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HEALTH & BEAUTY: BLOWING MONEY ON YOURSELF
THE AB ROCKER
Another excersize widget on an already overflowing market for those things, the AB Rocker looks easy. But is it really?
The host of this infomercial, "Jake" of "Body By Jake" (doesn't he have a last name?), comes through immediately with a very
strong regional accent (New York? Boston? Chicago?) but product pushers with accents seem to be a trademark in the infomercial industry.
The machine itself, which is some kind of padded metal contraption you sit in, uses large rubber bands to make it harder to use, and hence provide the
excersize benefits touted endlessly throughout.
The infomercial claims the machine is "as easy to use as a rocking chair" (sic) but I have a problem with that claim.
No rocking chair that I know of
is stuffed with rubber bands to inhibit its motion; and this machine has little in common with a real rocking chair other than the curved surface that allows
it to pivot along the floor, and the fact that you're supposed to sit on it.
Observations:
Jake seems to have invented a new word for this commercial, "abbadabbers". What the hell is an "abbadabber" anyway? Is this some kind
of baby talk he's spewing? A secret message to the devil? Will this word make it into the 2000 edition of Webster's dictionary?
The people he tries this evil contraption on seem to be extremely ill and unfit. None of them can even do a single sit-up.
But when they get on the AB Rocker, they seem to use it absolutely effortlessly, not even sweating or crying.
Maybe Jake should take the rubber bands off and replace them with hose clamps. That'll make the machine work you.
Hell, I've got MS, am overweight, and use a wheelchair - and even I can do sit-ups that these phoney-ass actors & actresses pretend to not
be able to do. I don't think that even the AB Rocker will help their "abbadabbers".
The best part of this infomercial is the brief segment where they show that guy on the snowboard jumping out of an airplane and doing some
hot-dogging on his way down to earth.
Very short review, need any more be said? Phoney acting, but not that terrible a production overall.
Two toilet seats.
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TEMPUR-PEDIC MATTRESS
Here's an infomercial for you if you can't sleep at night.
Hosted by a couple named simply Margaret & Stan, this show opens with the couple waking up on a sh!tty mattress
and bitching that they couldn't sleep worth a crap that night.
When Stan complains loudly that he's sleeping so crappy, Margaret keeps insisting it's their crappy bed.
Once the guy leaves for work, the woman's friend comes over, with Tempur-Pedic promotional materials. (How convenient!)
She's instantly convinced, sight unseen, to dispose of the family bed and order a Tempur-Pedic Sleep System.
Stan though, is a little more thorough in his quest for a better night's sleep. Several talks with co-workers and a visit to the local
mattress store are in store for him before he makes a decision.
Kodak Moments:
Stan's work performance is "suffering horribly", and his co-workers are offering him advice;
including talking about the Tempur-Pedic. Wouldn't Stan be better off going to a doctor or a sleep specialist
than trusting this to some bogus pissons that don't know a mattress from a hole in the ground?
When both husband & wife are at "Earl's Mattress Kingdom", things get really hokey. The store salesman's
pitch for his "Cosmo-Sleep 9000" mattress is just f**king rediculous, and the expressions of the other
"shoppers" are extremely fake & so obviously staged. The handshake that Earl gives makes it look more
like he's in love with Stan than a simple welcome to his store.
Finally, when the couple are both at home their new mattress arrives.
Stan gets into bed, still wearing his sweat-stained T-shirt and immediately "falls asleep" even before
his wife gets fully in the bed. They both wake up, and praise the high heavens about their new mattress for
several minutes.
Stan shows up for work and dumps on his co-workers about his new mattress.
For such a faked operation, and because Stan forgot his antiperspirant (the evil wet puddles under his
arms while he's climbing into bed - the last place you'd want to see that), I can't give this production much of a rating.
MY RATING: 2 Toilet Seats
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REJUVENIQUE
Linda Evans hosts the infomercial for a downright barbaric looking instrument, the Rejuvenique mask.
Invented by one George Springer, this device, which looks like a hockey goalies mask, supposedly
tones the facial muscles to help hide signs of aging.
The mask pumps electrical energy into your facial muscles 8 times a second through 24 evil looking electrode probes.
The user is supposed to apply an electrically conductive gel to all of the probes, tighten the device
down onto their face, and send current surging through it from a handy control unit.
