Most infomercial products are ingenious, identifying a problem (often one you didn’t even know you had) and addressing the solution to that problem.  Do your arms stay chilly while you try to read?  Try a Snuggie!  Peeling boiled eggs takes forever and leaves little bits of shell in your lunch?  Try Eggies!  Is your hair an unruly mess?  Try the Instyler!  From kitchen products to beauty products, from exercise equipment to household products, infomercials provide a wealth of conveniences.

Every so often, though, an As Seen on TV product comes around that leaves me scratching my head.  The Happy Hot Dog Man is one such product.  Now, don’t get me wrong–I’m all for making mealtime fun for the kids (I still want a Big Top Cupcake), but the Happy Hot Dog Man may just be taking it one step too far:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0JHLGkiEEU

“It’s like a toy you can eat!!”

To make fun little Hot Dog Men that you can dress and decorate before devouring, simply place the hot dog into the Happy Hot Dog Man press.  In about a second, you can have a Happy Hot Dog Man with arms, legs, and a smiling mouth.  This trick would take you about three seconds with a knife, so you can see what a time saver it is.  It even comes with a Ketchup Critter and a Mustard Monster to help your kids make messes decorate the Happy Hot Dog Man.

The Happy Hot Dog Man has been mocked featured on Jimmy Kimmel Live and Good Morning America.

While my initial reaction to the Happy Hot Dog Man is one of ridicule, I actually DO see some practical use for this product.  As the parent of a toddler, I know that making food entertaining is one of the only ways to get a small child to actually eat dinner, rather than pushing it away, saying, “No, mommy!  I don’t like dat yucky dinner!” or throwing it directly on the floor.  And of course, I’m not handing my two-and-a-half year old a knife and having him make his own Happy Hot Dog Man, lest we venture to the hospital to see Happy ER Doctor for a set of stitches.

Maybe the Happy Hot Dog Man isn’t such a silly infomercial kitchen product after all.

AP/Ariel Hankin

Fairwell to Fitness Legend Jack LaLanne

The legendary fitness guru who once joked, “”I can’t afford to die. It would wreck my image,” recently passed away at the age of 96.  On Sunday, January 23, 2011, wellness expert Jack LaLanne died of respiratory failure as a result of pneumonia.  LaLanne was a leader in promoting and popularizing fitness and wellness,  and is credited by numerous celebrities as the reason they adopted a fit, healthy lifestyle.

LaLanne used his enthusiasm and his understanding of wellness to encourage others and to bring exercise out of the gym and into the living rooms of the common man–and woman–as early as the 1950′s.  Jack LaLanne said, “The only way you can hurt the body is not use it. Inactivity is the killer and, remember, it’s never too late.”  The unassuming man proved this time and again through feats of strength and fitness that would amaze his audience and help spread his message.   According to an Associated Press obituary listed on Yahoo! News, LaLanne performed 1,000 pushups in 23 minutes on the show You Asked For It–at the age of 43.  When he was 60, he swam from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.  If successfully swimming more than a mile through the choppy, frigid water (seasonal temperatures in the Bay range from 46-73 degrees) weren’t enough, LaLanne swam “handcuffed, shackled, and towing a boat.”

Jack LaLanne – it takes more than exercise

LaLanne’s message of health did not end with the importance of exercise.  He was a proponent of natural nutrition, focused on whole grains, lean protein, and fresh fruits and vegetables.  In fact, he made getting vital nutrients easier with the Jack LaLanne Power Juicer, one of the most successful infomercial products available.

Finally, LaLanne focused on total mind-body wellness, illustrating the power of optimism and the role of exercise and nutrition on improving one’s emotional outlook:

When asked about his intensive daily workout routine and how long he planned to keep it up, Jack LaLanne replied, “”How long are you going to keep breathing? How long do you keep eating? You just do it.”

He is survived by his wife of 51 years, Elaine LaLanne, and his three children, Dan, Jon, and Yvonne.

Jack LaLanne – you will be missed.

