a lot of infomercial products with the whole "person cant do basic thing" setup are really for people with disabilities, but for some reason they never wanna advertise them that way, so they put the inept person the the commercial as a scapegoat
Yesssss! Idk why there's such a stigma about advertising to the many people that live with a disability, I mean c'mon capitalism, huge target audience you're ignoring here!
Often these disability aid products are quite expensive because not many people need to buy them so they have to sell ot at a higher price. So to help reduce the price for the people who need it, some companies may also advertise it to non-disabled people to get more sales and allow people who actually need it to get it cheaper. But equally they should defo show examples of disabled ppl using it as well because often these products get ridiculed online for being useless when people don't realise how useful they are to people with limited mobility!!
By not advertising to people with disabilities directly, we can laugh at them without feeling bad about it, which means the ads get more traction. Also Billy mays is a legend for all the right reasons and Vince Offer for all the wrong...
the one thing i wish was mentioned is that a lot, and i mean A LOT, of these products were made with disabled people in mind. snuggies, egg cracking things, anything that made you go "who's actually that clumsy?" might've been made for disabled people. HOWEVER..... marketing them to everyone with the "look how convenient!" model means wider success in selling a product. snuggies were especially good for people in wheelchairs. i didn't make fun of infomercials the same way after learning that. there's still fun to poke, but there are some products that were made for people who struggle with mobility or precise motor functions!
Even lowkey ridiculous products like that pee golfing club could have some use for elderly men who are struggling with holding their pee in. Especially because many elderly men love golfing and toilets can be far away when you're on the field. It seems disgusting and stupid at first, but if you really think about it, there may be an actual demographic and use for it, they just don't sell it like that.
it's not only the wider success aspect of it, it may simply be that the creators of these products wanted to make sure they were actually affordable to the people who need them instead of the items in question being priced at extreme markups to justify the costs. As an example of what I'm talking about, look up a program called Jaws for Windows. It's a screen reader which allows blind people to hear the text on screen instead of having to see it. The msrp of this one simple computer program is equivalent to the price of a mid range office pc. Snuggies were only loved by wheelchair users because they were affordable. If they were sold exclusively for disabled people then the price would have been doubled or even tripled just to justify the costs of production to investors. This is the downside of capitalism and chasing the ever growing bottom line instead of actually doing right by people.
whenever i stay in a hotel, late night teleshopping channels are my comfort, i love it, not cus im interested in buying, its just the format and atmosphere is so good to feel cosy
Some of them, absolutely. The ones I've seen recently, however, feature extremely loud voices to grab people's attention, which is more headache inducing than anything
When you said “no one bought from the actual commercial” all I could think about was my family frantically trying to get the number on the tv screen before it went away. We bought a LOT from infomercials over the years.
Pretty sure my grandmother bought dozens, and while one of my mom's probably didn't call the number, she certainly did come home with more than a few boxes labeled "as seen on tv" 🤣
OMG the squiggle zigzag paint lady... I completely forgot about her until now but I love her. She seems so excited about her paintings. I would be crushed if it was an exaggerated grift for money Edit: Good news, she's legit! There's a clip of her, Dee Gruenig, on HGTV showing off her art and home. Her passion isn't just for sponges, but for all art mediums and, like, life in general. Things she mentions she loves: photos organizing nooks and crannies colors drawers pens relaxing and unwinding 10-year journals I wish I was 1/4 as happy as this woman.
Aw! This is so sweet! I especially like that she enjoys "organizing nooks and crannies", because same, and simply "drawers". Anything specific about them? NO! Just drawers.
At one point when I was younger, I watched a whole infomercial just thinking it was a normal ad and an actual show would start. I was sitting there for three hours watching an infomercial for an airfryer.
The way that I remember ads working as a child, was when they'd say THIS OFFER IS NOT IN STORES as though it was some exclusive thing. Like, they didn't WANT to be in stores, or something. So, if you saw one in a store, you'd think 'wow, they have this! I should get it here, instead of waiting for it at home.' Like most product ads, it relies on you forgetting you never even wanted it in the first place.
My local mall has an As Seen On TV store where they basically just sell infomercial products. Id see an ad and since my parents never let me call in, id just anxiously wait for it to show up in the store.
Do you remember the Proactiv infomercials? I remember years ago being in my local mall and I nearly lost my shit when I walked by a kiosk selling Proactiv. It was exciting for me because being in my late teens I had no credit or debit cards to my name so the fact that it was right there and I didn’t have to order it off the tv was sweet.
The handy stitch was the best info-mecial I ever had the privilege watch. The tag line about how difficult it was to use a regular sewing machine to repair drapes was paired with a video of a woman holding a full sized sewing machine up to her curtains that where still hanging from the window. That clip still lives in my head rent free years later.
The Zoobooks infomercials were so impactful on me as a child that when I found out last year that the Girl Scouts were selling Zoobooks subscriptions, I IMMEDIATELY ordered a one year subscription for myself. I'm 27. I COULDN'T RESIST.
My grandmother ordered zoo books and several other month subscription educational things from infomercials in the 80s. I still have all the zoo books. Also have these articulating blocks that chain together.
My grandmother just called me yesterday to ask my shoe size to order me some sneakers from something like HSN, lol. She unfortunately called at a terrible time when I was very busy at work and by the time I called her back, they'd sold out. But that's alright, I informed her to not worry about it. I've not bought new shoes in quite some time and I'm not 100% sure of my shoe size anymore. But I was appreciative of the offer regardless.
You should see the amount of old people that bring in trays of loose "investment grade" nearly worthless gemstones into jewelry stores. More, often it's even the kids inheritance.
@@FuzzySixx Yeah, it's kinda sad. Back before the internet was everywhere it was televangelists and home-shopping tv that were the worst financial predators of old people.
I was raised by infomercials. As a child I would wake up around 4am, but to not wake anyone else, I would tip toe down to the basement and turn the TV on. Being a lazy weak toddler, whatever the channel was, it remained. I had all the hot goss on the new vacuums, kitchen appliances, DYI fix-em-up kits, art supplies you name it. I was the talk of the town amongst all the neighborhood stay at home moms. Information is power, infomercials made me who I am today. And for the low, low price of 4 equal payments of $13.99.
When I was little, I remember turning on the tv in early hours of the morning, and they had entire movies worth of length, like 2 hours for a serious look at stuff like vacuum cleaners. They'd do tons of tests, especially for Shark vacuum cleaners, and show huge sets where every room would be clean. It felt like it was a serious news report about a miracle product.
As someone who works nights 6 days a week, I'm up at night on my day off and can confirm that infomercials are alive and well. They tend to play on the free TV channels available to anyone with a TV and an antenna between 3 am and 6 am in half hour intervals.
I work graveyard shift at a local news channel and have to sit there at night monitoring the infomercials to make sure they are running properly. Infomercials now are way more obviously targeted at the elderly, and play to their fear of the world around them - lifelock insurance, home title insurance, supplemental health insurance, auto repair insurance…sensing a trend?