Kodak Moments:
A close-up of the mask in action shows somebody's eye (as seen through the mask's eyehole) literally
spazzing out. If this is occurring all over your face, the sensation must be quite unpleasant indeed.
The human body was simply never designed for somebody to electrically stimulate the muscle tissue from
the outside. This is why we're equipped with a neural net, so the BRAIN can activate muscles
as needed from the inside.
The entire infomercial was filmed with a foggy lens filter, like a douche commercial. My only question? WHY?
It makes me want to screw around with the brightness & contrast controls on my set.
I don't mind seeing scenes filmed through one of these filters now and again, but to shoot an entire
infomercial like this? Terrible. Just f**king terrible. Makes you think you really are watching a 30 minute Massengil
commercial.
There is no "live" audience to comment about the product, no "oohs" and "aahs", and it's just flat out
boring. The program is filled with "before" and "after" photos, and scenes of people strapping the barbaric
thing onto their heads, and electrifying themselves with it.
One woman's "testimonial" for the Rejuvenique mask openly informs the viewer that her face was "tingling" - and does so
several times. Well DUHHH no wonder it's tingly. You've just spent fifteen minutes dumping energy in it
from the wrong direction!
The product also comes with a video. Do you really need a video to show you how to shove the mask
into your face and turn on a switch?
The cost? One easy payment of about $210.00.
I find it difficult to believe that some people would pay $210 plus for what is essentially a plastic Halloween
mask that shocks the sh!t out of your face when you wear it. Plus it is recommended you use it every day
for fifteen minutes. Add another five or ten to prepare the mask before use and clean the damn thing afterwards,
then hit the showers, this could easily sap away 45 minutes to an hour of your precious time, each and every day.
And it wouldn't even be FUN to use. After the first week or so, it would become a royal pain in the toliet muscle to drag that
asinine thing out every day and go through all the rigamarole.
The infomercial is not entertaining, and could even make you a little uneasy if you're not used to seeing
the human body do very unnatural or bizarre things under the influence of electrical energy.
MY RATING: 1 Toilet Seat
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NADS Hair Removal System
This commercial for a "sugaring-style" hair removal product starts with a woman standing somewhere in Australia
with a deadly KOALA BEAR perched lovingly on (or just over) her shoulder!
Mistake number 1.
For a hair removal commercial, this one isn't impressive. What IS though, is the name of the product, "Nads".
Mistake number 2.
As any cold-blooded American knows, the word 'nads' is a slang term for a MAN'S BALLS!
Hello?
"Worldwide Health and Beauty Discoveries" (the producer of this program) should have done their homework
before introducing this on American TV.
The remainder of the commercial shows what most other hair removal product commercials do: women applying the product, ripping their hair out of its follicles, and
saying how wonderful the product is. They also demonstrate the product's effectiveness by applying it to the legs of a quite hairy
male, violently tearing thousands of his leg hairs out at once with a sickening "rrrrrriiippp!!!" noise. It appears to work
much the same way as any other "sugaring" method does.
The product's on-screen promoter claims that "a whole football team" uses it. As in, a football team made up of red-blooded American guys. How believable is THAT?
They also demonstrated using Nads to transform "The Bearded Woman" (and I mean she was VERY hairy; like the
kind you'd see in a circus sideshow) into an ordinary, late-middle aged housewife by ripping her several-inch long beard right off her face. As a depilatory demonstration, this was quite effective.
So there's not any doubt that the Nads actually works. It's just not any different than any other sugaring method available.
To demonstrate the product's safety, one of the women actually EATS THE NADS RIGHT OUT OF THE JAR! YUCK!
Nads in a jar... how wonderful.
Short review, short award ceremony: Nads rates one (1) Toilet Seat.
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PROACTIV SOLUTION
This is probably a great time to introduce Proactiv Solution; knowing that the person needing it most stars in the Tilia vacuum food saver infomercial
who's scathing review appears in the Housewares section...and is usually played right before or right after the Proactiv infomercial.
Coincidence? NOT!!
Jan Muller, cleanup on aisle 4 please.
Judith Light and dermatologists Katie Rodan and Kathy Fields host this slow-moving, and frankly, kind of gross television program.
Proactiv Solution is a multi-part skin care program, designed to stop zits. It comes with cleaner, conditioner and renewing lotions;
and some crap in a tube you have to use every day.