At this time of year, many people are diving headfirst into their New Year’s Resolutions.  [4BP4M9G6FRD3] Even more are giving up on those lofty goals, figuring they’ve got the next eleven months to achieve them. (To quote a friend who lit up a cigarette at 12:05 a.m. on January 1, “I said I was going to quit smoking this year. I didn’t say I was going to quit today.”)  In the spirit of the new year, I was planning to write this week’s Way Back Wednesday with a focus on vintage infomercial weight loss products or as-seen-on-TV exercise equipment.  But quite frankly, all of this thinking about fitness just makes me hungry.  When I’m hungry, all I can think of is how to get food and how to get it NOW.

And so Way Back Wednesday takes a detour.

When my search for weight loss infomercials of the 1980′s and 1990′s turned to a search for infomercial products designed for cooking convenience, I came across this “handy” device.  The Handy Peel was a kitchen glove designed to make peeling vegetables quick and easy, and I’ve got to admit, it has me wondering how I can get a hold of this product:

I do think it is funny that the effectiveness of the Handy Peel is compared with peeling with a knife, rather than and actual vegetable peeler, like the Titan Peeler.

I think the Handy Peel introduced other “hands-on” methods of cooking.  I mean, why mess with extra kitchen utensils and tools, when you can just handle the food directly?  The Ove Glove eliminates the bulk of traditional oven mitts and hot pads, leaving you with the manual dexterity to adroitly pull your pans from the oven without burning yourself or dumping your freshly baked dinner on the floor. The Grill Glove is another way to make cooking easier by skipping the middleman and leaving your tongs and spatulas in the drawer.  Just grab and flip the meat on your grill; the heat-resistant silicone gloves are sanitary and safe.

Now if they could just invent a glove that would load the dishwasher, I’d be set.

Welcome to the first post of 2011!  We at Way Back Wednesday and Seen on TV Express wish you a very happy, prosperous, and fulfilling new year.

Of course, the new year brings with it a slew of resolutions, including the #1 New Year’s Resolution of all time–to lose weight and get in shape.  Gyms and fitness centers, much like my post-holiday jeans, are bursting at the seams.  Even though the crowds will thin much more quickly than the actual gym patrons themselves, adults of this generation are more fitness conscious than ever before, shaped by a childhood that emphasized activity and exercise.  Whereas America today is plagued by an epidemic of childhood obesity, the 1980′s encouraged fitness among children.  Just check out these gender-specific workout kits seen on TV in the era that first made leg warmers hot.

For the girls was Get in Shape Girl, with five different exercise kits to choose from:

Now, I remember that the Way Back Little Sister had the ribbon gymnastics kit, and she runs actual half-marathons and stuff–for fun–so I’m sure this early introduction to fitness had an impact on her future dedication to staying in shape.

(Note:  I tried a half-marathon once.  It was most assuredly NOT fun.)

For the boys, there is no better way to bulk up than with the help of WWF (pre-WWE) superstar Hulk Hogan:

I must admit, I’m a bit confused as to why Hulk Hogan’s Hulkamania Workout Set was promoted by Mr. Wonderful, Paul Orndorff, rather than the Hulkster himself, but that is a mystery that may never be solved.

What do these workout kits have in common?  Wall posters, cassette tapes, and–most importantly–sweatbands and wristbands!  You simply cannot get a good workout without elasticized terry cloth strapped around your head and arms.  It’s a fact.

Moving on from Kid Fitness – The Flex Belt, Gym Flex, Total Gym and others provide options for Adults

These days, Hulk Hogan has moved from the gym to the kitchen with his Hulk Hogan Ultimate Grill, but those of us who grew up on kiddie workouts can maintain our fitness lifestyles with today’s workout equipment for adults.  That old step from your Jane Fonda step aerobics video has been reinvented as the GymFlex, which converts from a step to a bench to an incline and contains straps, attachments, bars, and handles for a total body strength training workout.  The Total Gym also allows you to strengthen and tone your entire body at home, giving you an effective workout while allowing you to avoid the hoards of New Years Resolutioners that will hog all the treadmills and exercise machines at the local gym.  Finally, the FDA-cleared Flex Belt allows you to maximize your results by toning your abs even when you aren’t actively working out.

Of course, if your workout style is more Mr. Belvedere than Mr. Wonderful, there’s always the Perfect Fit Button and Pajama Jeans to get you through until next year’s New Year’s Resolutions come knocking.