@@MustertheBrohirrim Lol I couldn't say. The ones broadcast in my area are mostly for Lifelock and after market auto insurance like Endurance, or workout gear or interior home cleaning supplies for rug and floor cleaning.
my grandma actually bought a shit ton of infomercial products THROUGH tv, i’d have to hide the home phone from her because she’d be easily swayed by every infomercial and would call immediately… we still have some of the products she bought today, because she never used them
My dad bought a house that was foreclosed on. He ended up renting a dump truck to take away hundreds of boxes from QVC. The previous owner had very poor impulse control and craved the attention of the QVC staff.
My grandma used to love to watch QVS and other channels hawking stuff, and I asked my mom why she enjoyed doing that; mom said that Grandma grew up poor and was dazzled by all of the stuff for sale on TV. (She didn't actually buy stuff, but she loved to watch all of the stuff for sale.)
I just remember being 15, stoned out of my mind on my best friend’s couch, watching like a two-hour-long MyPillow infomercial while trying to eat string cheese. Good shit.
I had Dish TV before I switched to streaming and had to hide my remote if I decided to drink heavy or get stoned because I'd buy just the most random crap off of eBay and infomercials.
@@adrianbyrdie LOL. I distinctly remember asking my friend to open the string cheese for me because I couldn’t. She took off the wrapper and gave it to me. I looked at it for a minute before handing it back to her and asking her to open it (again)
That scene from the Betty Crocker Bake-n-Fill commercial when they're listing all the possibilities and she goes "EVEN BAKED ALASKA" and the cake is literally on fire. That scene always enters my mind at the worst possible times and I end up in a fit of uncontrollable laughter. Some jokes just write themselves.
Baked Alaska is a frozen cake layer topped with ice cream and smothered in meringue. The meringue is baked hot and fast, with its fluffiness insulating the core... Simple, really.
no joke i actually sobbed grieving for willy mays when he passed. i never even knew the guy, i just really liked the oxi-clean commercials and my tiny child brain was like “they cant make oxi clean commercials anymore he is irreplaceable” rip willy i still miss u man
Here, on Dutch television, they would air American as well as German informercials and there are some that still live in my memory and will never quite go away. One was some kind of cooking product, I don't remember what it was, but it starred Mister T who would enter the set by kicking the door down and then they'd just proceed to cook and advertise for an hour. Another one was from Germany advertising a knife set and I just remember it for how chaotic it was. It was so bad to follow what was going on. One moment the guy is cutting a tomato, the next thing he's tossing the knife around on the floor to show how durable it is, then he's cutting an orange, and then he's showing you the deal you the knife block, and it just never slowed down. There was an announcer standing next to him too the entire time wearing a singular earring who then tried to go 'order now!' but the guy cooking interrupted him like 'no no no, wait, don't order yet, I'm not done talking about this knife!'
I can confirm that elderly people are buying this stuff a bit today. I helped a family friend clean out this deceased lady's house and she had products from infomercials still in packages. I was told that she really couldn't do much and watching the infomercials and buying were what she mostly did.
My Memè used to watch the shopping channel and buy tons of costume jewlery. She had multiple jewlery boxes, and bins of it at the time of her death. Honestly I can kind of relate to that because I used to buy so much crap off wish for no reason.
The main reason for infomercials being everywhere was a court case where someone sued the producers of the Love Boat for having an extended commercial for the cruise line disguised as a TV show, and the Supreme Court ruled that it's a free speech issue, and suddenly there were hour-long commercials on TV and the shopping channels started up.
Ha! I lived in Fairbanks twice (5 and 4 years), and left in 1985 when I was 15. I used to get irrationally offended that all of the infomercial products were only available in the lower 48. I would yell at the tv that “Alaska is part of the US!!!!!!!” but alas, I was shouting into the void. I really wanted that genuine faux pearl ring that came with the can-slicing Ginsu knives….
Instead of buying all the products, my dad and I did the math and he made me feel smart about finding out the “scheme” behind the product; whether it was made cheaply and/or the hidden fees in the pricing.
These are how I learned to always watch out for how many times they want you to pay that "low" price in big bright numbers and for the cost of shipping.
they would make a product overpriced and “throw in a second one for free”, so essentially chargin your for two and forcing you to buy two lol. That was a scheme for a lot of them and I caught on when pillow pets did it lol
I gotta be honest, the fact that YT sponsors are, for all sake and purposes infomercials hits harder that anything else. thank you for this revelation and your contribution to consumer awareness
My brother and I convinced our parents to buy the original Big Mouth Billy Bass singing fish after seeing the infomercials. A quality buy that drove my parents slowly insane
When I was younger I watched an entire Shark Navigator vacuum infomerical, because I was curious how much info about a vacuum they had that they were taking up an entire hour. The amount of times I watched the lady say how maneuverable it was while swinging her arm to and fro to steer the vacuum around, and the bits where they used it to suck up like 7 bowling balls or whatever... Kept me entertained and made me want to watch more infomercials lol
I was watching in the background while feeding my 7 month old son and when you started singing at the end he looked up, stopped and smiled fondly hahaha
Somehow I literally always come across Gabi's newest video when I'm high and every time I'm like "somehow that is the exact perfect topic I want to hear about right now"
For me it definitely has to be the magic bullet blender. They introduced in entire house party that morning. Like Hazel who says that dinner is always a production. Unforgettable. That should’ve been a show.
oh my god i forgot about mighty putty. when i was a kid and had nightmares in the middle of the night, i would get scared. so i would go out to the living room and watch infomercials until i fell asleep again on the couch. it was kind of comforting to just have someone talking in the background and i didn’t feel alone. one of those times was for mighty putty and it was really long. i watched the whole thing at 4 am and was kind of sad when it was over, it was so intriguing to me as a kid.
If I had money as a kid sooo many infomercials would have gotten me. My parents were always telling me they’re a scam and I refused to believe it lol. My friend’s parents would get him some stuff form infomercials and I was always so jealous. I wanted that dang coloring sponge (forgot what it’s called lol), the blow markers (something my friend got, they were fun for like 2 mins), and that Betty Crocker ice cream cake baker
I will tell you as someone who got Floam as a kid (I think one of the only ones we got specifically because of watching an infomercial) that that one was partially a scam? Like, all but two of the different colors were unusable for some reason. Either too dry or too sticky or too messy. There was a stain on the bedroom carpet for probably close to a decade hahaha. But the two that did work were pretty fun. I guess modern version is all the different slime tutorials and now you can DIY your own Floam-like slimes.
I had the blow markers. THEY WERE AMAZING. However I lost them when I moved to the city. I don't remeber what they were called, but I believe they were "chameleon blendys". They were sold at Michaels and Jo'Ann's I believe.
Infomercials have a special place in my heart as a Caribbean person because that’s when I first realized the television we watched and the prices that were advertised weren’t local to everybody
I think the best infomercial was the "now that's what I call music". The infomercial was how you knew a new CD was out and it would play a small clip of all the songs on it. It made everyone run out and buy the CD at Walmart.