Kodak Moments:
Proactiv is NOT a commercial for those who are easily grossed out by rapid-fire -- and some exceedingly putrid photographs of
various people's skin woes. This program is overflowing with "before" and "after" photos of people who've supposedly used it
and gotten favorable results from it. But I can't believe that all these people would actually stoop so low as to openly show their puss-encrustulated
faces on national television. No rational person would expose such a major and sensitive defect to anybody but maybe their own mothers.
Judith Light just CAN'T be everybody's mother.
These people belong on the Jerry Springer show, not the Judith Light show.
Observations:
Howcum they show the bottles of Proactiv Solution sitting in a creek, with this mist swirling around them?
Does this do something to the product's sales? Isn't this the same godawful technique they use for douche commercials, where they
show the douche bottles surrounded by fields of wildflowers and photograph them through a softening lens filter?
And what's with that music? What the hell does the weather have to do with what you use to defoliate your face with?
I don't care if it's going to be "a bright, bright sunshiny day" or a "dark, dark, snowstormy night". The effectiveness of the product
shouldn't change THAT drastically. Also, it's one of those annoying kinds of songs that gets "stuck" inside your head, and keeps playing over and over
and over like a busted record. I hate those things.
If you can follow some fairly strict regimens, I don't at all doubt that this product works as claimed - although I think they went
overboard just a little with those scuzzy "before" and "after" photographs.
This commercial is SO gross, that I can't even stand to finish reviewing the damn thing. And I thought I needed to install a vomitorium
by my chair for that last commercial where they showed all that rotting food. But seeing some of the examples of people's rotting faces in the "before"
photos in this infomercial should easily qualify it for the gross-out award of the year.
Judith Light's opening statement says it all: "...Join us for a television show you may never forget..."
She's correct: some of that godawful imagery will forever be burned into my mind; whether I want it there or not.
And somebody... PLEASE get rid of that damn "Proactiv Solution" music inside my head!!! Make it STOP!!!
Pleeeeeaaaase, make it stop, make it stop, make it.... stop...[sobbing uncontrollably]
If you can buy this WITHOUT having to suffer through the infomercial, then go for it.
For those who actually enjoyed watching it, shame on you. ONE Toilet Seat for Proactiv.
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RAPID WHITE
Now here's an infomercial for the dentally-challenged.
Rapid White is a teeth whitening program designed to turn brown teeth sparkling white; like movie star teeth but without
movie star expense.
The program opens with this woman (a former daytime TV actor?) emerging onto the very elaborate -- and very fake set, asking
the viewer how they'd like it if their teeth were white. The rest of the infomercial consists of some very phoney actors, series of
"before" and "after" photos of their teeth, and some computer animation of the dental tray in action.
Kodak Moments:
They supposedly use a spectrophotometer to measure tooth whiteness. Why don't they just use that little stick that comes in
the package instead? Isn't that cheap little stick good enough? Apparently not.
This program is filled with the same series of before and after pictures of people's mouths. They're repetitive, and use the same
dozen or so for the entire infomercial. Couldn't they find enough actors who wanted to be all plastic and fake?
Speaking of plastic actors. I mean, they're really bad. Obviously none of them had ever heard of drama school.
Some of them even have visible difficulty in maintaining their plastic, phoney smiles for the camera for the entire duration of
those particular shots. Viewers are repeatedly bombarded with the same loops of videotape of the actors riding in electric
bumper cars, riding a carousel, and taking their photographs in one of those tiny, trailer-trash photo booths.
Another overused loop is of the guy brushing his teeth, sticking that thing in his mouth, and swabbing his mouth out
with that "special" mouthwash afterwards.
And what happens if you knock over the "special" mouthwash bottle and it all runs down the drain? Do you have to buy
a complete new Rapid White kit for $40 just for the "special" mouthwash?
The voice-over announcer needs voice lessons too. I can't put my finger on it, but his voice sounds as though he were speaking
through a Kleenex box stuffed full of socks. Although not nearly as irritating as our Making Money Secrets friend above, this
guy's still irritating enough. Someone should wash this guy's vocal cords out with urine.
Finally, throughout the program, they show some of the pitfalls of "other" teeth-whitening methods. They make laser teeth whitening
look downright cruel; and the guy going to bed with a dental tray protruding from his mouth doesn't look too pleasant either.
