Monday, April 06, 2009

Infomercial Madness

I've been wanting to dedicate a post to my thoughts on infomercials.

The spectacle of infomercials has always given me a certain amount of amusement & fascination. I am always in utter disbelief that people actually watch them and order the crap they're selling.

What finally made me comment on the infomercial phenomenon was this particular doozy of a news item:




It couldn't have happened to a shadier con-man...
Just looking at this guy pisses me off. Who in their right mind would trust this creep enough to buy something from him??????


I never thought that any TV pitchman would ever be as astoundingly annoying as BILLY MAYS!!!, but Shamwow Scumbag Vince Offer/Shlomi is definitely in the running.



Speaking of Billy Mays, The Bearded One's obnoxious delivery (honed right here in New Jersey, of course) has predictably got him a reality TV show documenting the making of one his mind-numbing infomercials.


Of course, there is one Infomercial God that stands above these other clowns. His name graces the legendary Ronco™ Corporation:


As scary-looking as he is cunning, Ron Popeil was one of my early icons in the sublime art of 'B.S.' known as Marketing.

Me and a couple friends back in high school used to watch his spots on TV late-night & obsess about the crazy details of his carefully-crafted pitches.

Here is way more info about Ron Popeil than anyone needs to know:


In fact, Ron Popeil is a big inspiration for a ridiculous 'infomercial' video project I helped my brother with when he was in college. We got completely carried away with the idea and he's about to upload several of the segments onto Youtube like this preview.

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