The Magic Bullet is the greatest informercial product and advertisement of ALL TIME. They made so many recipes with that thing and they all looked so delicious. I always got so hungry watching that damn thing.
I apologize up front, I thought this was going to be boring. I'm not a subscriber but you were on my recommended page. You proved me wrong. I found this incredibly fascinating! I didn't even really think about modern day adverts being an evolved form of the old school ones. This was great! You just earned a subscriber! :)
When I was a kid I LOVED watching infomercials, I used to stay awake until my dad went to bed to get up and watch infomercials, I loved the cooking supplies and cleaning infomercials the best. Pump and Seal was my favorite but I hated the workout ones
I would stay up after watching comedy central and they would play those adam & eve infomercials and I would watch them because I thought "haha funy sex toy" and plus there was nothing better on at night for me.
That was me waking up early on weekends to see the Magic Bullet infomercials 😁 Even as a young adult, I can't tell you why seeing cheese being blended, microwaved, and poured on a quesadilla had such a hold on me.
A classmate's mom in middle school was addicted to buying things from infomercials, I remember my classmate telling me how much he hated seing packages arriving once a week and that they were now in debt because of her spending, I can't imagine what it would have been like if amazon was as big back then.
Hearing "Only $19.95 !" Takes me back. Billy mayes and the rotisserie chicken oven was everywhere. And even crazier shit like the Girls Gone Wild infomercials at midnight. Edit: Holy shit I remember more stuff like Chia Pets.
I remember sneakily staying up late and waiting for the infomercial to end to watch cartoons but I would get increasingly more frustrated because I didnt know why the infomercial kept going.
I probably wouldn’t skip TH-cam adds if they were entertaining infomercials, there really isn’t anything quite like staying up a little later than usual and watching infomercials
I, too, was obsessed with the Betty Crocker Bake & Fill as a child. I’d watch the commercial every time bc it just looked so fun and easy, even though I was like 7 and wasn’t allowed to just bake when the mood struck I was convinced I’d be blowing my family away with an ice cream cake (decorated like a watermelon with the 100pc decorating kit, which I was also taken with and convinced I could use like a pro)
The magic bullet blender. It portrays it as a family/friend gathering at a beach house where they just had a party last night and wake up to 2 infomercial host selling you a mini blender. But the part that stands out in my mind is when one of the hosts asks what is the most annoying thing about making dinner and this elderly woman with a cigarette ashing about an inch away in a deep voice says, "Choppin Garlic"
Dude I used to sit there and watch the entire 2 hour ad for this. And I did it more than once 😂. Something about it was soothing to me idk why. It didn’t really make me want the blender I just loved that commercial
Zoobooks were one of my favorite things when I was a kid. My mom got me a subscription for as a birthday present, I'm so sad I didn't keep any of them around.
My favorite infomercials as a kid were the Fushigi ball and those markers that transition into differnt colors or something? I remember really wanting them as a kid lol
@@360sunset Yeah I can remember getting to play with one when one of the neighborhood kids got one, it was definitely the most disappointing moments in my life when I realized it was basically a big fancy marble
fun fact about cable, i canceled my cable TV in 2019 due to Netflix, i watched all movies that i want, new "good stuff" comes to netflix all day, is amazing, and then, all companies starting removing their content from netflix, starting their own streaming service, they starting became more and more expensive, and then, one day, my internet company send me a message offering a cable package for very, VERY cheap, and i decided, i cancelled all my streaming services and go back to cable, and i very happy with it, in cable channels today i watch all thing that i want, and for exclusive streaming shows, i go back to good old torrent, so, congratulations streaming services, you guys ressurected Cable TV, and turn piracy strong again, and im not alone, a lot of friends of mine return to cable, and for the first time in 6 years, 2023 is the first year that cable TV numbers in Brazil rised...
I’m glad you mentioned that TH-camrs are often informercial hosts now. I would really love for someone who was once sponsored to be able to talk about why HelloFresh and ScentBird insist on making the creators make the loooongest ads in their videos, ScentBird seemingly insists on it being at the beginning too, from what I can tell. Ultimately, I just wish that TH-cam treated creators better and paid more so that I didn’t have to see ads in every single video despite already paying for a premium subscription.
Best solution is honestly just to get one of the plugins that auto-skips through sponsored segments, and then flip a quid to the youtuber's patreon if you feel guilty about it, since £1 a year is far more than your viewing of their sponsored segments during that year would have been worth.
I regularly use "set it and forget it" and am quoting the rotissery chicken oven. Also, I love infomercials. We had really bad winter where I grew up and whenever we'd lose signal, infomercials were all I had. The vacume ones were always a classic, along with the blender ones. They developed my love for cooking in a way.
Cher deeply regretted doing infomercials and said something to the effect "I was considered cool and I lost that because of an infomercial.". It took a lot for her to regain her "cool" status!
when i had cable they ran infomercials all the time about cds with her live performances on them lol i’m guessing that she use to actually be a actress in them back in the day though huh
fun video!! i remember making my mom buy me moon sand from an infomercial, and it was so disappointing that i never asked for any infomercial products again lol.
I just discovered you and now i‘m doing a random „view everything from new creator“ thing. I love your way of presenting. Also every topic is interesting ❤
So my grandma wanted to buy a product from an infomercial once. It was some clothes hangers with bendy parts and foam on it to protect the clothes. She wanted just like a pack of 4, but because she is an old lady with undiagnosed adhd who only speaks French and she isn't very tech savvy, she ended up with like 30 hangers. It was something about the automated call would ask for the credit card infos and was very vague on how to confirm the order, so she was adding more and more to her order everytime she just wanted to stop and pay. We all got infomercial clothe hangers for Christmas that year and she never order from infomercials again. 🙃
I loved the slapchop infomercials because of the news story of the guy who did the informercial was so widespread. Also i genuinely thought the slapchop was a great idea and so useful and if i had money i wouldve bought one.
I used to be a copywriter. I was self-taught, and it took me a while to realize my style was clearly inspired by infomercials and late 90s/early 2000s advertising. I feel like this video was made for me and I love it.
I never became a copywriter and instead just wrote hundreds of fake, satirical commercials as a way to work all that consumerist propaganda from my brain
I make up songs all the time, First when I worked with little kids and secondly after I had my own kids. Kids will do anything if you put it into a song. My own kids make up songs and jingles and they are 100% inspired by me watching way too many infomercials in commercials, as well as theme songs, when I was a kid. Any time our house has a problem my kids make up a song or commercial about it. We had some water damage in our bathroom and they made up a whole ad campaign for what they called “water damage pro”. The funny thing is that we don’t have cable TV, we only watch Netflix and PBS Kids on the projector. So they’ve never seen commercials, unless we stay at a hotel or go to families house every few years that still have cable. To be fair we’ve watched 90’s commercial compilations…because they are very entertaining
I would watch infomercials on weekend mornings (I woke up before the good cartoons came on 😅) I literally wrote my parents an "essay" about why we needed the Magic Bullet. They never bought us one but I used my adult money to get one and is one of the best purchases I've ever made lmao 😂😂
Fun video. I think one factor alot of people overlook for the success of infomercials was that at 2am and sleep deprived your reasoning skills are usually not great so what seems like a great idea in the middle of the night probably wouldn't during the light of day.