If you're a dental chair freak, or the tooth fairy; you might find this infomercial mildly entertaining. 2 Toilet Seats.
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SUSAN POWTER'S GIVE ME FIVE
I have one word for this piece of late-night TV dumpster fodder: FOOOOOO-LUUUUSSSHHHH!!!
Susan Powter, the androgynous-looking talk show host & diet guru, has set the bar to a new low with her entry into the world of late-night television.
Her program, "Susan Powter's Give Me Five," begins with some "live" shots outside the Paramount Theatre in Seattle.
After the first opening seconds, most of the remainder of this piece of TV idiocy takes place inside the theatre.
Susan Powter is one of the most annoying people I have ever seen on an infomercial. She comes through the curtain like an amphetamine
junkie who just scored & shot up the best sh!t in town.
The show is called "Give Me Five." Give me five what? Five airsickness bags? Five enemas??
This infomercial seems more like a stern 25-minute lecture than an informative, entertaining television program.
It's any wonder that Quantum made any money at all on this white elephant.
The poop on 'Give Me Five':
First off, what's WRONG with this woman? She spends half her time stooped over like she's about to ralf in the toilet.
Its as though she's become an anorexic, and they filmed the program right after she ate her
entire birthday cake and five or six packs of jumbo hot dogs.
The rest of the time, she's jumping wildly around like she OD'd on Ritalin. Anybody who watches this program at night doesn't stand
a prayer of ever getting back to sleep before the sun comes up and their Mr. Coffee springs to life. Not when they've spent their
quality sleeping time watching Powter madly racing back and forth like a rat in a cage.
And what is that THING that she has plastered all over the place? You know, that THING that looks like a bunch of exclamation points missing most
of their dots. That THING is just plain idiotic. You can't help but noticing that THING everywhere! It's like when you come across a rotten
potato - you KNOW it reeks, but you feel almost instinctively compelled to sniff & snuffle at the damn thing several times before you finally throw it away.
Everytime you see that THING on the screen, your eyes somehow become forced to stare at it. Man, what an awful feeling.
If this isn't some kind of subliminal trick, I don't know what is.
Her demonstration of how slim she became is not meant for daytime TV - which, in many markets,
this program aired most frequently. She PULLS HER PANTIES DOWN almost far enough to expose her genitalia. YUCK!
I'd rather watch a commercial for disposable enemas, douches, garbage disposal sanitizer, or adult diapers; than to have to witness THIS.
The post-production people on this show went a little overboard with their sound effects console. All sorts of whooshing, banging, and dinging noises punctuate
this asinine, immature piece of work and just drive you up the wall before the show's halfway through.
Speaking of poor post work, when her "Summer Special" began to air, the production was just horrid. Audio effects - of which they have too many in
the first place, are now WAY out of sync with the visuals. They're not "off" by a few milliseconds - or even a second or two. I mean they're WAY off,
in some cases, by minutes! Its as if their post production guy smoked too much pot, huffed aerosol spray paint, and shot up a little
crank to top his day off;
and then got behind his console. Never in my whole life have I seen production this foul and unprofessional. None of the computer-generated graphics
are in sync with the asinine sound effects that should be associated with them.
Not even cable access shows are this bad; where most of the shows there are made with $400 camcorders and a Commodore 64.
If I ran things around there, I'd have a look into their post production crews' dressing room. There's a fair chance I'd come up with
crack stems on the floor, empty cans of gold spray paint in the corner, paint-soaked socks & handkerchiefs in the
wastebasket, and a few empty 40's of "Olde English 800" malt liquor shoved behind the toilet.
Susan Powter's Give Me Five is one of the worst, if not THE WORST, infomercial ever produced. It makes the Metrinch infomercial
look like a five-time Academy Award winner in comparison. Her overpriced books & tapes have absolutely NO appeal, and her horrid
presentation of them should cost somebody their job.
The best part of this program occurs at the very end: when the Quantum Homewares logo dominates the screen, and the voice-over says,
"The program you have seen was a paid advertisement for Susan Powter's Give Me Five. You can always turn here for for quality
products that enhance the quality of your life. Quantum Television: Choose wisely, live well."
If you really want to "live well", you'll "choose wisely" and WON'T watch "Give Me Five." I won't.
My rating: A pair of fingers flipping the bird!
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