# Pseudoscience in a TV commercial **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 5, 2005, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pseudoscience-in-a-tv-commercial/315720 "2005-08-05T15:13:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MrFantsyPants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@MrFantsyPants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrFantsyPants)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2005, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pseudoscience-in-a-tv-commercial/315720/21 "2005-08-06T12:31:12Z")
> [@Mighty\_Girl](#): > > Now, would somebody care to explain what _Elastiumsup[/sup]_ is? :rolleyes: well, according to Ella MacPherson, Ph.D., it’s a revolutionary new Bendy-Stretchy technology that will actually make you hair more bouncyish. ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2005, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pseudoscience-in-a-tv-commercial/315720/22 "2005-08-06T22:03:48Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > I think it was Dave Barry who pointed out you could say the same about a dead bat or a can of shaving cream. As he put it, “adjacent to this complete breakfast” 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BiblioCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@BiblioCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BiblioCat)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2005, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pseudoscience-in-a-tv-commercial/315720/23 "2005-08-07T12:35:09Z")
> [@MrFantsyPants](#): > > well, according to Ella MacPherson, Ph.D., it’s a revolutionary new Bendy-Stretchy technology that will actually make you hair more bouncyish. Is “bouncyish” a technical term? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2005, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pseudoscience-in-a-tv-commercial/315720/24 "2005-08-07T18:50:32Z")
> [@](#): > > Of course, water in sufficient (read: excessive) quantity can kill ya too. You obviously misunderestimate homeopathic science. They know all about the dangers of water. So they dilute it down to a safe level of one part water in a million parts water. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2005, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pseudoscience-in-a-tv-commercial/315720/25 "2005-08-07T19:54:10Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > You obviously misunderestimate homeopathic science. They know all about the dangers of water. So they dilute it down to a safe level of one part water in a million parts water. But diluting it just makes it stronger!!! ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2005, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pseudoscience-in-a-tv-commercial/315720/26 "2005-08-08T06:57:31Z")
No no no. The one part is the regular water. The million parts is the diluted water. Normally it would be really strong, but because there’s a whole lot of it, it’s really weak. See? ---
**Author:** ![Eleusis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2005, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pseudoscience-in-a-tv-commercial/315720/27 "2005-08-08T07:25:03Z")
> [@Cliffy](#): > > Of course, water in sufficient (read: excessive) quantity can kill ya too. > > –Cliffy [http://www.dhmo.org/](http://www.dhmo.org/) ---
**Author:** ![Electrical\_Storm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ac8455/32.png) [@Electrical\_Storm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electrical_Storm)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2005, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pseudoscience-in-a-tv-commercial/315720/28 "2005-08-08T19:02:28Z")
I like watching the trembly woman with the bad haircut who hawks “Leptoprin” (? spelling?), which is Not For The Casual Dieter. Why does a drug cost $153 a bottle? Because it works!! :rolleyes: It’s much too strong for the “Casual Dieter”. What’s a casual dieter? As opposed to a formal dieter? Sorry, just being facetious. 🙂 I forget the name of the latest scientifically formulated serum that’s going to cure my crow’s feet and laugh lines, and promises to take ten years off my face. Only $60 for a three-ounce jar, something like that. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2005, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pseudoscience-in-a-tv-commercial/315720/29 "2005-08-08T20:48:16Z")
> [@pullin](#): > > PS. If you ask nice, I’ll explain to everyone the exact definition of “pedantic”. 😃 Can you just give us a brief overview? Doesn’t even have to be entirely accurate. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pseudoscience-in-a-tv-commercial/315720/30 "2005-08-09T18:25:25Z")
“Pedantic - a comic display involving feet.” ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pseudoscience-in-a-tv-commercial/315720/31 "2005-08-09T18:33:04Z")
