Someone was selling aqua-weights a couple of years ago. As a traveller, you could just fill these balloons with water and start pumping. It seemed like the most ridiculous thing in the world.
Well, I saw on America’s Most Wanted last year that this was a scam to trick people into a pyramid(?) investment. He produced a few commercials of a product that wouldn’t sell, got poor saps to invest in it, and took off with millions. I wonder if John Walsh ever caught up to him?
What is a “hardini?” My mind is all a-twitter with the possibilities.
I woke up one night and took a groggy peek at the TV to see that bass singing at me. Took a couple of minutes to realize it was not an old SNL skit and then I couldn’t stop laughing.
Lissa, I saw that Boogie Bass thing on TV last night and I was going to post about it, too! Oh My Gawd, I could not get over how STOO-PID that thing was. So I watched the ordering information to see if they have a website, and sho 'nuff, they do!
Check it out at http://www.ideaplanet.com/Products/302.shtml
“Meet Boogie Bass - the seemingly innocent mounted bass that looks like a fisherman’s trophy. Ingeniously designed and crafted to look like a real fish, Boogie Bass has a built in motion activated sensor that detects when someone passes by. Once motion is detected, Boogie Bass “comes to life”, tapping its tail, turning his head, moving his mouth as he tells his funny one-liners and sings hilarious parodies to “Pretty Woman” & “Limbo Rock”! What a wonderful way to surprise and delight your family, friends and especially, unsuspecting visitors.”
Un-friggin-believeable! I really think this one takes the cake.
thats so funny, my friends got one of those boodie bass things for thier engagement party two weeks ago. i want one soooooooooo bad now. I need it to mount on my wall just under one of my swords. PERFECT!
sorry for anyone that has to deal with that in their office, that person is obviously on crack, or hasn’t had enough crack, i just love the novelty of it.
bet in 50 years those things will be so very well remembered, and i’m gonna have one 
hehehe
Diane, we are twins separated a birth! I have the dehydrator too–got it as a gift–and love it also. It’s okay on jerkey and real great for drying fruit and herbs.
The Boogie Bass has to be the ultimate tacky TV pitch, I think. But for runners up I nominate those ad for diet supplements to aid virility. Of course they never come out and say “impotence”, much less “stamina to outlast a Penthouse Forum fantasy”.
They use the smarmiest purple prose, with unrealted shots of incredibly fake backgrounds, e.g. water trickling by a boulder that’s festooned with garish silk flowers.
P.T. Barnum was right.
Veb
A Hairdini is pretty much a wire wrapped in a spongy type material. It’s used to help you put your hair up in buns and french twists and that kind of stuff. I like it. It works really well in my hair.
For what it’s worth, I got my Buttoneer (and they still sell refill plastic thingies) at Target. It’s mighty cool, although, as said before, it doesn’t work well on very heavy materials. But, I’ve even used it to repair a seam in a shirt that was starting to separate under the arm, so it has far more uses than mere button replacement!
The Boogie Bass is soooooo tacky, I know my folks would love it. These are the people who give Budweiser slippers (puffy slippers that look like big Budweiser cans) as gifts.
Dumbest thing I’ve seen on an infomercial, which I swear I’m not making up: a pair of little plastic handles with a 90 degree angle bracket-ish thing on one side. Here’s the idea: hook them onto the rim of a table or countertop, grasp the handles, and do half-assed pushups. Wow, what an exercise innovation! Clearly, I couldn’t just do my own half-assed pushups by putting my hands on the counter itself!
You’ve seen the new gold dollar coins? The ones with Sacagawea on the front?
I saw an informercial the other night where some outfit was selling hand-painted coins for something like $100. They’d take one of the coins and color in Saccy’s face, hair and clothing. A representative from the “[Something] Mint” (“not a U.S. government institution”) was talking about how each coin would be a priceless keepsake, blah, blah. And a (completely impartial, I’m sure) coin expert was going on about the great investment potential.
Take a one dollar coin. Throw on a little paint. Sell it for $100 to people who are bad at math.
I’m in the wrong business.
I went fishing yesterday, and the guy who owned the boat had that very same Boogie Bass mounted in the cabin. Let me tell ya, it takes more than that to amuse me at 5:00 am.
I used to work for an ancient coin company. At one point, we hired a numismatist (coin expert) who had recently left another company that was telemarketing coins via QVC.
This individual, Paul, as most serious coin collectors and experts do, paid NO attention to these shows.
