# was it real lotion?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-real-lotion/141765>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 10, 2002, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-real-lotion/141765 "2002-12-10T15:06:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2002, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-real-lotion/141765/1 "2002-12-10T15:06:09Z")

</div>

On a local news show this morn, they showed David Letterman drinking one of J. Lo’s bottles of body lotion.  
I asusme it was a set up.  
Yes?  
If not, would it be dangerous to have done so?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![wu\_wei](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/6a8cbe/32.png) [@wu\_wei](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wu_wei)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2002, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-real-lotion/141765/2 "2002-12-10T15:47:38Z")

</div>

Letterman makes a running gag of drinking such things as motor oil and laundry detergent straight out of the bottle. I think it’s safe to assume that, whatever it was, it wasn’t lotion.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2002, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-real-lotion/141765/3 "2002-12-10T15:49:28Z")

</div>

It was funny.  
Wish i could stay up late enough to watch him.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![voguevixen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5ac83/32.png) [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2002, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-real-lotion/141765/4 "2002-12-10T17:36:13Z")

</div>

He used to do this a lot when Chris Elliot was on the show. I remember a skit of him sampling regular Alpo and the “new improved” Alpo to see if it really tasted better. Another one had him chugging from a bottle of “lighter” Wesson oil.

The gag here is that things sometimes look like other things. I’m guessing the “Alpo” was stew or hash, the Wesson oil was apple juice and although I didn’t see the lotion sketch, I’m going to guess it was condensed milk or cream of some sort.