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COOKWARE: APPLIANCES FOR PREPARING & DESTROYING FOOD
The Juiceman
The Rocket Chef
AirCore self-cooking cookware
Allegro Cookware by Wearever (Amended Product Review and Ratings Change)
George Foreman's New Jumbo Family Sized Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine
Ingenio Fat Free
ExpressWare Infusion Cooking System
Ron Popeil's Showtime BBQ & Rotisserie (Ratings Change)
Food Saver Compact II
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JAY KORDICH'S JUICEMAN
Everybody has one of these... don't you?
Geriatric ex-athlete Jay Kordich should be receiving Social Security by now, but instead, makes his living plugging his big, noisy plastic
juicer. While there's nothing inherently wrong with that, his infomercial skills are definitely less-than-mature.
The Juiceman is a fairly bulky kitchen appliance, designed to devour whatever is shoved down its gullet, and spit the juices
from it out of its spout; while straining out the solids and dumping them into a hidden chamber behind the machine.
Observations:
This Juiceman is a downright LOUD machine. I'd almost be afraid to stick a sound level meter too close to it; for fear of bending the little
indicator needle over the right hand stop like a golf club wrapped around a tree. Jay Kordich almost seems to be yelling over the motor noise
during much of his dialogue; as if his hearing became damaged over time by prolonged use of this machine.
Maybe he isn't aware of the lavalier mic he's wearing; there's no need to yell with one of those things on.
The machine is also fairly large and bulky; and may not be suitable for very small "pullman" kitchens often found in apartment homes.
Because of its design, of placing the pulp collection bucket behind the machine; it is possible for one to forget it is there,
only becoming reminded of it days or even weeks later as you search your home for that awful stench coming from the pile of rotting vegetable matter festering inside of it - or wondering
where all those goddamn fruit flies are coming from.
Speaking of cleaning, Jay emphasizes how "easy" the machine is to clean. Anybody who's ever tried to clean a clogged-up kitchen strainer
(those small metal ones with the handle and the two little lobes on the other end) has already had a taste of what it would be like to
clean the Juiceman. And the strainer in the Juiceman is even finer; making it that much more difficult to flush pulp and
other garbage out of all those millions of little holes.
Jay's delivery of the product dialogue is fairly boring, and at times, downright annoying. He harps on the subject that if you eat dead (cooked) food,
you're gonna die. But if you "juice" using his machine, you'll live a long time.
He spends most of his time concocting these vile, disgusting vegetable drinks; and is it any wonder that he only takes very small sips
of his creations? Some of them are downright evil.
Now, about his "live food equals life" baloney. When he's busily yakking away, fruits & vegetables such as carrots, apples, beets, celery, parsley, and more; are among the helpless
victims he cruelly grinds up in his little "chamber of vegetable horrors." He's so concerned about life & death; yet he fails to see
the massive, large-scale, and downright brutal horticultural executions taking place on his own studio set.
"Live food, live vegetables, live bodies...Dead food, dead cells, death..."
Horse puckey! The moment he lovingly shoves an innocent carrot into the maw of his motorized vegetable destroying satanic robot
death machine, it's dead. IT'S DEAD!
IT'S DEAD, JAY!!!
Now what do you have to say for your "dead food=death" tripe?
Jay has got to do something about those eyebrows. Those things are big enough to be used as rat traps. For that matter,
they'd make decent paintbrushes and even better emergency feather duster substitutes.
Shave those damn things down once in awhile. I'll mail you some damn hedge clippers if that will help.
He also apparently doesn't believe in using antiperspirant; as evidenced by those evil wet puddles under his arms.
Most people in show biz will do anything to avoid having this happen to them, even if it means visiting the dressing room for a new
shirt every fifteen minutes or half an hour. Not Jay.
The way he plays with his hands throughout the program is just plain ANNOYING. His hands and arms move & thrash about as much as his
mouth does. All of those phantom "pinching" and "pulling" gestures he makes; it makes me just want to cut off his hands and
spank him with them.