And one day, someone who’d bought one of these coins from the TV show (I think it was a Jewish shekel, but the type of coin doesn’t really matter) called Paul, and asked him how much the coin was worth.
Paul was unprepared for this call. He worked for the company, knew what they’d paid for the coin, and added a healthy markup. He then, just to be safe, added ANOTHER healthy markup on top of that, to cover the cost of the TV show and various other expenses. He then gave the caller a figure, and the caller was FURIOUS (obviously, the caller had paid more).
OOPS. :eek:
When my boss and I heard Paul tell this story, my boss turned to me and said, “Dan, if you ever buy something from QVC–you’re fired.”
As we subsequently understood it, coin companies selling coins through these tv shows seek a 100% MARKUP OR MORE. (At least, they did then. Don’t know if this still true.)
I’m sure some of these stations sell collectable stuff that’s neat and might be worth paying the surcharge for, in case you can’t find it elsewhere. But don’t buy collectable coins through cable–you can find them cheaper elsewhere.
Sunshine: CVS is a drugstore that used to be Revco.
When I first saw the Boogie Bass commercial, I looked over at my wife. She was agog with amazement (at the stupidity of the thing). I teased her, saying, "Now I know what to get for your birthday.
She was not amuzed.
When I was young, I bought a snow-brick maker (as seen on TV, but I got it at K-Mart). It was a 6x6x12 inch plastic box with a handle and a little metal scraper. You’d fill it with snow, pack it, and scrape the bottom even. Then you’d knock it on the ground and out came a perfect snow-brick. I didn’t get it for myself, I gave it to my brother, so he could build ski jumps. He graciously accepted it, but I’m sure it sat in his car trunk for years after that.
Remember the In-the-Shell Egg Scrambler?
I remember all those Ronco & K-tel television advertisements began running non-stop the day after Thanksgiving. [With promises of delivery prior to Christmas.]
The egg scrambler was the funniest of all. And then there was the Salad Shooter.
I’ve never bought anything from a TV ad, so I don’t know if Elton John’s rehydrating fat-free engine block hotdogger actually works.
I did get my free CD from Pizza Hut a few months back. It seems to work okay.
ahh… handy… what good does that do you? I thought you were deaf. Maybe the batteries are dead and you dont even know. 
Yes dear, but on a grill can you cook the meat, then cook hashbrown potatoes, then cook frozen vegetables, then wipe it off with a sponge?!?! I THINK NOT!!! 
There was one commercial a few months ago that came so close to reeling me in. It was for this set of cookware that you’d heat up to a certain point, then turn off the heat and it maintained it’s temperature through a vacuum seal or insulation or something. They showed them heating it up, then putting it in the freezer for the rest of the day, lol. There were all these weird inserts so you could cook your pot roast and steam the veggies on the next layer. They even showed them making chicken in the bottom, then filled the top insert with cake mix and made a cake at the same time. I was totally lunging for the phone and my husband had to wrestle it from my hands shouting “We don’t want cake that tastes like pot roast!!!”
I’ve seen that infomercial. It stars “The Mommies”. I too was sucked in until they gave the price. It was something like $350 for 4 pieces. :rolleyes:
And my mom bought it for my then five year old brother, who actually watched it a few times. The main character is a Construction-Genie who lives in a steel thermos instead of a lamp. The bulldozers (even with the dubbed in voices) were absolutely Oscar-worthy compared to the humans. Oh, and did I mention that it was a musical? I’ll never forget the stirring rendition of “We’re Trucks”.
I must say that There Goes a Bulldozer with Dave and Becky was vastly superior.
So would you say it was a good product all things considered?
If it was, I’ll admit I was wrong. It just struck me as soooo funny when I first saw it.
Maybe I’ll get the Bass for my Dad. me and him have this thing going (well me) I give him Gag gifts usually. (Like in his card… tastefully funny weg one I might add… a fake lotto ticket which says you win 10,000 dollars but of course you have to scratch it with your front teeth and cash it within 20 seconds to get the money)
His girlfriend also gets interesting gifts for him (or him for her or from her office friends) like a dancing teddy bear that plays a Christmas Carol (can’t remember which one) or Rudolph whose nose lights up and plays (you guessed it) Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (actually I almost bought one for myself of that one) and a tree (looks like a normal tree) but then it opens its eyes and mouth and starts to sing and talk. Weird stuff I tell you.
What about that cool spray Hair In A Can? My brother actually bought this as a joke when we found it dirt cheap in a local salvage store. Maybe he made furry graffiti with it; I never asked.