Favorite Infomercial or As Seen on TV Product Commerical?
 

I love infomercials... they suck me in everytime. As seen on TV product commericals - always make me laugh? Do you have a favorite? I am a fan of:

Ronco Rotisserie - You just set it and forget it! (I actually bought one off TV).

Great American Chocolate Factory - People snoring at the "boring" dessert at the beginning is classic.

Flobee - it sucks and cuts...

You're kidding, right? You enjoy the fake paid-off audience? You love the repeated audio concerning how many payments you have to make? You're interested in kitchen and home devices that perform isolated, specific functions that are already done just as well by items your probably already own?

I think we're going to have to burn you at the stake.

We already had a conversation with God about this, anyways and he agrees: "I fucked up with Ronco. I'm embarassed about it but the genie is out of the bottle."

The fake theatrics are what I find amusing... would anyone really get that excited about Chef Tony and his amazing knife that cuts through a pipe - PROBABLY NOT.

I don't need a special spatula that grips as I flip - I have no problem using the ones that I have now.

Does anyone need this junk? Probably not.

I do use my Ronco. Made the best thanksgiving turkey EVER!

One word: cha-cha-cha-Chia!

I sometimes call my four-year old daughter so-so-so-Sophia!

I love it when they show the frustrated people at the beginning of those commercials exaggerating the difficulty of flipping an egg or something.

Seriously though, I love all of the kitchen stuff like the Rotisserie cooker, the pressure cooker pan that lets you build up the pressure, turn off the heat, and it keeps cooking all day. The super knives, the convection cookers, food dehydrators, etc...

Damn, that's the first thing I've seen in years (since Mr Microphone) that I'd consider. :lol:

The guitar guy who dresses like Zorro...Esteban. He peddles cheap ass guitars and some accessories, and touts his playing skills at the same time. He has CDs. I never heard of him before seeing one of his TV sales gigs.

That Grip-n-Flip. They now throw in the "6-in-one Chef Wizard" that they used to sell two years ago. I was given one of those as a gift. I cannot tell you what a terrible piece of crap it is.

All that stuff is built to look kinda ok on a TV screen, but when you actually get it you find that it's cheap crap you'll never ever use in a million years. This Grip-n-Flip item is just a dumb nylon spatula. What facinates me is the casting. That woman is a gem for such ads. She is built to be believed and she delivers her lines perfectly. You can't look at her and decide that everything she's telling you is full of crap. But it is.

I'm a big fan of the legendary Ronco Products ... The Pocket Fisherman, The Record Vacuum, the Bottle Cutter to make your own glassware with, The Amazing Egg Scrambler ... classics all. And the tinny Christmas jingle that introduced them still brings back memories.

Ginsu Knives ... always wanted them, never got them. So many of these product advertisements were big before I was old enough to have a credit card to CALL NOW!

The Eggwave didn't work for shit. Even if you liberally buttered the inside of the thing, the eggs stuck.

The Miracle Micropore Glass Cleaner is not miraculous.

Snap Hooks fall off of whatever surface you Snap them too. Even shiny glass ones where you wet the suction cup first.

The Miracle Slicer is also not miraculous. Potatoes must be of a precise consistency to work. The depth of slice for carrots is either too much or too little.

The Amazing Vegetable Chopper requires a great deal of strength to operate. When you use it you end up with a mushy collection of dented vegetables.

The Chia Herb Garden was too labor intensive.

I have learned to wait until these amazing products become available at The Dollar Store. They are worth at least a dollar for the amusment they generate, but not much more.

I do have a George Foreman Grill, and use it frequently. The Big one. With the bun warmer.

One of my coworkers was working a midnight shift and was hungry. The ambulance crew was out. He couldn't get any food anywhere. He turned on the TV to take his mind off being hungry. The only thing on was the informercial for the Ronco Showtime Rottisserie. He ordered it, even though he knew it wouldn't do anything about his being hungry. He loves it.

I have some--a Christmas gift from my brother aboout 10 years ago. (To quote one of my buddies from college, "This was a gag gift, right? Right???") Nobody will mistake these for fine cutlery, but they've been surprisingly durable (I say surprisingly because the handle-to-blade construction feels kind of flimsy) and make fine everyday cheap silverware. (It should be noted, that with the exception of a nice German set of 3 cooking knives that we recieved as a wedding present, we don't actually have any non-everyday, non-cheap silverware.)