I remember sitting through this rotisserie cooker informercial that lasted one to two hours with the tagline "Set it and forget it!", waiting for Kids WB to begin so I could watch Yu-Gi-Oh! 😂 Also, while not an informercial, the Biggest Earworm Commercial Award goes to... "HEAD-ON! APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD!" "HEAD-ON! APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD!" "HEAD-ON! APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD!" And for those who blissfully never saw that commercial, it was a product that worked like a deodorant stick that you rubbed on your forehead...and it claimed it could get rid of headaches. They ended up releasing several other products that worked similarly for other parts of the body (I have no idea of their actual effectiveness) but none were as infamous as the one for Head-On (apply directly to the--aw, fuck, that shit gets stuck in your head quickly if you're not careful 😂)
@@teubks I went and rewatched the commercial where someone had uploaded it here and read comments mentioning the same thing. Also read that the product was pretty much psudoscience garbage and was pulled from stores, lol.
RIP Billy Mays. I distinctly remember a time where me and my sleep deprived friend, during a sleepover/lan party thing, and then the magic bullet infomercial came on. In our loopy and tired state, it was the funniest thing we had ever seen. We still refer back to that night as "magic bullet time". 🤣
The magic bullet was the one that I remember most. A whole extended family of only adults sitting around a kitchen talking about the product, and the drunk uncle type guy with the hangover 😂
there were two times in my childhood where i BEGGED my parents to buy my an infomercial product. One was the Pure Jazz CD (still a banger) and I remember waiting for the commercial to come on and then running to my mom with the landline so she could call right away. The other was an electric toothbrush that had this like circular brush that would go on either side of your teeth. I think it also would light up too, idk why I wanted it so badly but I did.
an infomercial I think about all the time is the Gerber Baby Life Plan. there was at one point in high school where I had the whole thing, including the number, memorized. unrelated note, my dog really enjoyed your singing at the end ❤
Proactiv targeting my teen self with their tactical assault "acne care" is what turned me off of infomercials forever. THANKS JESSICA SIMPSON! Gave me that pizza face, extra marinara.
i remember when i was about 6, my grandma didn’t have cable tv, so i had to watch local channels. one time, i stumbled upon a random channel with cartoons, so i ran along with that since i had nothing else to do. during the commercial break, there was this one infomercial about this one cup that came with a lid which you could store snacks in. i immediately fell in love with it. i started begging my mom to get me one, until she did! i used it every single day and still use it to this day :)
Same thing here- exept it was “Fun Slides” the amazing way to Glide and Slide over Carpet! They’ve made everything in life more special: celebrating my driver’s license,, sliding out to greet my prom date( he was amazed!) When I wanted to storm out with some extra drama as I wailed drama.I’ll never grow out of them! They are perfect for all occasions ( mom thought I shouldn’t wear them at Grandpa’s funeral- but I showed her! Me and my fun slides stole the show(it would’ve been So BORING. My family were so upset they couldn’t even hide their jealousy . Heh heh!!! (Sliding way!)😎👍
i will admit. while i never purchased any informercial product, i've lowkey always enjoyed watching infomercial fails or just old infomercials at times
Billy Mays commercials were my favorite. I was obsessed with Billy Mays when I was about 14, and went trick or treating as him in 2010. Honorable mention for Vince being my second favorite informercial host. And always being a night owl, I remember the FlavorWave and NuWave Oven coming on in the middle of the night while I'd be drawing or playing Pokemon Diamond. It sounds stupid and life in America is weird, but informercials, and a lot of commercials hold lots of nostalgia for people. I find myself looking up commercial compilations from the early 2000s on TH-cam to have on in the background as comfort, and I know I'm not the only one.
My sister once bought an infomercial product. She was up at an obscene hour trying to get her infant back to sleep and was swayed by an ad for kitchen knives. To her defense, they were decent knives, even if they failed to help her ascend to a higher plane of being, as advertised.
rainbow art had me and my sister in a chokehold. the part of the commercial where they would say "it DRIIIIES instantly" with their fingers barely grazing the paper still makes me laugh 😂
It's a slippery slope. They're hilarious, and entertaining and very watchable. Utterly demanding mockery. But there's always a background subconscious temptation, some type of indoctrination. I somehow ended up with a shamwow no matter how cynical I was about what was sold on infomercials
The late 2000s were definitely the golden age of infomercials for me, I even remember quite a few of the products my mom bought were due to her watching the ads for them.
I remember as kids whenever me and my brother would see an infomercial for some toy we'd want it so badly that we'd rush to our mom and tell her to write down the phone number to "buy it later" but looking back, I think my mom would write it down to get us to shut up about it.
I remember so many of these from the 90s. The Ronco commercials were always the most common, with the chicken rotisserie and knives. I also loved the juicer ones for some reason. Watching them destroy vegetables and the juice came out different colors. I was six, leave me alone.
I actually like long form commercials; I like the information and explanation for what problem a product is fixing. I think it works well for smaller companies trying to sell a niche product
That Shirley Temple dvd box set thing. “Had the most crackers in my soup” or whatever she’s singing has lived in my head for the past 24 years. Also Lots and lots of trains
I would love to see you do a video on the insane proliferation of commercials for collect call services in the late 90s. We were absolutely inundated with ads for 1-800-COLLECT and 1-800-CALL-ATT, and then, all at once, they just stopped.
My simultaneous favorite and least favorite thing about this video is that I had it on in the background and genuinely couldn’t tell when an actual ad came on and when it was just part of the video
The flip and fold comes to mind because my mom actually bought it (probably in store) and it was used only a few times before she gave up on it. She always would fold laundry while sitting on the couch to stay comfortable and the thing required being on a large flat surface so it didn't last
![ร้อยพ่อพันแม่ - WanMai [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/XY2pNYASEbg/mqdefault.jpg)
a lot of infomercial products with the whole "person cant do basic thing" setup are really for people with disabilities, but for some reason they never wanna advertise them that way, so they put the inept person the the commercial as a scapegoat
Yesssss! Idk why there's such a stigma about advertising to the many people that live with a disability, I mean c'mon capitalism, huge target audience you're ignoring here!
See I noticed that as well. Mostly for elderly or handicapped people. But they never come out and say that’s who it’s for 😭 idk why
Well we can see why when we look at how Candace Owens responded to skims underwear line for disabled people that featured a disabled model
Often these disability aid products are quite expensive because not many people need to buy them so they have to sell ot at a higher price. So to help reduce the price for the people who need it, some companies may also advertise it to non-disabled people to get more sales and allow people who actually need it to get it cheaper. But equally they should defo show examples of disabled ppl using it as well because often these products get ridiculed online for being useless when people don't realise how useful they are to people with limited mobility!!