This infomercial kinda bites. Nothing really gets wrecked; other than a LOT of vegetables and drinks being wasted before it's
all over. The price is steep, the machine is noisy enough to wake the dead, and it doesn't look easy enough to clean to make it
worth my time.
Sorry Jay... but your infomercial kinda sucks. But not as much as some.
Two Toilet Seats for you.
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ROCKET CHEF
Here's a futuristic-looking kitchen appliance that would look great in any kitchen - but haven't we already seen
these things for years & years already?
The infamous Nancy Nelson and needle freak John Parkins host this very fast-moving infomercial for
what is essentially a gussied-up version of one of Ron Popeil's kitchen wizards. Food goes in one end,
and chopped up goo comes out the other. The show opens with the announcer saying that Culinaire
is giving away $40,000,000.00 worth of Rock Chefs. Trouble is, are they even going to sell that many of them
before the company goes tits-up?
KODAK MOMENTS:
Co-host John Parkins is one of the most hyper people I have ever come across. He flits around the stage
like he just shot up an 8-ball and took a handful of pink hearts, washing them down with an entire jar of instant coffee.
Although I'd never accuse anybody of using drugs, with this guy it really makes me wonder.
Nancy Nelson pretty much stays off to the side during most of this infomercial; John does most of the actual work.
Carrots, bananas, celery, and a variety of other foods are shown being dropped into the machine's "speed feeder chute", a toilet pipe-sized tube
sticking out of the top of the machine. A few quick turns of a hand crank renders the food items neatly chopped in the bottom of the machine's clear
plastic bowl. Change the blades, and you can then drop in things like garlic, onions and tomatoes; and they will be quickly ground up into a pulp.
Change the blade again, and make ice cream and sherbert. Change it again, and grate cheese with it.
The announcer says the Rocket Chef does the work of over $500 worth of electric kitchen appliances, but I fail to see how.
I really don't see what's so "new" about this new machine. Put a small motor on it, and voila you have a combination of an electric food processor & a rather weak mixmaster.
John says that one of the problems with the other kitchen gadgets is cleanup. But what I see is different: Make something in a blender, and you have 1 or 2 items
to clean up: the blender canister and maybe its lid. Grate cheese in a grater, and you have only the grater and a bowl to wash.
But with the Rocket Chef, you have the bowl, the slicing cassette or mixing blade assembly, the domed lid & feeder chute assembly;
and maybe even the stabilizing ring to clean if you spilled or overflowed something on it.
(Just to be fair, it's true that if you use the Rocket Chef to chop onions or garlic or (carefully) make salsa, you will probably only need to clean the bowl and the chopping blade - that's just two items).
If you decide to make ice cream in your Rocket Chef, beware: you will lose the use of the appliance for at least the rest of the day! That's because you must place the entire
machine in your freezer while the ice cream freezes - pulling it out occasionally to turn the handle a few times and then pop it back in. And if your freezer is anything
like mine or almost anyone else's, you'll find one other problem: not enough room in the freezer to put the machine in it!
The Rocket Chef does seem to do a good job at your basic chopping & slicing chores though, and some people may find it a welcome addition to their kitchen.
The shiny stainless steel (?) dome gives it a kind of a retro 50's appearance that would look good in many kitchens - but don't expect to be able to dispose of
your breadmaker, blender, knives, stand mixer or other appliances if you decide to invite the Rocket Chef into your home.
Mister Parkins, your drug urinator test came back. You've been abusing hydrogen disulfide, ammonia, sodium tetraoxide, methamphetamine, maryjane, coke, and nitrogen dioxide. Shame on you!!! Please register with the counselor at Desk 3. You got 3 Toilet Seats.
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AIRCORE SELF-COOKING COOKWARE
Now here's a product for you if you don't have time to cook. Just dump in frozen meat & dried rice (or whatever else), liquid like
sauce, salsa or broth; put both lids on, heat for a few minutes, and just walk away!
Two women, Carol and Marilyn, host this commercial for a pretty darn cool looking set of cookware.
They claim that you can put your food in it, close it up, heat for a few minutes, then just walk away and the pot will
do the rest of the cooking for you. But at close to $500 a pop, can anybody but the rich actually afford it?