I have to admit I have never used one to slice open an aluminum can, but I have used them many times on those damned plastic packages that can't be opened any other way besides cutting them apart, and they go through them like butter.
On the balance, this is probably a Good Thing. :yelgreedy
I have wondered if these are any good.

The thing I hate about George Foreman grills is they're a pain in the ass to clean. Can't submerge in water and all that.

But a local radio station was just doing an interview with him the other day and he said his new-and-improved just-released George Foreman grill can go in the dishwasher! We may have to get one of those.

It just doesn't get any better than this:

http://www.cellar.org/images/newsmilies/biglaugha.gif

My favorite As Seen On TV product that Really Works: Rain-X. Both kinds.

Apply once a month in decent weather and the rain really does roll right off. I never use wipers unless it's POURING or the police make me.

I am talking to Ronco right now to produce my DVD rewinder and wiper. When I'm rich, I won't forget y'all. :)

Brian

I bought the Super Slicer from TV. It's the only thing I ever bought that way. It seemed so great on tv. When I opened it, I took it into the kitchen and tried it out. It takes all your strength to use, I was trying to slice things and have them drop into a bowl. The bowl was skittering all over the counter, because I had to use so much strength to get the thing to work, and I was having stouble controlling that application of brute force.

After five minutes of trying it out, I reallized what a complete peice of crap it was.

I paid close attention to the commercials after that. I saw how they used editing to edit out the problem that I was having, just before they would have shown up in the commercial.

It was a learning experience. At least it was only 29.95.

I had RainX before it was seen on TV. You could only buy it a Brookstone. At the time it was really popular in the Pro-Rally crowd.

Which was cool because I loved seeing my stuff come up on the product-go-round.

RainX is one of the world's greatest inventions, though.

You should have called me. I would have told you.

I had the one where the slicer sat on top of a plastic container that would catch the food, so I didn't have to do the impossible bowl balancing trick.

But yeah, it sucked.

I try to keep an eye out for the local news guy who tests the As Seen On TV Products to determine the worthiness. He's cheaper than finding out for myself. And involves fewer injuries.

We got a slicer thing off TV because it was free... one of those call those numbers and get a free slicer. It sucked. It would cut your hand off before it cut your perfect tomato or onion slices.

What did you get sucked into along with the free slicer ... a lot of those "free" products get you involved in some sort of hairbrained marketing club scheme or whatnot ... with membership fees automatically charged to the credit card you gave for the S&H ...

Fine Print's a lot harder to read off the TV screen.

i have absolutely no use for it, but i want that new Cold Heat miniature soldering iron. they show it go from the guys finger, touch metal, hit 800 degrees, and then he puts it right back on his finger with no burning. i want to buy just to see how it works.

in Phoenix we have As Seen On TV stores so you can go to the mall and just pick all that stuff up. It's pretty fun to just browse the store and play with the things then watch some guy slip away from his family to buy the latest girls gone wild installment. they always turn beat red when the 16 year old girl behind the counter starts shuffling the videos and asking if they have this one or that one already.

I was wierded out this past weekend, when I was soldering some LEDs for another lighted tape ball, and suddenly that infomercial came on. I mean, who advertises soldering irons? And when I'm actually soldering!

I may have to get it some time just for that...

And also to figure out exactly what it does.

It's a mini arc welder, and reports from those who've bought say it sucks royally.

There are apparently irons that do this which actually work, but the Cold Heat is not one of them.

well thanks for crushing my hopes UT. i was thinking about walking away from my career to search for possible uses of this Cold Heat device. now i have nothing left to dream about.

My father, who is normally very rational and cynical about these sorts of things, was for some reason completely taken awhile back with this thing that would supposedly thaw meat incredibly fast. It didn't actually heat up, but it was somehow very conductive of the warmth in the air. I remember they had all these time-lapse shots in the infomercial showing how the thawing on their special metal platter happened so much faster than just thawing on the countertop.

He expressed on several occasions how incredible the thing was, and then never brought it up again. I always suspected he went ahead and ordered it, and discovered it really did suck after all but was too ashamed to admit it to me.

My dad got that meat thawing plate. Basically it's a sheet of aluminum with a (teflon?) covering. He swore up and down that it worked like a champ until I made him prove it in a controlled environment. 2 similar steaks, one on the "amazing hunk of metal", one on a ceramic dish. They thawed at almost the exact same rate. I will say it was *slightly* faster, but it was a matter of minutes, really.