By not advertising to people with disabilities directly, we can laugh at them without feeling bad about it, which means the ads get more traction. Also Billy mays is a legend for all the right reasons and Vince Offer for all the wrong...
the one thing i wish was mentioned is that a lot, and i mean A LOT, of these products were made with disabled people in mind. snuggies, egg cracking things, anything that made you go "who's actually that clumsy?" might've been made for disabled people. HOWEVER..... marketing them to everyone with the "look how convenient!" model means wider success in selling a product. snuggies were especially good for people in wheelchairs. i didn't make fun of infomercials the same way after learning that. there's still fun to poke, but there are some products that were made for people who struggle with mobility or precise motor functions!
Even lowkey ridiculous products like that pee golfing club could have some use for elderly men who are struggling with holding their pee in. Especially because many elderly men love golfing and toilets can be far away when you're on the field. It seems disgusting and stupid at first, but if you really think about it, there may be an actual demographic and use for it, they just don't sell it like that.
+
it's not only the wider success aspect of it, it may simply be that the creators of these products wanted to make sure they were actually affordable to the people who need them instead of the items in question being priced at extreme markups to justify the costs. As an example of what I'm talking about, look up a program called Jaws for Windows. It's a screen reader which allows blind people to hear the text on screen instead of having to see it. The msrp of this one simple computer program is equivalent to the price of a mid range office pc. Snuggies were only loved by wheelchair users because they were affordable. If they were sold exclusively for disabled people then the price would have been doubled or even tripled just to justify the costs of production to investors. This is the downside of capitalism and chasing the ever growing bottom line instead of actually doing right by people.
I legitimately don't think they were thinking of disabled people. That was just a side effect.
Rip, maybe they shouldn’t be disabled??😊
whenever i stay in a hotel, late night teleshopping channels are my comfort, i love it, not cus im interested in buying, its just the format and atmosphere is so good to feel cosy
Some of them, absolutely.
The ones I've seen recently, however, feature extremely loud voices to grab people's attention, which is more headache inducing than anything
I completely agree
They are the father and mother of ASMR sleep-aid videos.
WAIT. I just got a great idea for a channel.
When you said “no one bought from the actual commercial” all I could think about was my family frantically trying to get the number on the tv screen before it went away. We bought a LOT from infomercials over the years.
Lmao!
Pretty sure my grandmother bought dozens, and while one of my mom's probably didn't call the number, she certainly did come home with more than a few boxes labeled "as seen on tv" 🤣
My parents never let me buy it, so I would just wait till the next week or two and then hit the As Seen On TV store
I bought something from an infomercial once and it led to some of the most fun I ever had skiing for years.
@@mr.pavone9719what was the item?
OMG the squiggle zigzag paint lady... I completely forgot about her until now but I love her. She seems so excited about her paintings. I would be crushed if it was an exaggerated grift for money
Edit: Good news, she's legit! There's a clip of her, Dee Gruenig, on HGTV showing off her art and home. Her passion isn't just for sponges, but for all art mediums and, like, life in general.
Things she mentions she loves:
photos
organizing nooks and crannies
colors
drawers
pens
relaxing and unwinding
10-year journals
I wish I was 1/4 as happy as this woman.
She seems so genuine so I’m glad that she actually is
Your comment made me happy 🥰 I hope you have a good day, internet stranger!
This makes me beyond happy
Aw! This is so sweet! I especially like that she enjoys "organizing nooks and crannies", because same, and simply "drawers". Anything specific about them? NO! Just drawers.
she legitimately makes me want that wiggle-drawing shit wtf 😭 she seems absolutely delightful
At one point when I was younger, I watched a whole infomercial just thinking it was a normal ad and an actual show would start. I was sitting there for three hours watching an infomercial for an airfryer.
Goddamn!
We've all been there 😅
@@darpanabai3967yep
"are you a weak toddler"
As an ex toddler, I can confirm toddlers being weak is 110% scientifically accurate
They can never outsmart boolit
I used to be the youngest person on the planet!
I mean they have pretty strong grip
They’re also incredibly stupid, can confirm as a former toddler
@@allanpeter7700 no babies have strong grip, them grabbing your hair is like a monkey at the zoo grabbing your arm
The way that I remember ads working as a child, was when they'd say THIS OFFER IS NOT IN STORES as though it was some exclusive thing. Like, they didn't WANT to be in stores, or something. So, if you saw one in a store, you'd think 'wow, they have this! I should get it here, instead of waiting for it at home.' Like most product ads, it relies on you forgetting you never even wanted it in the first place.
Exactly! That shit worked so well! I remember that even though I knew what they were doing my 15yr old dumb ass still fell for it!
Oh! I just thought they weren’t sold in stores. I never saw any in stores so yeah.
I think they were trying to say, "We're selling this product at a discounted price not available in stores," in order to create a sense of urgency.
My local mall has an As Seen On TV store where they basically just sell infomercial products. Id see an ad and since my parents never let me call in, id just anxiously wait for it to show up in the store.
Do you remember the Proactiv infomercials? I remember years ago being in my local mall and I nearly lost my shit when I walked by a kiosk selling Proactiv. It was exciting for me because being in my late teens I had no credit or debit cards to my name so the fact that it was right there and I didn’t have to order it off the tv was sweet.
The handy stitch was the best info-mecial I ever had the privilege watch. The tag line about how difficult it was to use a regular sewing machine to repair drapes was paired with a video of a woman holding a full sized sewing machine up to her curtains that where still hanging from the window. That clip still lives in my head rent free years later.
Haha! I remember that one as well. The ridiculousness of it was hysterical. Thanks for reminding me of that funny infomercial. 😂
OH MY GODS I REMEMBER THAT
The Zoobooks infomercials were so impactful on me as a child that when I found out last year that the Girl Scouts were selling Zoobooks subscriptions, I IMMEDIATELY ordered a one year subscription for myself. I'm 27. I COULDN'T RESIST.
Did you get them, and were they everything you hoped they would be? Don't leave us hanging. There's serious information we need right now.
I still remember the phone number
Did you get The Tiger Poster™?
This is the dream. Well done.
Did you get the poster?
My grandma actually bought so much stuff from QVC and jewelry infomercials. She gifted a lot of jewelry from those to the rest of my family
Sounds like that one South Park episode. Did she also happen to sell her gold for cash too?
My grandmother ordered zoo books and several other month subscription educational things from infomercials in the 80s. I still have all the zoo books. Also have these articulating blocks that chain together.
My grandmother just called me yesterday to ask my shoe size to order me some sneakers from something like HSN, lol. She unfortunately called at a terrible time when I was very busy at work and by the time I called her back, they'd sold out. But that's alright, I informed her to not worry about it. I've not bought new shoes in quite some time and I'm not 100% sure of my shoe size anymore. But I was appreciative of the offer regardless.