The infomercial starts with the women performing a very bad song & dance about the cookware, then it thankfully cuts to
the usual prerecorded tape loop that they use to sell the pot to you.
KODAK MOMENTS:
There's some pretty bad acting going on here. The program starts with one of the woman with her face in a rimseat while a tall muscular
blonde guy named Sven gives her a massage. For some reason, the other woman asks about dinner, and how it's cooking. The one being massaged says it's cooking
on the table - in AirCore self-cooking cookware of course.
One of the women also says something kind of wierd while demonstrating the cookware - watch when she walks out of the kitchen and
starts saying "tzi tzi tzi tzi tzuuuuh". What's with that? I'd rather hear her humming the theme to the Massengil commercial or something
before having to listen to this caca. Another song she sings is just awful, and her little "dance number" also blows.
Then there's the other woman; who's big desire is to cook her dinner in the freezer. So she follows the instructions: puts frozen chicken
and rice in the pot, adds liquid & seasonings, puts both lids on, and puts it on the stove. When the lid-top thermometer says its in the
"cooking zone", she takes AirCore off the stove and PUTS IT IN THE FREEZER. This isn't very believable for one reason: When you take
a hot pot off the stove and put it straight into any refrigerator, the plastic interior would melt when the hot dish is set inside.
Most freezer interiors are exclusively plastic, and don't have metal shelves like those in the refrigerator compartment because food
would freeze too easily to them and become stuck later. But she does it anyway, and later removes the pot, still cooking her chicken dish.
This part does have some basis in truth; but since the pot's air core isn't contiguous, considerable heat would be lost from the areas
where the pan's metal intersects its hollow core. It might still work as advertised when left on the counter or the table, but I have
a problem with food cooking in the freezer because of this heat loss.
Since I don't have a large enough freezer to put an entire pan into it (to try that crazy stunt for myself), I find myself kind of liking this product.
It seems to work basically as advertised: you start your meal in it, then let it do the majority of the cooking off the stove and
completely unattended. Perfect for people who hate to cook, who hate to have to stand over the stove for hours and hours stirring
and monitoring for burning, and who hate scraping burnt mac & cheese from pot bottoms.
It's unfortunate though that I'd never be able to afford it, so I'll never get to try it for myself.
This review may be amended or added to once I've had a chance to see the infomercial a few more times.
(Update 12-11-09): I received an email from an AirCore user; contents are as follows (their name and email address have been omitted to protect their privacy):
"One of our best purchases was for a nice set of solid stainless steal cookware with an inner pocket of air (Air Core). It has two lids per piece, one glass and another stainless lid with a temperature valve. It does everything the infomercial claims and more! We love it! If or, well when, I burn food, and I can really burn some food, the burn material comes off easily. It takes just a ten minutes soak in hot water with a few drops of soap and a brief scrub. I don't remember the infomercial talking about that. I could be wrong, we ordered the set a long time ago."
AIRCORE. Expensive, but worth it if you have that kind of money lying around. The acting could use a little work though, but
overall, I liked this infomercial and the product itself. 4 Seats, fully self-cooking.
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ALLEGRO COOKWARE
One piece of dialogue in this infomercial describes its content entirely: " If we were from Mars and had never seen a pot or
pan before, we would have created Allegro from the start. (sic)"
Allegro is a new pot from the Wearever corporation, from Mars; a manufacturer known mostly for electric skillets and other low-end
kitchen appliances. This product is a $400 set of unusual looking square pans and lids. The infomercial is hosted by a
rather ordinary woman, and a man named Domimic with a funny voice; and consists of Domimic cooking several items in the pots,
burning several other meals in them, and a few tape loops of "testimonials" peppered throughout.
KODAK MOMENTS:
This infomercial features some of the most shoddy and unprofessional camera work I've seen in years. When the consumer
testimonials are shown, the camera jerks & wavers about as if the cameraman started his day with a few 40's of Olde English 800 malt
liquor and some Valium teepz. Some of the shots even jump way out of focus for a moment, then go back in focus. If I were this infomercial's producers,
I'd have this guy's camera bag checked for empty booze bottles and forged prescription slips.