'Course, he's really a sucker for this "as seen on TV" stuff. I've gotten the gift of a reversible griddle (flat on one side, ridged on the other for hot dog "grill marks"), with the added bonus of the "quick thaw" feature. This monstrosity came with this goofy spatula that "transformed" into a pair of tongs with the flick of a switch. As you can imagine, it performed neither function very well. The griddle gets occasional use when I make french dip sandwiches, but other than that, it's worthless.

i've got that. my wife and father were very impressed with the commercial and ordered a couple of them. there may have been a lot of beer involved in the decision making process.

i want to buy just to see how it works

Is there any other reason to purchase the cold soldering iron? What about just using a normal one?

The Cold Heat soldering tool doesn't work? Shit. I really wanted one of those, too.

As for Ginsu knives, my ex and I got one for Xmas many years ago. The very first thing I did (because I was schnockered) was to cut a can in half with it. It did that very nicely, but it tore the hell out of the knife. However, I returned it using the lifetime warranty and got a new one for the cost of postage. I wore that out, and bought a whole set a few years back. I still use them every day.

They're great for people who intensely dislike caring for fine cutlery.

I really, really tried to find a use for it, even after the switch broke and it was permanently in "tongs" mode. It did an okay job scrambling eggs, though I have a whisk that performs the job perfectly. The last straw was when the spring popped out, preventing it even more spectacularly from functioning as a pair of tongs. It's sole purpose in my kitchen now is to serve as a reminder that there's a reason some utensils are only good at one thing.

that is the point, i have absolutely no use for such a thing. i think that speaks to the power of the infommercial. relatively intelligent people, who know better are buying stuff they have no use for, just because it looked cool on tv.

I just asked the person who purchased the free slicer if there was something that we got suckered into in addition to that piece of junk. He didn't think we did... I think we had to pay shipping and then got a lot of annoying calls about buying magazines - don't know if they are related or not.

Ronco calls us every once in awhile to see how our rotisserie is doing and to see if we would be interested in any other accessories.

A soldering iron that works like a mini arc welder? I should imagine that would kick the shit out of any static sensitive components you might use it on!

I really need to invent one of these pointless products, create a need, and sell the hell out of it.

Already been done. ;)

I was so disappointed to find that someone had already come up with the DVD rewinder. I think my implementation was better though. I was going to sell walkmans (walkmen?) with a sticker on the bottom saying "THIS SIDE UP".

...

That doesn't sound as funny as it did when I thought of it. I'm probably forgetting the funny part.

A real DVD rewinder would be one that searches for the words "SIDE A" or "SIDE 1" on the inner ring of the facedown side, and flips the disc over if it sees them. Of course, ot would only be useful on double-sided DVDs. A bonus feature could be WIDESCREEN detector.

Ooooo...products! :D

As Seen On TV

Here are a few of the items I really want. Whenever they're on the tv, my hands get itchy and I want to start dialing the phone.



http://www.asseenontv.com/prod-pages...ml?gid=KITCHEN

http://www.asseenontv.com/prod-pages...ml?gid=KITCHEN

http://www.asseenontv.com/prod-pages...ml?gid=KITCHEN

http://www.asseenontv.com/prod-pages...ml?gid=KITCHEN

http://www.asseenontv.com/prod-pages...ml?gid=KITCHEN

http://www.miracleblade.com

http://www.asseenontv.com/prod-pages...i_steamer.html

http://www.asseenontv.com/prod-pages...?gid=HOUSEHOLD

http://www.thane.com/html/products/k...%3Eflavor_wave

And the rotating compost bin, but I can't find a link...

Radar,

Miracle Blade? Neat.
Aircore Pots? Good idea and energy saving.
Step Stool Chair-thing? Good appearance, etc...

...but you mean to tell me you want a $10 device that peels eggs for you? Step 1: drop boiled eggs in cold water. Step 2: peel. Step 3: use saved $10 to pick up beer to go with that egg salad.

And what, exactly, does an ion bracelet do?

"Balance Your Body's Yin-Yang"

I'm not putting any bracelet, or jewlery for that matter, on my Yin-Yang.

one of my clients makes a healthy living inventing things that end up in the junk aisle of walmart and on tv. he doesn't do the fullblown infommercial though. he specializes in bottle and jar openers. his latest is the gator grip. they all work really well, but i couldn't see myself ever purchasing one.