You should see the amount of old people that bring in trays of loose "investment grade" nearly worthless gemstones into jewelry stores. More, often it's even the kids inheritance.
@@FuzzySixx Yeah, it's kinda sad. Back before the internet was everywhere it was televangelists and home-shopping tv that were the worst financial predators of old people.
I was raised by infomercials. As a child I would wake up around 4am, but to not wake anyone else, I would tip toe down to the basement and turn the TV on. Being a lazy weak toddler, whatever the channel was, it remained.
I had all the hot goss on the new vacuums, kitchen appliances, DYI fix-em-up kits, art supplies you name it. I was the talk of the town amongst all the neighborhood stay at home moms. Information is power, infomercials made me who I am today. And for the low, low price of 4 equal payments of $13.99.
I saw infomercials in a whole new way when someone pointed out how many of the "goofy" products are actually adaptive aids for elderly/disabled people
no one cares😊
@@NoSaysJoyour statement is literally factually incorrect
Go back to school
@@NoSaysJoRude.
@@NoSaysJoyou don’t care. Good for you. You’re so cool.
gabi makes videos on the things people didnt want but really needed
Hey that's what the thing the video is about do
Much like an infomercial itself
Exactly no one "really needed" this
When I was little, I remember turning on the tv in early hours of the morning, and they had entire movies worth of length, like 2 hours for a serious look at stuff like vacuum cleaners. They'd do tons of tests, especially for Shark vacuum cleaners, and show huge sets where every room would be clean. It felt like it was a serious news report about a miracle product.
I remember that. You would've thought it was it's own TV show with how much effort they put through to try to sell a vacuum/carpet cleaner/steamer
As someone who works nights 6 days a week, I'm up at night on my day off and can confirm that infomercials are alive and well. They tend to play on the free TV channels available to anyone with a TV and an antenna between 3 am and 6 am in half hour intervals.
I work graveyard shift at a local news channel and have to sit there at night monitoring the infomercials to make sure they are running properly. Infomercials now are way more obviously targeted at the elderly, and play to their fear of the world around them - lifelock insurance, home title insurance, supplemental health insurance, auto repair insurance…sensing a trend?
They are on TH-cam ads for me, especially like those "financial secrets to get rich" ones.
@@DrumlineArchives Late Stage Capitalism...
What kind of super advanced window cleaning tech are the pushing these days?
@@MustertheBrohirrim Lol I couldn't say. The ones broadcast in my area are mostly for Lifelock and after market auto insurance like Endurance, or workout gear or interior home cleaning supplies for rug and floor cleaning.
my grandma actually bought a shit ton of infomercial products THROUGH tv, i’d have to hide the home phone from her because she’d be easily swayed by every infomercial and would call immediately… we still have some of the products she bought today, because she never used them
Bro you should give those unused products to a charity shop so someone else can not use them.
My dad bought a house that was foreclosed on. He ended up renting a dump truck to take away hundreds of boxes from QVC. The previous owner had very poor impulse control and craved the attention of the QVC staff.
My grandma used to love to watch QVS and other channels hawking stuff, and I asked my mom why she enjoyed doing that; mom said that Grandma grew up poor and was dazzled by all of the stuff for sale on TV. (She didn't actually buy stuff, but she loved to watch all of the stuff for sale.)
@@rachelblack3816that's so cute omg
I just remember being 15, stoned out of my mind on my best friend’s couch, watching like a two-hour-long MyPillow infomercial while trying to eat string cheese. Good shit.
doing random stuff like this while high is the best thing ever
Astronaut radio noise
Trying to get the good wide pull on the cheese
I had Dish TV before I switched to streaming and had to hide my remote if I decided to drink heavy or get stoned because I'd buy just the most random crap off of eBay and infomercials.
@@adrianbyrdie LOL. I distinctly remember asking my friend to open the string cheese for me because I couldn’t. She took off the wrapper and gave it to me. I looked at it for a minute before handing it back to her and asking her to open it (again)
You failed to eat string cheese?
That scene from the Betty Crocker Bake-n-Fill commercial when they're listing all the possibilities and she goes "EVEN BAKED ALASKA" and the cake is literally on fire. That scene always enters my mind at the worst possible times and I end up in a fit of uncontrollable laughter. Some jokes just write themselves.
Baked Alaska is supposed to be on fire, they pour some alcohol on it and light it, it's a presentation thing back when that was impressive
@dominicspier6917 I'm still impressed by flaming ice-cream.
Baked Alaska is a frozen cake layer topped with ice cream and smothered in meringue.
The meringue is baked hot and fast, with its fluffiness insulating the core... Simple, really.
guys help i accidentally baked my alaska what do i do
no joke i actually sobbed grieving for willy mays when he passed. i never even knew the guy, i just really liked the oxi-clean commercials and my tiny child brain was like “they cant make oxi clean commercials anymore he is irreplaceable” rip willy i still miss u man
I thought it was Billy lol
@@anikajoy5739 It is Billy lol, OP has been grieving the wrong name
It's Billy lol
That's funny, I thought Willy Mays was a name me and my brother made up 😅
For a second I thought your child brain thought they can't make anymore Oxi-Clean without Billy Mays like he withheld the secret formula
Here, on Dutch television, they would air American as well as German informercials and there are some that still live in my memory and will never quite go away. One was some kind of cooking product, I don't remember what it was, but it starred Mister T who would enter the set by kicking the door down and then they'd just proceed to cook and advertise for an hour.
Another one was from Germany advertising a knife set and I just remember it for how chaotic it was. It was so bad to follow what was going on. One moment the guy is cutting a tomato, the next thing he's tossing the knife around on the floor to show how durable it is, then he's cutting an orange, and then he's showing you the deal you the knife block, and it just never slowed down. There was an announcer standing next to him too the entire time wearing a singular earring who then tried to go 'order now!' but the guy cooking interrupted him like 'no no no, wait, don't order yet, I'm not done talking about this knife!'
Dang Gabi balls makes good commercials
HELP 💀👏
😭 lmfao
Love gabi balls
Whatever she's selling, I'm buying!
Balls?...
I can confirm that elderly people are buying this stuff a bit today. I helped a family friend clean out this deceased lady's house and she had products from infomercials still in packages. I was told that she really couldn't do much and watching the infomercials and buying were what she mostly did.
That's really sad.
My Memè used to watch the shopping channel and buy tons of costume jewlery.
She had multiple jewlery boxes, and bins of it at the time of her death.
Honestly I can kind of relate to that because I used to buy so much crap off wish for no reason.
South Park made an episode where they made it clear they hate infomercials that target old people, especially with jewelry.
My grandmothers kitchen looks like multiple infomercials playing all at once
omg i was obsessed with infomercials when i was a child. i used to watch them when i couldn't sleep
There’s now TH-cam compilations of them, how nifty!