Dominic, the male host of this program, just doesn't seem quite right. His voice was never meant for a TV program of this length. I can't put my
finger on it, but something just isn't right here. Although he doesn't put on a dramatic act like the guy on the Rocket Chef program does,
he still seems a little odd for some reason. I just can't quite pin it down.
Testimonials? You bet!
A number of women start this program off by bitching about why they hate their ordinary pots. They can't pour food out of them,
they don't know how to use a colander or the pot's lid to strain, they piss & moan about their noodles boiling all over the stove,
and they whine about their teflon nonstick pots. Several dramatic shots show some of these faults: a woman tries to drain the noodles
out of a way-oversized pot using the lid, and of course, half the noodles end up in the sink. Another brief shot shows a pot just beginning to
boil over, there's a shot of somebody pouring soup all over the counter, and a final shot shows somebody struggling to get an egg out of a very badly worn-out skillet.
Dominic and another man claiming to be on the design team also show off examples of ordinary pots "ruined" by metal spatulas. One
specimen he holds up has a few little dings in the bottom and they say it's over three years old and needs to be replaced.
Well of course it has dings in it you idiots! Its owner actually USED it once in a while!!!
One demonstration which Dominic performs involves dumping ruined food out of Allegro to show that it's really nonstick.
Burnt rice slips right out; as do blackened scalloped potatoes and shrivelled oatmeal. These pots pretty much do the same thing
as T-Fal's Ingenio Fat Free; or any other medium and high-end nonstick cookware. The lids are unique though, and may very well
be this cookware's saving grace.
What's this? A problem?
Having finally seen this infomercial on a clear TV channel, I find they aren't telling the whole truth about Allegro.
Problem 1: The Messy Boilover. When a closeup of Allegro's lid shows it capturing boiled-over liquid, a careful look at the opposite side shows
liquid spewing out and going all over the stove anyway.
Problem 2: Pouring. The pan does dribble when liquid is poured from it. This clearly shows when the soup out of the Allegro pot is poured into a bowl the way they demonstrated
the same task with an ordinary pot.
Problem 3: Draining and Straining: The pan dribbles all over the counter again when Dominic tries to drain noodles with the lid. The producers
attempt to divert your eyes away from that by the use of creative lighting. Didn't work on these eyes, thank you.
Problem 4: Loose handles. Closeups of some pots in the Allegro collection clearly show the hande NOT FITTING THE POT. A large gap between the handle
and the pot could easily accumulate food and bacteria, and may indicate a problem with the handle's fastening or locking mechanism.
Problem 5: Non-stick that sticks. The pot's inventor displays an ordinary pan "ruined" by a simulation; Allegro didn't appear to fare much better either, but the camera
refused to do a close-up on it. Even on the distant shot, I could discern the telltale reflection of bare metal in Allegro's bottom.
My biggest problem here isn't the pots themselves, it's the COST. Over $400.00 for 4 pots with lids! And they don't even do anything fancy,
like cook your food ten times faster or support a party balloon on a column of steam. I think somebody is getting screwed here, and that
person is the one who actually picks up the phone and BUYS these things for the price advertised!
Unless you're one of those people who pours all of the pasta down the sink or routinely dumps soup all over your counter or floor,
I'd probably wait awhile before buying Allegro. At least wait until it shows up in the Fingerhut catalogue.
Because of the unprofessional camera work, and something about the host that's wrong, I'd have to give it 2 seats.
RATINGS change - because of the LIES LIES LIES, this production gets ONE BIG SNAPPING BUSTED TOILET BRUSH!!
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GEORGE FOREMAN'S NEW JUMBO FAMILY SIZED LEAN MEAN FAT REDUCING GRILLING MACHINE
George Foreman might have been great in the boxing ring, but he should have never been allowed to star in a TV infomercial.
America's favourite washed-up ex-boxer stars with a female companion in this infomercial, for "George Foreman's New Jumbo Family Sized
Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine". This has got to take the award for having the longest name for a TV product.