> [@Larry Mudd](#): > > “Pedantic - a comic display involving feet.” Close enough. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pseudoscience-in-a-tv-commercial/315720/32 "2005-08-09T18:52:36Z")
There is a crappy low-budget commercial on cable for a rechargeable flashlight that is powered by shaking it, it apparantly has a magnet that slides back and forth through a coil. Well, this is your basic slack-jaw presentation, with announcers shouting “wait, there’s more” as drooling yahoos nod in befuddled anticipation… At one point the announcer goes “By the miracle of Faraday’s Law of Electromagnetism!” and a complicated math formula flashes up on the screen for a microsecond. Upon hearing someone shout Faraday’s Law I reflexively focused on the screen (I did physics and EE in college), only in time to see the formula disappear. Fortunately, there’s Tivo! 🙂 I rewound and froze frame. There, in all of it’s glory on the screen, was something that looked like nothing I’d seen before. I suppose it might somehow equate to Faraday’s Law, but was a perverse unholy mess of notation and formatting. They took something elegant and beautiful [linky linky](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday%27s_law_of_induction) and scrambled it into some weird double-surface integral (I assume, because they were using line integral notation under one of the integral signs, yet it was a double integration) equated with a vector field dot-producted with a triple volume integral, 5 different fonts, random italicization, etc. At any rate, I was baffled as to why, if a producer was going through the altruistic trouble of subliminally teaching the huddled masses the vector solution to EMF flux in half a second, that they wouldn’t just flash a nicely formatted equation on the screen. Really, why confuse people? I am _so_ not buying that flashlight now ---
**Author:** ![VunderBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/839c29/32.png) [@VunderBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VunderBob)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pseudoscience-in-a-tv-commercial/315720/33 "2005-08-09T19:26:45Z")
> [@silver1](#): > > I like watching the trembly woman with the bad haircut who hawks “Leptoprin” (? spelling?), which is Not For The Casual Dieter. Why does a drug cost $153 a bottle? Because it works!! :rolleyes: It’s much too strong for the “Casual Dieter”. You mean I just spent $40K on a gastric bypass, when I could have fixed the problem with a bottle of pills for $153 a pop? Why didn’t I get the memo? Bastards… ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pseudoscience-in-a-tv-commercial/315720/34 "2005-08-09T19:31:23Z")
> [@silver1](#): > > I like watching the trembly woman with the bad haircut who hawks “Leptoprin” (? spelling?), which is Not For The Casual Dieter. Why does a drug cost $153 a bottle? Because it works!! :rolleyes: It’s much too strong for the “Casual Dieter” Is this the crap that was ‘Awarded a patent by the United States Government for Weight Loss’? ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pseudoscience-in-a-tv-commercial/315720/35 "2005-08-09T19:50:55Z")
> [@silver1](#): > > I like watching the trembly woman with the bad haircut who hawks “Leptoprin” (? spelling?), which is Not For The Casual Dieter. Why does a drug cost $153 a bottle? Because it works!! :rolleyes: It’s much too strong for the “Casual Dieter”. That ad is bad, but I’ll tell you what is great. There’s an ad I’ve seen about four or five times now that starts out with a clip of the Leptoprin ad, talking about the $153 a bottle cost… and then this ad goes on to say that they’ve developed a generic equavalent of Leptoprin, and that it only costs $45 a bottle, and is JUST AS POWERFUL!!! (I don’t doubt the claim about its power, BTW) That ad gives me such joy to watch. Generic herbal remedies… why didn’t I think of that? :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Electrical\_Storm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ac8455/32.png) [@Electrical\_Storm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electrical_Storm)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pseudoscience-in-a-tv-commercial/315720/36 "2005-08-11T18:11:10Z")
> [@VunderBob](#): > > You mean I just spent $40K on a gastric bypass, when I could have fixed the problem with a bottle of pills for $153 a pop? Why didn’t I get the memo? > > Bastards… Yeah, you know I was just thinking, why do people go to all that fuss and muss to get expensive surgery when… a paltry $153 buys you the same thing! :rolleyes: Ravenman, I saw that ad for the generic version too, and if I thought the BS was gettin’ deep with old Leptoprin… :rolleyes: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pseudoscience-in-a-tv-commercial/315720.md?page=1)