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?

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.

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.

One thing as seen on TV products are designed to do is make you feel like your ordinary way of doing things is completely ineffective.  Without these innovative infomercial products, you will be doomed to a mundane, fruitless life.  This is particularly true when it comes to kitchen products and cooking utensils.  How anyone ever managed to prepare a healthy, delicious family meal in the days before Ron Popeil is anyone’s guess.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a complete sucker for kitchen gadgets.  I once spent $45 on a tomato slicer (a fact which shall forever remain unknown to Mr. Way Back Wednesday).  Now I am able to slice tomatoes of perfectly even thickness, without squishing them into odd little oval-shaped slices and getting tomato guts everywhere.  Now isn’t that worth $45?  I’ll also admit that I’m going to be more than a little disappointed if there isn’t a Big Top Cupcake waiting for me on my birthday, and that the Slap Chop is the perfect way to take out frustrations in the kitchen.  And every time I feed the Way Back Wednesday Toddler (or as we call him, Way Little Wednesday), I long for a Gyro Bowl.

On the subject of today’s Way Back Wednesday, though, I’m a little torn.  I mean, this thing is either one of the more ridiculous things I’ve seen, or it is brilliant and I absolutely need one.  I’m talking about Pancake Puffs here.   With the Pancake Puffs pan, you no longer have to suffer through boring, flat pancakes–you can have round, giant-doughnut-hole looking pancakes!  Christopher Columbus would be proud:

Oh, wow.  How would you like to be the kid who wakes up on his birthday to find not a birthday cake, but a giant mound of frosted balls?

Now, some of those puffs sounded pretty delicious, but others made me want to throw up a little.  Plus, it the whole filling injector seemed a little creepy to me.

But hey–it comes with 50 flippin’ sticks.  What more could you want?

Today’s Way Back Wednesday goes way, way back–all the way to 1979.   Ron Popeil, the founder of Ronco, has been bringing his as seen on tv products to the airwaves for forty years.  With classic infomercial products such as 6 Star Knives and the Pocket Fisherman, Ronco has become a staple in as seen on tv inventions.

One of the early Ronco products was Mr. Microphone, and its infomercial has to be my favorite yet.  Some of the Way Back Wednesday videos are pretty funny, but this one actually made my sides hurt.  Mr. Microphone was a wireless mic designed to broadcast your voice over any FM radio, and guaranteed to liven up any party.  Just watch:

You can see that this karaoke predecessor was perfect for all kinds of people:

• Kids
• Professional Entertainers
• Drunken Party-Goers
• Crazy Dancing Transistor Radio Guys
• Pervy Cat-Calling Potential Kidnappers
• Amateur Roller Derby Teams, including Roller Skating Grandmas!

And at only $14.88, Mr. Microphone was a bargain!  For only a little more than $5 extra, you could order Mr. Microphone II, which also included a radio, batteries, and an 8-foot connecting cord.   I’m sure Mr. Microphone was stuffing all the stockings in December 1979.

On our Way Back Wednesday posts, we’ve looked at a lot of different seen-on-tv products, and we’ve seen the evolution of the television infomercial.  The Mr. Microphone commercial reminds us of a kinder, gentler time, when someone could jive through the park, singing aloud through his transistor radio without being institutionalized, and a man could yell out the car window at innocent bystanders without fear of being added to the national sex offender registry.  Ah, those were the days.

I’ve just updated the site with quite a few new diet and fitness products to add to our list of existing products to help you lose weight and get in shape.  If dropping pounds or improving your fitness is one of your New Years Resolutions, now is the time to order the products you want to help you achieve those goals.  Here is some of the hottest selling exercise equipment  we’ve had available on our site:

• Ab Circle
• The Contour Ab Belt
• Slendertone System Abs
• Ab Rocket
• Iso7X

And here’s what’s new:

• UltraRez [RezV1000]
• Transform12
• IsoBo
• BodiPro
• BodiRocker
• Exerspy

Juicing has also been a popular category with diet and fitness consumers over the past several years, and we have a couple of new juicers to offer, including the Sharper Image Super Juicer and the Living Well Healthmaster Fruit and Vegetable Emulsifier.