For a little over a hundred bucks, you get something that looks like a gussied-up waffle iron, and a couple of elongated plastic
bowls to place under the machine's front edge. The machine claims to "cut the fat", but in doing so aren't you also draining away
the food's flavor and natural juices too?
KODAK MOMENTS:
George seems to almost be bumbling his way through the entire infomercial. No doubt here, there's more videotape on the cutting room
floor than there is in five minutes worth of this infomercial. A whole lot more.
Throughout his presentation, our boxing friend seems overly concerned about the burn marks his machine leaves behind on the food.
He seems downright anal retentive about them even. "Look at the lines..." and "look at those beautiful grill marks". What's the big
deal with having some burn marks on your food anyway?
How come he's shoving this aspect of the grill down our throats so damn MUCH?!? He's acting like the grill marks
are the most important feature of his grill, rather than its supposed ability to knock out the fat.
Now here's an observation which some of you may agree with, and others not. Look at the bottom left of the screen anytime they're
showing a testimonial from one of the grill's users. Doesn't that big white thing in the corner look an awful lot like a gigantic sperm
swimming toward the viewer?
I think it was meant to be a boxing glove "knocking out the fat" but everytime I see it, I see a big sperm knocking up the fat.
Most of the remainder of this production is quite ordinary. They cook food on the grill, plate it up, and pile it on the table so it
can all be sh!tcanned after the taping. Various people, including some "chefs", are shown using the grill or explaining what they
cooked on it and how.
Then there's the issue of those little elongated plastic greasebowls that come with the machine. That seems inconvenient, and leaves the door wide
open for a very nasty mess should you start something on the grill and forget to put a bowl in front of it. But how else would you
create a similar cooker (that doesn't make your life even more miserable) without them?
And just what are you supposed to do with all of this grease anyway? You can't dump it down the sink or toilet because it will
fuck up the pipes. You can't throw it away because it will turn rancid in your garbage can and make it stink even more, probably attracting
rats and flies.
You can't dump it in the woods because all of those tree-huggers will hunt you down and chain themselves to your porch. So there you
are, stuck with all those little bowls of grease.
The machine itself seems easy enough to use, and it probably would speed up some of your cooking because it has heaters
on both the top and bottom. But if you get the appliance really filthy, you might find it exceptionally difficult to clean because
it doesn't appear to be immersible in any way. I won't buy a cooking appliance that I can't toss in the dishwasher, or at least remove
the cooking surface and wash that separately (a crock pot with removable crock fits this category, for example).
Not a great production. Nothing gets destroyed (other than a piece of Kraft cheese), and there are no overly dramatic scenes
of people struggling & straining with ordinary cookware. George really needs to hone up his stage skills and quit harping about the damn grill lines!!!
Two and a half Toilet Seats for you.
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INGENIO FAT FREE
This program also starts with black and white video of a woman struggling with her household chores; this time juggling primitive pots and pans, graduating
to color "8mm-style" film of a very dramatic Tupperware struggle, before the commercial itself actually begins.
Foreign-accented Mick Hasting and his group of preselected chef cronies star in this somewhat whacky infomercial, plugging a one-hundred-fifty-something-dollar set of pots. The show opens with Mick challenging Joe Farago (of Iron Quick fame) to make a noisy & destructive show at discarding a whole
bunch of breakable dishes and metal pots in a large metal garbage can. Joe appears quite surprised and in disbelief as Mick says he
can cook everything in one pot - the Ingenio Fat Free, of course.
This commercial isn't nearly as exciting as the Iron Quick System, but some mild destruction does occur. Mick uses an Ingenio Fat Free
to beat the devil out of some poor, innocent frying pan; turning it into a twisted, useless chunk of metal. He also challenges Joe
to purposefully ruin a pot of rice in some traditional-style cookware, while ruining the same dish in an Ingenio.
True to infomercial tradition, the burning rice absolutely wrecks the old pot, while the same burnt food effortlessly slides out in a blackened, slimy mass
from the Ingenio Fat Free.
Joe Farago follows his "stupid puppy dog" routine in this commercial almost as well as in the Iron Quick program.
