I love autumn, and one of my favorite things about the season is Halloween.  I love Halloween more than any adult should.  I plan costume ideas year ’round; it’s not uncommon to hear me say, “OOH!  You know what I should be for Halloween?”–in April.  As I write this, I am surrounded by flickering candles, bats, jack-o-lanterns, black cats, and haunted houses.  From where I sit on my couch, I can count no fewer than seven jack-o-lanterns in my living room, and that’s not counting the pumpkins on the strand of Halloween lights or on the Halloween tree.  (Yes, I said, “Halloween tree.”)

But this isn’t an ode to Halloween blog; it’s a television infomercial blog.  This isn’t a post about the best as seen on TV products for Halloween; it’s Way Back Wednesday.  So how am I going to connect the two ideas?  Funny you should ask . . .

In last week’s Way Back Wednesday, I promised to talk to you a little more in depth about Rejuvenique, an electronic mask designed to exercise the muscles of your face, giving you a more youthful appearance.  Now, if the thought of electrocuting your face isn’t frightening enough, get a load of the way this beauty mask looks:

Now, instantly, I’m expecting an electrified knife-wielding serial killer.  Like this guy:

Michael Myers, "Halloween"

(Coincidentally, a commercial for this movie came on right as I was inserting the picture.  How’s that for spooky?)

But maybe that isn’t a fair comparison.  Perhaps the mask looks more like this one:

Jason Voorhees, "Friday the 13th"

In the interest of fairness, though, let’s take a look at how well Rejuvenique worked at toning the muscles of the face to give a firmer, more youthful appearance to your skin.  Here is what Jason Voorhees looks like, unmasked, in Friday the 13th, Part IV:  The Final Chapter:

Jason Unmasked

And after Rejuvenique.  Behold:

Behold, Behold, Behold

(Dear women readers:  You’re welcome.)

When thinking of infomercial product marketing, several big names come to mind:  Ron Popeil, Billy Mays, Anthony Sullivan, and of course, the legendary Jack LaLanne.  Now in his mid-nineties, Jack LaLanne began his career as a fitness expert, and was among the first to encourage weight lifting for not only men’s health, but for women as well.  A fitness innovator, he created some of the first weight training machines, including the leg extension machine and the Smith machine.

LaLanne was the first to take his fitness programs to television.  Even before the days of selling “as seen on TV products,”  LaLanne was a television fitness guru.  In the following clip from one of his early shows, LaLanne shows how important it is to exercise even your face:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isLJ024EdMA

Since then, a number of products and videos have launched to help people with facial exercise, including the Neckline Slimmer, Facial Flex, Flexaway, and Rejuvenique, which we’ll look at more closely next week.

Jack LaLanne himself didn’t stop with his fitness programs.  LaLanne has authored books, developed nutritional supplements, and marketed two of the top selling infomercial juicers:  The Juice Tiger and Jack LaLanne’s Power Juicer.  LaLanne touts the nutritional benefits of juicing, and since he celebrated his 96th birthday last month, I’d say he may be on to something.

I have a cake baking in the oven (unfortunately, not a Big Top Cupcake), and it smells amazing.  There’s just nothing like the smell of freshly baked cakes, cookies, or bread.  In fact, just smelling the cake–which I’m not even going to get to eat–is making me hungry.  If I had this week’s Way Back Wednesday product handy, though, I’d be all set.

AromaTrim is weight loss product designed to help prevent its users from eating, literally stopping them mid-chew, before they could eat too much.  As the infomercial shows, all these people had to do to prevent overeating was just sniff the AromaTrim, a little piece of plastic with an undefined “herbal” odor:

Finish the brownie?  No way.  Eat three or four giant cookies? Uh-uh.  Gobble down a vat-sized cone of french fries?  Puh-lease.  Apparently, AromaTrim “changes the taste” of food through its “herbal” odor.  I’d be curious to know what kind of herb these people were inhaling . . . er, sniffing.  Stinkweed perhaps?

Regardless, I’m going to assume that it must smell pretty awful to keep Biggie there from his fries.

Strangely, AromaTrim came in two different scents–one designed to control cravings and the other designed to suppress hunger.  If it makes your food taste like swamp water, does it really matter which scent you choose?  For that matter, couldn’t you just sniff the gym sock of an overweight 7th grader?  Actually, according to AromaTrim, the special “herbal” blend scrambles your brain’s hunger signals (that’s what I’ve heard about certain “herbs”), and doesn’t merely mask the taste of the food with a truly horrendous stench.

The television airwaves are filled with infomercial weight loss products.  From “diet foods” such as Smart for Life Diet Cookies to supplements like Formula 9, SBL, and Emagrece Sim, there are a number of products designed to help you lose weight without having to resort to sniffing some unimaginable funk, replacing your hunger with nausea and repulsion.  Wouldn’t you rather take a diet supplement or eat a cookie?

Speaking of cookies, there’s the timer on my cake.  There’s no way I’d do anything to kill that smell.  Mmmmm . . .

I love Fall.  It is by far my favorite season, and I’ll admit that I start planning Halloween costumes and decorations far in advance of the actual season.  In my neck of the woods, temperatures are often in the 80′s well into October, but I’ll throw on a pot of chili just as a matter of principle.  However, when football season hits, I start dreaming of cooler weather, beautiful foliage, and pumpkins on every doorstep.  I hate to be cold, so when the weather is cool, I love nothing more than snuggling on the couch under a warm blanket.  That’s why this year, I’m going to cave and get a Snuggie.  Oh, how I mocked the Snuggie when it first came out.  I believe I’ve even mocked it here on Way Back Wednesday.  But I borrowed one in a freak snowstorm last winter and fell in love with it.   Now that you can order a Sports Snuggie, it will be the perfect accompaniment to college football, one of the truly great things about Fall.

You know, the idea behind Snuggie is not new.  In fact, there is another blanket with sleeves called the Slanket.  Now, I ask you:  which would you rather cuddle up with?  A Snuggie (insert cozy, warm, cuddly images here) or a Slanket (“Marv!  Call the plumber!  The drain is backed up and there’s slanket all over the floors!”).  The Snuggie has become a smash hit in the world of blankets and in the world of infomercial products in general.  I think it has a lot to do with the name.

A name can make or break a product.  Here I am going to give you a list of some of the most poorly named infomercial products available.  These names are so ill-conceived that I can’t even comprehend the strategy behind them.  In fact, these names are so unspeakably bad that I’m going to refrain from making my usual snarky comments and just let these horrible product names speak for themselves.

• Catch It:  A litter box product designed to help scoop the kitty business from the litter.  Go ahead.  Say it out loud and think about the product.  You’ll get it.
• Nads:  An all-natural hair removal product supposedly named for its creator’s daughter.
• Magic Bullet:  It’s a blender.  Duh.
• Rack Trap:  I guess this is exactly what it says it is.  It’s a little pocket you put inside your bra.  That’s an even worse name than The Hooter Hider nursing cover.

Last but certainly not least on my horribly named products list is . . . well, I’ll just let you see the infomercial that was really, truly, honest-to-goodness seen on TV:

That’s T-I-D-D-Y.  Can you even imagine the product proposal meeting where that name was chosen?  I mean, what names did they turn down, for the love of Pete?!

It just makes my brain hurt.