The main reason for infomercials being everywhere was a court case where someone sued the producers of the Love Boat for having an extended commercial for the cruise line disguised as a TV show, and the Supreme Court ruled that it's a free speech issue, and suddenly there were hour-long commercials on TV and the shopping channels started up.
Omg it's the door commercial in Rick and Morty
Was this in the 70s?
@@Dave102693 The love boat aired in the 70s, but i can't find any mention of a lawsuit about advertising.
i love that gabi is incorporating more music in her videos now, its super unique and fun!
I hate that gabi is incorporating more music in her videos now, it’s super unoriginal and boring! (🐸)
i hate that incorporate is musicing more gabi into its fun and unique! its now super videos!
I like french fries.
7:35 I’m an Alaskan and I appreciate someone remembering we exist
How's the weather up there?
@@GodHimself__ it’s cold but very beautiful, also since we’re so far north the solstices are way more noticeable
Hey, there you are.
Ha! I lived in Fairbanks twice (5 and 4 years), and left in 1985 when I was 15. I used to get irrationally offended that all of the infomercial products were only available in the lower 48. I would yell at the tv that “Alaska is part of the US!!!!!!!” but alas, I was shouting into the void. I really wanted that genuine faux pearl ring that came with the can-slicing Ginsu knives….
Do you ever wish you were apart of canada or are you like, chillin as is?
Instead of buying all the products, my dad and I did the math and he made me feel smart about finding out the “scheme” behind the product; whether it was made cheaply and/or the hidden fees in the pricing.
These are how I learned to always watch out for how many times they want you to pay that "low" price in big bright numbers and for the cost of shipping.
they would make a product overpriced and “throw in a second one for free”, so essentially chargin your for two and forcing you to buy two lol. That was a scheme for a lot of them and I caught on when pillow pets did it lol
I gotta be honest, the fact that YT sponsors are, for all sake and purposes infomercials hits harder that anything else. thank you for this revelation and your contribution to consumer awareness
Yeah, when she mentioned that, I was like: “holy crap, she’s right!”
Raycon, Surfshark, Express vpn, Scentbird lmao
The nice thing about YT is you can easily skip those ads, and it's very noticeable where the ending is.
the zoo pals jingle pops into my head like once a month and just stays there for a few days before it goes away
So like a period but it’s a commercial jingle in your mind? Because that’s what you discribed
My brother and I convinced our parents to buy the original Big Mouth Billy Bass singing fish after seeing the infomercials. A quality buy that drove my parents slowly insane
😂😂
When I was younger I watched an entire Shark Navigator vacuum infomerical, because I was curious how much info about a vacuum they had that they were taking up an entire hour. The amount of times I watched the lady say how maneuverable it was while swinging her arm to and fro to steer the vacuum around, and the bits where they used it to suck up like 7 bowling balls or whatever... Kept me entertained and made me want to watch more infomercials lol
I gave in after watching that commercial and they're not wrong! It is very maneuverable
They sucked up metal nuts with that. I had to have it !
I was watching in the background while feeding my 7 month old son and when you started singing at the end he looked up, stopped and smiled fondly hahaha
Somehow I literally always come across Gabi's newest video when I'm high and every time I'm like "somehow that is the exact perfect topic I want to hear about right now"
For me it definitely has to be the magic bullet blender. They introduced in entire house party that morning. Like Hazel who says that dinner is always a production. Unforgettable. That should’ve been a show.
oh my god i forgot about mighty putty. when i was a kid and had nightmares in the middle of the night, i would get scared. so i would go out to the living room and watch infomercials until i fell asleep again on the couch. it was kind of comforting to just have someone talking in the background and i didn’t feel alone. one of those times was for mighty putty and it was really long. i watched the whole thing at 4 am and was kind of sad when it was over, it was so intriguing to me as a kid.
as a kid I'd religiously watch the infomercial channel at night. How my parents didn't know I'm autistic is a mystery to me lmao
Relatable content
The informercial channel used to kind of freak me out and I don’t know why, but now I find it so nostalgic lmao
Same lol I loved watching infomercials
We all did this 😂
SAME along with the freaking shopping channel (shoutout to QVC)
If I had money as a kid sooo many infomercials would have gotten me. My parents were always telling me they’re a scam and I refused to believe it lol. My friend’s parents would get him some stuff form infomercials and I was always so jealous. I wanted that dang coloring sponge (forgot what it’s called lol), the blow markers (something my friend got, they were fun for like 2 mins), and that Betty Crocker ice cream cake baker
I will tell you as someone who got Floam as a kid (I think one of the only ones we got specifically because of watching an infomercial) that that one was partially a scam? Like, all but two of the different colors were unusable for some reason. Either too dry or too sticky or too messy. There was a stain on the bedroom carpet for probably close to a decade hahaha. But the two that did work were pretty fun. I guess modern version is all the different slime tutorials and now you can DIY your own Floam-like slimes.
I had the blow markers. THEY WERE AMAZING.
However I lost them when I moved to the city. I don't remeber what they were called, but I believe they were "chameleon blendys". They were sold at Michaels and Jo'Ann's I believe.
Omg the blow pens! My family came across someone doing basically a live infomercial at he mall and my dad bought them. They were so good. I loved them
to this day the fushigi is biggest betrayal of my childhood.....
this says a lot about the way infomercials are structured
Infomercials have a special place in my heart as a Caribbean person because that’s when I first realized the television we watched and the prices that were advertised weren’t local to everybody
I think the best infomercial was the "now that's what I call music". The infomercial was how you knew a new CD was out and it would play a small clip of all the songs on it. It made everyone run out and buy the CD at Walmart.
I miss those times 😔
I often got these as gifts from family as a kid. It was a good present since there were always at least a few songs I liked.
The Magic Bullet is the greatest informercial product and advertisement of ALL TIME. They made so many recipes with that thing and they all looked so delicious. I always got so hungry watching that damn thing.
My favourite infomercial. There's a character who is against everyone and doubting the product and it is so fucking hilarious.
That one was one of my favorites too!
I have one, are they that great? No. Did I buy it for the nostalgia? Absolutely
I apologize up front, I thought this was going to be boring. I'm not a subscriber but you were on my recommended page. You proved me wrong. I found this incredibly fascinating! I didn't even really think about modern day adverts being an evolved form of the old school ones. This was great! You just earned a subscriber! :)
When I was a kid I LOVED watching infomercials, I used to stay awake until my dad went to bed to get up and watch infomercials, I loved the cooking supplies and cleaning infomercials the best. Pump and Seal was my favorite but I hated the workout ones
i relate to this :)
The problem with the workout ones are that people buy them and never use them!
I have a distinct memory of staying up late as a kid watching an entire infomercial literally just about a ladder.
Omg memory unlocked! My cousin had a house warming party and I was sat on the couch watching probably that same ladder commercial 😂
I would stay up after watching comedy central and they would play those adam & eve infomercials and I would watch them because I thought "haha funy sex toy" and plus there was nothing better on at night for me.