He seems almost mesmerized by every aspect of cooking something in one of these pots, and has visible difficulty in straining some hamburger
meat into a bowl, purposefully allowing the lid to slip; as Mick proclaims, "...you try to drain it, and half the meat ends up in the sink...". Mick then shames Joe by
showing him how "easy" it is to strain the same meat through the specially designed lid on an Ingenio Fat Free.
One viewer reminded me of a very special moment in this infomercial: When Mick is beating the hell out of the ordinary pan with an Ingenio Fat Free,
the "fine print" on the bottom of the screen reads, "Destroying your old cookware with Ingenio may void your warranty."
Several "celebrity chefs" (obviously paid plants) cooked various dishes in the Ingenio, and gleefully assured the viewers how good the cookware is.
Admittedly, this is probably a fairly decent set of cookware for the lazy among us. College-age bachelors who find themselves eating out of the same
pot they cooked in (rather than using bowls or plates) would be most attracted to this product as it is shown.
MY RATING: 2 Toilet Seats
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ExpressWare INFUSION COOKING SYSTEM
FINALLY! A commercial by Quantum Homewares that doesn't start with idiotic black & white footage.
This commercial, starring Florence Henderson and Carol Brady; was actually quite a refreshing change from a lot of the infomercials
that were running concurrently with it.
Once the intro music finishes up, this one gets underway quickly and effectively. The product, T-Fal's Infusion Cooking System; purports to cut average cooking
times by up to 90%. The first demonstration comes when they have Florence preheat the oven to prepare a sewerpipe pasta dish with meat.
Robin Mattson; another featured star of this cooking frenzy, then proceeds to whip up the exact same dish: throwing raw sewerpipe pasta, frozen hamburger,
pasta sauce and wine in the Infusion Cooking System. As you might have guessed, by the time Florence's oven has preheated (and no other preparation of her dish has even
taken place), the same dish cooked in the ExpressWare pot is DONE. And the dish actually looks edible to boot.
When Robin starts to throw an uncooked pot roast in the ExpressWare, she proclaims that it will only take 30 minutes to finish.
One of the guests shouts, "Cook a pot roast in thirty minutes? That's crazy talk!"
Oh puh-leeeeze! She sounded SO fake and plastic that she'd probably MELT in the dishwasher.
Well, unless this commercial is especially deceptive & devious, apparently you CAN have pot roast, done at least to edibility, in half an hour.
Half a dozen other dishes are cooked this way - dishes done in mere minutes that would take hours using your regular cookware.
However, there IS some deception taking place here. When they take the Infusion System lid off dishes cooked under them, they all
look as though they've been carefully stirred and garnished. The program gives the impression that the dish will automatically come out
this way. Not a major faux pas, but noticeable nonetheless.
This infomercial is almost sickly sweet and syrupy. Their choice of guests is questionable - but no, there's nothing REALLY that wrong
with this particular group of people... it's just that they seem too phoney and made-up - both in their appearance and in their acting.
Their theme song; with lyrics of "Oh Alice, doesn't work here, anymore." probably won't be quite what they expected, once the viewer
sees just how much this product costs: almost FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS! Five big ones for a couple of pots and a fancy-pants lid?
I don't know about you, but Alice still DOES work here, and I'll buy some Ingenio Fat Free, thank you. Save this for when you hit the
lottery, or if you just have this kind of money to just toss around. I know I sure don't.
Not a bad program, but the acting got to me after awhile.
Three (3) Toilet Seats for this one.
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RON POPEIL'S 'SHOWTIME' ROTISSERIE & BBQ
This infomercial is fairly typical for cheap gadget inventor Ron Popeil. His name is associated with all kinds of "made for TV" products,
such as the Pocket Fisherman, the Ronco food dehydrator, kitchen widgets, and on, and on, and on. His latest entry into the late night infomercial scene
is the "Showtime" Rotisserie.