Supposedly it gets rid of pain. They show people with thermal photography and you can see where pain is and it goes away when you wear the bracelet. I want one just so I can see if it works. I have constant back pain because I have small healing fractures in the spine. I don't wear jewelry either other than my wedding ring. I don't even wear a watch. But if this thing could really get rid of pain I'd wear it. If not, I'd return it for my money back guarantee. All you really lose is the S&H.

As far as the egg peeler thing goes, it's really cool to see it work, but also I'm going back on Atkins soon, and you end up eating a lot of boiled eggs and deviled eggs. It's a pain in the ass to peel them all, especially when the shell is sticking to the egg. This thing does it in less than a second and gets it all.

For you Philadelphia folks, there is an As Seen on TV STORE in <A HREF="http://www.neshaminymall.com/html/">Neshaminy Mall</A> near, uh, Bensalem along Rt. 1 (near Street Rd., little north of 95). I spent two hours in there and almost bought the place out. I think I got some kitchen gadgets in the end.

'Tis a neat place to go. Check it out if you have not.

I browsed the one in Montgomery Mall and came away with a bunch of those fold up miracle spring open never get them back in the little circle for easy storage hampers.

They are wonderful.

For those in the burbs, there's one in the Exton mall too.

Say what now

These things, maybe?

Found by Googling "fold up spring open hampers". I was really disappointed not to find it the first time by Googling "fold up miracle spring open never get them back in the little circle for easy storage hampers" :)

they are! i've got a few of them.

Supposedly it gets rid of pain. They show people with thermal photography and you can see where pain is and it goes away when you wear the bracelet. I want one just so I can see if it works. I have constant back pain because I have small healing fractures in the spine. I don't wear jewelry either other than my wedding ring. I don't even wear a watch. But if this thing could really get rid of pain I'd wear it. If not, I'd return it for my money back guarantee. All you really lose is the S&H.

I've got some sugar pills that work just as well that I will sell you for half the price.

Absolutely nothing.

That's not true. It makes you feel pretty. ;)

No, you do that yourself. ;)

But wait! There's <i>more</i>!!

The PASTA POT. Amazing strainer built <i>into the lid of the pot</i>!

Holyjeez did I laugh . . . The obnoxious family banging their silverware on the table as the frantic wife promptly dumps the spaghetti into the sink. . .

This is the point where the wife should have picked up the pasta by the handful and -----matter-of-factly and with a very pleasant smile on her face --- served it into each family-member's lap.

And then smacked her hubby.

Yeah.

I'm pretty sure that woman needed more than a Pasta Pot to ease her woes.

I never actually saw the commercial, but I got one from my sister for Christmas last year. (Don't tell anybody, but I'm not sure we used it. Yet.)

I have not examined the pasta pot extensively, but the design seems guaranteed to make scalding oneself with boiling water much much easier than with conventional cooking methods ...

I got a Pasta Pot as a gift but haven't tried it yet. :confused:

Oh my brother has a pasta pro cooker and uses that shit alllllll the time. It's ... okay, I guess. He's weird like that. He really gets into these weird gadgets and trinkets - his apartment is littered with them.

Sure ain't a strand of spaghetti in the sink when he's cooking, though. :)

Is your dessert so boring it leaves your family snoring?

I love it when those people fall asleep at the table because the have a boring cake on the table... only the Great American chocolate factory will make it exciting..... I love that ad!

I always wish i had a pasta pot when I make spaghetti.

Take the lid of your current pasta pot and drill small holes in it. PRESTO! Instant new lid!

I've watched the magic bullet infomercial 4 times. I just can't stop watching once I start. These people making these commercials try 100 times harder to keep your attention than any other show you will ever watch. It's non stop talking, pictures...And I just love to watch their expressions for signs of being fake, bored, lying, etc. The girl in the magic bullet infomercials is all giggly and smiley even at times when it's not really appropriate or realistic, she is obviously faking her way through the whole thing and I picture that in her head, she's like "I hate this idiot, who cares about this cheap piece of crap rip-off...are we done yet...smile, smile, gotta smile, gotta act happy" At least that's how I feel when I'm waiting on tables, so I can kind of relate to acting all happy when you really couldn't care less...

Aw hell, now you done did it. I have to go there now lol! Thanks! :D