Infomercials (or Shooting fish in a barrel)

The BBQ Pit
1

A smiling face comes onto the screen… Clean cut, shaved and well dressed.

Hi. I’m a representative for some male enhancement product. See how I changed my life with this product.

Flash to an attractive woman in her mid 20s. I lost 30 pounds with fat loss plus! Follow our specialized diet and you can eat whatever you want and lose weight! It’s a young job market, you’ll want to look as attractive as you can (From an actual infomercial).

Age 62, zoom in below eye… Look at my old wrinkles! Today I look like I did at 30!

Before and after pictures pile up… Zoom in pictures on an eye… On a thigh… On a nose…

I thought I looked at least 4 years younger…

This product trims, this one cuts, this one slices, this one shreds.

Extrordinary results… Your results may not be the same.

Look at the guage go up… It LOOKS scientific.

WOW! You can get a Cybersonic toothbrush… It’s the fastest growing oral care ever! This paid dentist agrees! I love this brush and I know you will too! It has several awards that all sound prestigious! Its spring loaded technology!

Celebrity endorcement! I saw him on that Texas law citcom… HE says it works.

I lost 45 pounds! I lost 55 pounds! (note: results not typical…)

Clean air… Some scientific study says indoor air is bad… Get attractive people to tell you.

Work from home… Make thousands a week!

Get results in 4 days, 6 days, 3 weeks… Lose inches, lose pounds…

Settle your tax debt for $20!!!

Includes sun screen… Not available in stores…

This product not only moisturizes your skin it makes your life overall more stable! “I was feeling ugly that day… But then I got a new beginning with this skin care product. After trying this product I got the self esteem I needed to lose weight!”

If you call within the next 15 minutes we’ll DOUBLE your order… TRIPLE your order!

This coin is in excellent condition and its colorized by the mint!

Look how I made millions with my patented method! You can also be successful in making money, just send 3 easy payments of $39.99.

Free sample of the material… Free video.

“I care about you, so that’s why you should try this product.” (Another real quote)

Get out of debt now with our program. Your BEST choice for debt relief.

Success story after success story…

There’s a cream for everything. Changes the way you look and feel!

Shark steam cleaner! Real because of the industrial pipes in the background of the set and the artificial fog drifting down from them.

Buy timeshares… Sell timeshares…

This is the system the rich use!

Stay tuned!

“You’re doing something good… It feels good to be doing something good.” Buying this pill. “Its exciting!”

Look at the smiling model, trying to stay still while a camera zips around her head zooming in on a necklace, on an earing…

“How much would you pay to become a millionare? $10,000? $20,000?” (This made me go “huh?”)

“Thousands have already done it! The best part is these secrets really work!”

Try it in the comfort of your own home!

This product is real because they zoom in on machines dropping pills into containers.

CALL NOW!!!

A guy highlights his face to get out of work and its funny that his buddy screwed up and did it in pink. HAHAHAHA, STOP! Please!! I’m about to lose a nut laughing here!

As a committed spokesperson for this product I strongly suggest you try this product…

The GREATEST multivitamin on the market!

“Stop ‘Poor Man’s’ Thinking and invest like a pro…”

“You’ll be so excited you won’t be able to sleep at night!”

“Gives you a real advantage in life!”

“If people knew how good this product works EVERYONE would be using it.”

Take the challenge today! Send cash or money order…

Who are all these people?! They must have a background, people who know them, people who went to highschool and college with them. What do they think of all their old friends looking at a zoomed in picture of “sensitive hair removal” followed by their smiling endorcements.

Those fucking smiling nameless faces trying to give you what you need to have a perfect life.

All I can say is… What a fucking waste.

2

Apples! Pears! Listen to how quiet it is! Extra cinder blocks around the house? Juice it!!!

3

Anyone seen Trainspotting based on Welsh’s novel? I heard Renton’s voice while reading the OP.

I love how “dietary supplements” always say they aren’t reviewed (forget approved or denied) by the FDA.

4

[Homer]

MMmmmmm… cinderblock juice.

[/Homer]

[Troy McClure]

“Did you turn it on? It’s so quiet I can hardly hear it”

“That much juice from all those oranges?!?”

[/Troy McClure]

I’m sorry. I’ll be quiet now…

5

My mother is a landlord and put some of her buildings on the market. She got a call from this guy who had bought the Carlton Sheets “get rich quick in real estate” deal. He wanted to buy a lucrative building for nothing down. He also wanted my mother to pay all of the closing costs, and IIRC, he wanted all of the tenants’ deposits in cash at closing. (AFAIK, this is illegal under Texas law; deposits are to go into a separate account so a greedy landlord can’t help himself.)

My mother laughed herself sick.