Ron opens the show by taking a hammer and viciously smashing the face of the Showtime with it; causing the rotisserie to loudly reverberate with a cheap,
hollow noise that the microphones have no trouble picking up. This supposedly demonstrates the quality of his product. But this is a very sneaky
and deceptive demonstration:
although it's true he actually does hammer the glass door on his Showtime Rotisserie, ALL tempered glass will resist breaking
in this fashion. Pinball machines and jukebox fronts use the same kind of tempered glass; which is designed to withstand impacts like
slammed-down beer mugs & shotglasses, thrown ashtrays, flying billiard balls and the occasional stray hammer or gun butt.
Had Ron smacked his machine on its SIDE, it would have almost certainly been destroyed with just one swing.
With his Showtime still intact after his "attack", now Popeil gets down to business. He starts tying up a dead bird with some kind of elasticized cord; then demonstrates how easy it is
to mount the fowl onto the spit rods of his machine. You will notice that he had to place the spit rod assembly on the machine's "rest area", then find a sanitary
way to shove the whole assembly into the machine.
It's no wonder he wears gloves: in order to load the machine, one must actually handle the food item on the spit. Removing the cooked item also requires
a special trick: you must lift the item out by putting a BOWL underneath it, then lift the entire bowl/food/spit rod assembly out of
the hot machine without burning your knuckles on the drip tray, on the wheels on each end of the spit, or on the inside walls of the Showtime itself; or burning the tops of your thumbs
on the boiling hot food you're trying to pull out of it. Then there's the matter of removing the hot & greasy spit wheels and rods from the chunk of dead animal meat that's impaled upon them.
And he calls it "easy to use?" Give me a break! I also fear the cleaning ritual involved to keep the Showtime factory-fresh could become somewhat
tedious after awhile; for unlike relatively low-maintenance ("easy to use") toaster ovens, this one gets filthy every time you use it.
The "Set It And Forget It" feature could be misunderstood by some people; turning it into "Set It and Fall Asleep" or "Set It and Go Out for a Beer and get Hammered at the Bar".
On the positive side, a 3-hour automatic cutoff should prevent a real fire, in case you actually DO "set it and forget it".
Ron is still a heck of a salesman, although he can be repetitive and become annoying after awhile.
How does he sell? If you look in the background, you'll see some of Ron Popeil's other products; most noticeably his big bulky
food dehydrator. A very few people might notice it and inquire about it while they're on the phone ordering - and end up spending
even more money than they originally intended to.
He also has a BUNCH of his Showtime rotisseries running at once: it makes me just cringe
at the thought of the program's producer using the wrong extension cords or plugging in too many Showtimes on one circuit and starting a fire in the
wall behind the set.
I was also mildly surprised that the little light bulb inside didn't blow out when he hit the machine at the beginning of the program..
The poop on Showtime: The Showtime Rotisserie & BBQ looks cheaply made, but the prestigious Good Housekeeping Magazine rated
it a 9 out of a possible 10 - making this perhaps one of the best small appliances that's been put out on the market in years.
The plastic needle on that asinine plastic syringe that comes in the flavor injector kit looks as though it would probably melt in the dishwasher or break off after just a few uses though. They should supply a syringe
with a more durable stainless steel injector.
The mechanism that holds the flat basket together looks cheesy & weak as displayed on TV. Judging solely by that, I'd be tempted to use some of the included food ties to secure the thing myself.
Speaking of food ties, when you run out of the special elastic cords, you are encouraged to order more from Ron's private stock. (He DOES tell you that it's
OK to use any kind of oven-safe food tying cord though, if it's any consolation.)
And I can't see how the thin metal & plastic "steamer & heating tray" is valued at $30.00.
The "retail price" of $319 as shown on the Showtime packaging material just isn't realistic. You can go to almost any department store in America and buy it for about $179.
(This tidbit is courtesy of somebody who works in the Infomercial industry - thanks!).
The "testimonials" from both the heart doctor and the chicken factory worker both sounded like they were recorded from
the inside of a really large sewerpipe or the open end of a drain culvert pipe.
Overall, as infomercials go, I'd have to call this one quite average. It's no more or no less faked than most of the others. It isn't exciting -- except for his
vicious attack on the rotisserie at the beginning; but isn't drop-dead boring either.
