With New Year’s Resolutions for fitness and weight loss quickly approaching, it is time for most of us to go on that final holiday calorie splurge just before we have to dust off the Total Gym or Bowflex or pop P90x into the DVD player in an effort to incinerate our fat and fit back into our pre-holiday pants.

Before we can think about how we can get fit quickly, however, we have to consider how to obtain maximum caloric overload in minimal time.  I mean, after all, once January 1 hits, we will never eat anything bad for us again.  NEVER.  I mean it this time!!

Now, if we still lived in the 1980′s, before we popped a Jane Fonda workout tape in the VCR (or BetaMax) we could make simple, yet tasty snacks–even “apple pie” in as little as two minutes with the SuperSnacker?

How do I know the SuperSnacker is the perfect snack-making appliance?  Everyone’s favorite butler, Mr. Belvedere, told me so.

(Cue theme music.)

Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t equate flaky pie crust with toast.  I’m pretty sure if I brought apple pie filling stuffed between two slices of toast to our Christmas dinner and called it “apple pie,” the “hungry hooligans” in our family would run me out of town.  And if I said it was “just like mom used to make,” I’d be kicked out of the family forever–and I can’t remember my mom ever making an apple pie.

The “Supah Snackah,” as Mr. Belvedere* so aggressively calls it, is for so much more than Apple Toast Pie, though:

Now, I’m not thinking I’d use my SuperSnacker for making eggs or muffins, but I do think that this kind of infomercial kitchen product was a predecessor of modern conveniences like the Hulk Hogan Ultimate Grill.  Indoor countertop grills are so common now that I don’t know how I ever lived without one.   I’m just not sure I’d ever use it for pie.

At least, not in the new year.

I mean it this time.

*I know Mr. Belvedere has a real name.  It’s Christopher Hewett.  But let’s face it–if I called him that, would you have the faintest idea who I was talking about?

The holidays are fast approaching–only two more shopping days until Christmas!  At the Way Back Wednesday home, we’ve handled the gift-buying largely by avoiding the malls and ordering online, and we’ve commenced celebrating by watching scores of children’s holiday movies with Way Little Wednesday.   The combination of these two has been ultra-convenient, as whenever I see an infomercial for an as seen on TV product that will be great for someone on my shopping list, I just pop open the laptop, head over to SeenOnTV Express, and my shopping is taken care of, without ever leaving the couch or missing a minute of our Christmas Film Festival.

Speaking of Christmas movies, last week we talked about how no one does Christmas music quite like Time Life.  However, Time Life doesn’t just do music; they have some of the best video collections as well.  Radio City Christmas Spectacular featuring the Rockettes is one example of how Time Life Music and Video brings a Christmas phenomenon right into your home.

Kids’ Christmas videos is another area in which they excel.  This year, Mr. Way Back Wednesday and I decided that we can’t just wait to happen upon our favorite Christmas movies–we need to buy the DVDs so that Way Little Wednesday can watch them whenever he wants.  Finding all the children’s Christmas classics was a little more difficult–and expensive–than we had anticipated.  We should have realized that Time Life (and a time machine) would have had the perfect solution:

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman are two of my personal favorites.  In fact, they are destined to become favorites of Way Little as well.  Today, after watching Frosty, Way Little exclaimed, “Again!”

From all of us at Way Back Wednesday and SeenOnTV Express, have a “Holly Jolly Christmas:”

For the last few decades, Time Life music has created some of the best music compilations available.  Before MP3 playlists, and even before the mix tape, Time Life was taking your favorite songs and putting them together on one LP.  As music trends–and formats–have changed, TimeLife music has evolved.

One thing that hasn’t changed, is the quality of their holiday albums.  While an occasional new Christmas song hits the airwaves, generally, Christmas is about the classics.  The following TimeLife infomercial shows that, while hairdos change, nostalgic Christmas tunes never go out of style:

Today’s workouts for men are all about working hard and getting ripped.   The hottest–and hardest–workouts include boot camp workouts, P90x, and Insanity.  The infomercials for these video exercise programs show men dripping with sweat, groaning in agony, and pushing themselves to the limit in order to get the lean, muscular, rippling body I enjoy ogling they want.

But things were not always so difficult for all of these poor men in pursuit of fitness.  Enter the manliest man of them all–Richard Simmons.  Our dear Richard is generally known for cavorting around with the ladies, dancing with them on stage in malls all across America, giving them the confidence to be seen in public “Sweatin’ to the Oldies.”  But Richard knew that men were not immune to the perils of low self-esteem from a less than stellar body.  Because a full THIRTY FIVE PERCENT of his letters come from men, he decided to create a program to help these poor men achieve weight loss results without resorting to grueling, painful workouts.

Enter “Farewell to Fat.”  Today’s seen on TV workout videos are all about feeling the burn and taking your workout to the extreme, and the titles prove it.  TurboFire and Chalean Extreme are only two examples that showwomen aren’t immune to this phenomenon of working out until you drop.  But with Farewell to Fat, the title reflects the softer side of working out.  You can practically see Richard’s wrist a-fluttering as he waves buh-bye to that unwelcome fat.  “Toodle-oo and farewell, fat, old friend!”

With Farewell to Fat, Richard Simmons invited men into his world of booty-shakin’ workouts.  Mall stages weren’t just for women anymore:

Richard Simmons:  The Great Equalizer

(I can’t let this post go without drawing your attention to the spectacular molestache at 0:58.)

For a very special, post-holiday version of Way Back Wednesday, we’re going all the way back to last week to look closely at the perils of Thanksgiving.  While you may think that scorched sweet potatoes or being forced to endure Great Aunt Tillie’s Mystery Jello Mold may rank among the greatest dangers of Thanksgiving, such thoughts are woefully misguided.  Oh, no, my friend–the hazards are much, much more horrifying.

Enter Exhibit A:

Photo credit: ehow.com

Fortunately, until your As Seen on TV exercise videos and infomercial fitness equipment kick in, there’s the Perfect Fit Button, which our unfortunate Thanksgiving victim above clearly needs.  With the Perfect Fit Button, he could adjust his waistband to give him a little extra breathing room until January when he resolves to lose that spare tire, instead of simply walking around with his pants open like some kind of Thanksgiving pervert.  (Uncle Bill, take note.)

What’s that you say?  Gaining a few holiday pounds is not a true danger?  Well, tell that to your cardiologist, and then take a look at this holiday horror–the exploding deep fried turkey:

Strangely, this phenomenon is so common, there are even Public Service Announcements warning people against deep frying a turkey.  The number of videos of people setting their holiday meal on fire (not to mention their eyebrows) is staggering.  Luckily, there is an infomercial cooking product to save the day and keep you from looking like this in all of your family holiday photos:

From NBC's Seinfeld

The Butterball Indoor Electric Turkey Fryer is safe enough to use on your kitchen countertop, with a fill-line to keep you from overfilling your grease, which, in a traditional turkey fryer would spill over the top and onto the open flame below, thus incinerating your backyard.  Also, the Butterball Turkey Fryer has a heating element that submerges into the unit, rather using an actual fire. Thanks to Butterball, you no longer have to try to stretch your holiday meal, sans turkey, to feed the entire fire department in addition to your passel of relations–including Aunt Tillie and Uncle Bill.