Robin

6

Of the infomercials; I hate the exercise machines most, especially the muscled/buff/attractive models they have on, pretending to use them when anyone with half a brain knows that their good looks and fitness is down to genetics, makeup and large amounts of real exercise. Most of them would probably not be seen dead on the no impact elipto-Xtrainercizer™.
It’s the auction channels I hate the most though for several reasons. Among them:

The way the presenter drapes the latest piece of “genuine imitation faux zircon” studded “jewellery” over their hands as the camera zooms in for a closeup of their over-tanned, made-up hand.

The fact that these channels are still a going concern means they make money, which means that there are people whose idea of a good time is to sit there, watching all this waiting for something to waste their money on. Sickening.

/gods that was therapeutic.

7

“When is a Diet Pill worth $153 a Bottle?”

**NEVER, YOU STUPID FUCKS!!! ** Quit buying this shit and maybe they’ll finally run out of money and stop playing these horrid promos eighty goddamned times a day!!

8

Hey! Dr. Greg Cyaunamon!! Get out here, you little fucker!!

Tell you what, pal…I’ll buy your stinkin’ product if you’ll just go the fuck away. How 'bout that? It’s worth it to me to not be constantly bombarded by your amplified smugness.
I’m weak. I HATE being fat…and I’ve begun in earnest to consume (a LOT less) calories and excersise a lot more, but I’ll let you in on a little secret. I HATE being hungry. That’s right. My hate for being hungry and unsatisfied by low cal, fat free, new and improved, looks like the real thing, but tastes like it was made with puke, chemical laden, pseudo food burns with the intensity of a million suns. So your bitchy little voice I hear during EVERY commercial break finds that crack in my skull and pours it’s message over my brain like a thick lager, making me drunk with screaming little thoughts about how maybe, just MAYBE this could be the thing! I mean, Hell! Medical technology has advanced so far and so fast in my lifetime, that it could be that someone really has found a way to prove that my behemoth ass is NOT MY FAULT!! I become totally tossed away from judgement and hold on to enough strength to not pick up that phone and make my life more rewarding overnight. Your little illustrations (that look oh so scientific :rolleyes: ) with the grid like bodies of the man and the woman becoming healthy and thin before my eyes are enough to make me cry out with anguish. Could it really BE my hormones? I mean, I’ve always been hormonal in other ways…mood swings, and just LOOK at the size of my chest! I’ll bet you’re right! Feh.

And that’s another thing. Where in the hell is this “colleague” Dr. Talbot? Is he so horribly disfigured that he had to make you the coughscapegoatcough…I mean, spokesman? Is he incapable of speaking? You say that HE’s the man who came up with this cockamamie shit, so why does he not want to be famous, JUST LIKE YOU?? Is it because he doesn’t want people to recognize him on the street and feed his own ass to him when they realize this is all a cruel pack of lies, perpetrated on the desparate, overweight, friendly, following bovine public? Where are these glowing journalistic masterpieces you cite from Psychology Today, Ladies Home Journal and Redbook?* They don’t seem to be anywhere! Or would it be your contention that the government is out to crush your little operation in a vast conspiracy designed to discredit you because they’re angry that they didn’t come up with this first? Did some shadowy figure that smokes a lot somehow remove all evidence of said articles from these fine periodical’s archives? Tell me! I’ll believe anything!

Some of us are lazy. Some of us just don’t like the pain of being hungry or of excersizing just for the sake of movement. Some of us just really, really want the fountain of youth to be true. But it can’t be. So take you and your little mysterious dog Talbot with you too, you fucker. Don’t bother me anymore. I’m busy with my Ab Roller.
*I didn’t look hard, but I did look. I didn’t find any evidence of actual articles that were not paid advertisements in any of these fine publications.

9

Gah! If they ever created a diet pill that really actually truly works, (without causing heart damage or anal leakage) it would be front page news. It might well be the most profitable pharmaceutical ever developed. Do you think whoever developed it would be hawking it on 1:00 am reruns of The X-Files?

The one that bugs me the most: “Fitness celebrity John Basedow.” WTF? Like calling himself a “fitness celebrity” gives him some kind of credibility?

10

You know, I spent an ENTIRE HALF HOUR the other day watching Ron Popeil sell his answer to the “Miracle Blade” knife set (just three easy payments of 13.33!) JUST TO SEE how his daughter had grown up. Lauren was about 11 when he was hawking the food dehydrator, and so she’s had several years to get foxy or not.

Other than just a brief flash of her as he introduced his daughters (Lauren and Shannon), SHE WASN’T ON THE SHOW AT ALL!!!

Yeah, I’m lonely…but dammit, it pissed me off.

[sub]Wow…the smileys have gone monochromish…[/sub]