Ron Popeil gets two Toilet Seats for effort; half a Toilet Seat for beating the hell out of his own machine, and 1 1/2 Toilet Seats because of his machine's
exceptional rating in Good Housekeeping.
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FOOD SAVER COMPACT II
Nancy Nelson and Jan Muller are at it again, in a nicely wasteful & destructive new production for a tired old product: a vacuum food sealer;
the "Food Saver Compact II" by Tilia.
This apparently new infomercial for a rather geriatric product, running for the first time in Seattle today, caught my attention immediately. The first thing that
struck me was the "tone of quality" exuded by this machine. The sound created by the Food Saver is ghastly, for one.
When switched on, it made a very loud buzzing sound, like a mortally wounded fishtank pump with a bad diaphragm.
The hose that runs to the "jar sealer" looks like ordinary aquarium air hose; further reinforcing the "cheap factor" inherent in products sold on TV in this fashion.
The speed with which it sucks the air out of whatever bagged item is stuffed into it leaves something to be desired.
If you have to vacuum-seal a large food item, you might as well walk away, have a beer & a cigarette, and cook something for
tomorrow's dinner while you're at it. If you're lucky, the two of you might finish your tasks together.
It really doesn't create that good a vacuum either; it can barely make a ripple in some soda cans.
A "GOOD" vacuum source will completely crush and flatten them. A "GOOD" vacuum would also flatten & kink the machine's
connecting hose. So you're really not getting a good vacuum - at best you're getting a good PARTIAL vacuum.
Kodak Moments:
And now for the good parts of this commercial: the almost unprecedented level of waste and destruction.
They waste enough food on this infomercial to feed a guy like me for three or four months.
Food that was allowed to turn mouldy, discolored, smelly and slimy for this production is frequently shown being "discovered",
photographed with a macro lens, and then sh!tcanned in a
swing-top kitchen wastebasket.
Every few minutes, they "find" more spoiled food and throw it away, and run another bag-wasting demonstration of the Food Saver with
identical "good" food.
Speaking of bags: You have to buy rolls of SPECIAL PRE-CUT BAGS to use with this appliance. What a waste of money.
You are forced to buy more of them from this outfit once you run out; since ordinary plastic or "ziplock" bags just won't do the trick here.
Trying to find the special bags in your local grocery store is likely to be an excersize in futility; and leaving you wondering why you bought
this absurd kitchen gadget from a TV program to begin with.
At one point in this infomercial, Jan Muller says he "cooks with love". I highly doubt that. The microwave oven and most of
Ron Popeil's kitchen gadgets are probably his best kitchen friends if he cooks at all; and he probably has a direct phone line
to Papa Murphy's Pizza anyway.
I'd like to see him actually try to bake a pie or make a meat loaf
from scratch without Nancy's help.
GROSS FACTOR:
Rotting & decomposing food is given better camera work than the actors themselves.
Every few moments, another trashbound food item surfaces and gets some nice closeup lens work.
Our face friend displays & deep-sixes mouldy cheese, furry strawberries, slimy black salad greens, and all manner of other wasted food.
It is simply disgusting, and makes you want to install a toliet next to your TV chair to puke in every time they show it.
If there was a place where those fuzzy "censor" blocks should be used, it should be here, and not wasted on people's golf hats
in a golf product infomercial.
"JANISM"?!?!?
Nancy uses this asinine word when Jan "Crater Face" Muller seals a glass casserole in a vacuum bag.
She also finds several other opportune moments to sneak this really bad sniglet into her dialogue.
The final word:
Jan Muller might have a better future if he were to sell and use Proactiv Solution instead selling cheap, wasteful vacuum food sealers and unhygienic
floor machinery. And he should
think about getting a BOY'S name in the future.
Nancy Nelson has lost ALL of her special personality in this commercial. She doesn't even say "Oh for heaven sakes!" or "Look
at that! Look at that!!!" in this one.
She needs to go back to selling Space Bags.
Rating: For all of the waste & cheap thrills, this gem gets three Toilet Seats.
But you're going to have to pay to have the new commode put in next to my chair.
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