling urban legends about celebrities who died in the 1970s with dirty colons and will instead tell stories about people who died in the 17th century with clean colons.

Dual Action Cleanse Vs. Almighty Cleanse: Klee Irwin Smacks Down Danny Vierra

Old Parr isn’t the only person Klee Irwin and Dr. Chappell discuss. It’s clear that Klee and Dr. Chappell watch TV infomercials, and they have clearly seen the Almighty Cleanse 7 day colon cleanser infomercial from their competitor “Christian Health Evangelist” Danny Vierra:

Dr. Chappell: But aren’t there a lot of copycat products that have recently come out since you started educating people through your TV message…

Klee Irwin: Yes there are a lot of knock-off out there since we came out there and started educating people…only a few of them are even half-way effective…

Dr. Chappell: Well you know, Klee, I came across another TV broadcast that featured a product that sounded very similar to Dual Action Cleanse. So I ordered it and I reviewed it because that’s what I do. This product claims to follow the biblical prescription for internal cleansing, which by the way I couldn’t find in my Bible.

Klee Irwin: Yeah you know I think someone must have torn it out because that same page was missing from my Bible too…I also want to comment on the cleansing programs that want you to believe that you can cleanse in 7 days.

Dr. Chappell: Oh, this is ridiculous!

Klee Irwin:…Do you really think it’s healthy or comfortable to expel that from your system in a short amount of time like 7 days? As an authority on the subject I say, “No.”

Klee Irwin and Dr. Chappell could have saved a lot of time by just turning to the camera and saying, “Danny Vierra’s a punk ass bitch!” I can’t remember another infomercial that included so much trash talk about a competitor. The rivalry between Klee Irwin and Danny Vierra is the infomercial world’s equivalent of the feud between Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls. Perhaps Vierra will respond to Klee’s talkin’ smack about him in a future infomercial. Vierra can look at this video for some inspiration.

Show and Tell Time on the Dual Action Cleanse Infomercial

Despite the bile Klee flings at his rival, he does borrow one important idea from Danny Vierra. Instead of just verbally describing the turds that come out of a person after doing a colon cleanse, Klee decides to show us a picture as well:

That’s a strange picture. Unlike the solid black rope in the Danny Vierra infomercial, this turd is green and translucent, kind of like the ectoplasm in the movie Ghostbusters.

This leads to an inevitable question that Dr. Chappell poses to Klee:

Dr. Chappell: Here’s another question I hear a lot: “Do I have to examine my stool to know that the program is working?”

Klee Irwin: Well, nobody has to look, but to be honest most of my clients find themselves too curious not to look at what is coming out of them in this cleansing process after years of not cleansing. And for 99% of them it truly will be the first time in their lives that they’ve gone through an internal cleanse. So people do look, usually with a mix of both fascination and shock.

“A mix of both fascination and shock”—that sounds like the perfect description of how I watch Klee Irwin’s infomercials.