“Infomercial Hell” is a mashup of 90 different horrible infomercial moments into one 5-minute masterpiece.
“When I put this together,” editor Nick Moore told Wired, “I imagined it would be like a bleak, depressing propaganda short of life in Soviet Russia — except funny.”
What’s neat is after seeing so many clips back to back you start to see the same techniques used over and over again, like the Joe and Jane Briefcases who find doing tasks “the normal way” just so full of frustrating fumbles and bumbles. Good thing there’s a product for that!
The piece has been kicking around on the nets for a while but we’ve never covered it before and it’s a deserving enough piece on its own merits.
Infomercial Hell – watch more funny videos
More From Consumerist
-
Relegated To Alienware's Own Dell Hell
-
Using Your Spouse’s Costco Card Will Launch A Mini Fraud Investigation
-
From The Museum Of Failed Informercial Products: Fushies
-
You Should Really Use Google Two-Factor Authentication
-
United Passenger: Airline Lost My Wheelchair, Sent Me One Belonging To Another Passenger
I hate those black and white commercials where everyone has two left thumbs and is no smarter than a bag of fertilizer, but for only $19.95* (plus separate shipping and handling) you will become a pro at cracking eggs, your family will love you again and all this will be shown in technicolor to signify positive change.
But wait! if you call RIGHT NOW, we’ll send you TWO useless pieces of crap for the same price! (plus separate shipping and handling)
And we’re not done yet! We’ll include this ginuine Ginsu caving knife FREE
(plus separate shipping and handling)
All these separate shipping and handling charges, yet the items are all mailed to you in the same box????
I loved the ad where the imbecile couldn’t manage to pour spaghetti into the strainer without dumping it all down the drain. But wait! Here’s a miracle product – a pot with a strainer built into the lid. It always looked much harder to use than a regular colander.
Continual thoughts;
Do people even have that boiled egg problem?
&
“THIS LADY IS GETTING GINGIVITIS”
She’s not even brushing her teeth fully.
i think they are an invasion and i will never buy from a infomercial
Infomercial hell happens every day, especially on weekends.
The number of paid programs on all the crappy cable channels is getting out of hand.
People in infomercials are dumber and more helpless than Sims.
I kinda like mopping the floor and doing abdominal work. I must not be a real person.
thanks Ben!
Toothpaste is too hard and we just give up!
meh funny — but on topic
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/jar-glove/656341/
This one was better:
http://consumerist.com/2010/04/video-youre-doing-it-wrong-a-tribute-to-as-seen-on-tv-ads.html
Agreed!
Yep, came to here to say that.
It’s amazing how the human race has lasted so long without all these wonderful inventions.
I’m always amazed that everything in the TV world costs just $19.95. If the item is too cheap, they send you two of them or a BONUS “gift” (just pay separate shipping and handling).
It’s because studies have shown that people are unlikely to return a product they’re unhappy with if the cost is $20 or less.
I just bought the “Yoshi Blade” its pretty nice for a $20 ceramic knife.
HAS THIS EVER HAPPENED TO YOU?
I love how the “old way” is always shown in black and white and at an off angle.
Why is everyone so dumb?
The lady at 0:27 seems to have solved her problem rather effectively. But that won’t stop an entrepreneur…
“Having trouble opening that jar again? Introducing GRAVITY! For only $9.87+S&H, GRAVITY can be installed IN YOUR HOME **AUTOMATICALLY**, with no messy wires!”
Now that the holiday advertising orgy is over, local stations and cable channels have returned to the post-Christmas glut of “PI” (per inquiry) ads. If you’re gullibale enough to order the product, the station gets a cut (usually 15-20%) of the selling price as payment for running the ad.
The reality of this set in this evening. Vince is back, preaching about the evils of having boring tuna and a boring life.
Pretty good, but about two minutes too long.
As much as I hate infomercials, I have to give it to them that they’re really funny sometimes. Speeking of this kind of thing, I noticed that the company that I bought my water carbonater from (renamed from SodaClub to SodaStream) now advertises as an “as seen on TV” company. It’s very annoying for me to see that because I hate infomercials, but my carbonater is actually really well made and usefull. How do we reconcile informertials with quality products? Could there actually be good products out there on those “paid programing” segments? Has anyone else ever seen their favorite small name company switch to stupid TV Ads? I’m really not sure anymore what to think about them…