That was me waking up early on weekends to see the Magic Bullet infomercials 😁 Even as a young adult, I can't tell you why seeing cheese being blended, microwaved, and poured on a quesadilla had such a hold on me.
That probably would have been the little giant ladder. I remember watching that one after Saturday morning cartoons
A classmate's mom in middle school was addicted to buying things from infomercials, I remember my classmate telling me how much he hated seing packages arriving once a week and that they were now in debt because of her spending, I can't imagine what it would have been like if amazon was as big back then.
Hearing "Only $19.95 !" Takes me back. Billy mayes and the rotisserie chicken oven was everywhere. And even crazier shit like the Girls Gone Wild infomercials at midnight.
Edit: Holy shit I remember more stuff like Chia Pets.
Ch-ch-ch-ch-chia!!
I remember sneakily staying up late and waiting for the infomercial to end to watch cartoons but I would get increasingly more frustrated because I didnt know why the infomercial kept going.
I probably wouldn’t skip TH-cam adds if they were entertaining infomercials, there really isn’t anything quite like staying up a little later than usual and watching infomercials
I, too, was obsessed with the Betty Crocker Bake & Fill as a child. I’d watch the commercial every time bc it just looked so fun and easy, even though I was like 7 and wasn’t allowed to just bake when the mood struck I was convinced I’d be blowing my family away with an ice cream cake (decorated like a watermelon with the 100pc decorating kit, which I was also taken with and convinced I could use like a pro)
The magic bullet blender. It portrays it as a family/friend gathering at a beach house where they just had a party last night and wake up to 2 infomercial host selling you a mini blender. But the part that stands out in my mind is when one of the hosts asks what is the most annoying thing about making dinner and this elderly woman with a cigarette ashing about an inch away in a deep voice says, "Choppin Garlic"
Magic Bullet infomercial was iconic
Dude I used to sit there and watch the entire 2 hour ad for this. And I did it more than once 😂. Something about it was soothing to me idk why. It didn’t really make me want the blender I just loved that commercial
I remember just about every cooking tool infomercial. The BaconWave, the Super Chef knives, everything made by Ronco.
Zoobooks were one of my favorite things when I was a kid. My mom got me a subscription for as a birthday present, I'm so sad I didn't keep any of them around.
...and the tiger poster!
My favorite infomercials as a kid were the Fushigi ball and those markers that transition into differnt colors or something? I remember really wanting them as a kid lol
My brother got a fushigi for Christmas one year. I don't think he ever learned how to use it because it's definitely harder than it looks.
@@360sunset Yeah I can remember getting to play with one when one of the neighborhood kids got one, it was definitely the most disappointing moments in my life when I realized it was basically a big fancy marble
Not to be a simp but have you seen Kurt's Conner's video on the fushigi? It's hilarious
i used to have those markers but i forgot what they were called :,)
@@wrenmassey6876 I'm a proud member of Kurtis Town actually! I had a fun time with that video
fun fact about cable, i canceled my cable TV in 2019 due to Netflix, i watched all movies that i want, new "good stuff" comes to netflix all day, is amazing, and then, all companies starting removing their content from netflix, starting their own streaming service, they starting became more and more expensive, and then, one day, my internet company send me a message offering a cable package for very, VERY cheap, and i decided, i cancelled all my streaming services and go back to cable, and i very happy with it, in cable channels today i watch all thing that i want, and for exclusive streaming shows, i go back to good old torrent, so, congratulations streaming services, you guys ressurected Cable TV, and turn piracy strong again, and im not alone, a lot of friends of mine return to cable, and for the first time in 6 years, 2023 is the first year that cable TV numbers in Brazil rised...
I swear Gabi makes the most random videos you never know what’s next with her
Gabi balls*
And the best thing is that they are always interesting! I'm really glad I found her channel
@@ellermg im glad i found her also! her style or deep dive research analysis reminds me of Jenny Nicholson's channel
I’m glad you mentioned that TH-camrs are often informercial hosts now. I would really love for someone who was once sponsored to be able to talk about why HelloFresh and ScentBird insist on making the creators make the loooongest ads in their videos, ScentBird seemingly insists on it being at the beginning too, from what I can tell. Ultimately, I just wish that TH-cam treated creators better and paid more so that I didn’t have to see ads in every single video despite already paying for a premium subscription.
Best solution is honestly just to get one of the plugins that auto-skips through sponsored segments, and then flip a quid to the youtuber's patreon if you feel guilty about it, since £1 a year is far more than your viewing of their sponsored segments during that year would have been worth.
I regularly use "set it and forget it" and am quoting the rotissery chicken oven.
Also, I love infomercials. We had really bad winter where I grew up and whenever we'd lose signal, infomercials were all I had. The vacume ones were always a classic, along with the blender ones. They developed my love for cooking in a way.
Cher deeply regretted doing infomercials and said something to the effect "I was considered cool and I lost that because of an infomercial.". It took a lot for her to regain her "cool" status!
Does Cher believe in life after infomercials?
when i had cable they ran infomercials all the time about cds with her live performances on them lol i’m guessing that she use to actually be a actress in them back in the day though huh
fun video!! i remember making my mom buy me moon sand from an infomercial, and it was so disappointing that i never asked for any infomercial products again lol.
My brother got so, so upset over that because "it said it didn't make a mess! Why did they lie??" He was maybe 4 years old and he was crushed lol
I remember that stuff 😂
I just discovered you and now i‘m doing a random „view everything from new creator“ thing. I love your way of presenting. Also every topic is interesting ❤
gabi is a national treasure
international*
🇺🇸
That’s why she’s the only account I follow on Lemon8
If she is how come Nicolas Cage hasn't hunted her down yet?🤣🤣🤣
Lady nakey jakey. She rocks
So my grandma wanted to buy a product from an infomercial once. It was some clothes hangers with bendy parts and foam on it to protect the clothes. She wanted just like a pack of 4, but because she is an old lady with undiagnosed adhd who only speaks French and she isn't very tech savvy, she ended up with like 30 hangers. It was something about the automated call would ask for the credit card infos and was very vague on how to confirm the order, so she was adding more and more to her order everytime she just wanted to stop and pay.
We all got infomercial clothe hangers for Christmas that year and she never order from infomercials again. 🙃
LMAO 🤣 oh, man that's hilarious! Your poor grandma though 😂❤
I loved the slapchop infomercials because of the news story of the guy who did the informercial was so widespread. Also i genuinely thought the slapchop was a great idea and so useful and if i had money i wouldve bought one.
I used to be a copywriter. I was self-taught, and it took me a while to realize my style was clearly inspired by infomercials and late 90s/early 2000s advertising. I feel like this video was made for me and I love it.
I never became a copywriter and instead just wrote hundreds of fake, satirical commercials as a way to work all that consumerist propaganda from my brain
I make up songs all the time, First when I worked with little kids and secondly after I had my own kids. Kids will do anything if you put it into a song. My own kids make up songs and jingles and they are 100% inspired by me watching way too many infomercials in commercials, as well as theme songs, when I was a kid. Any time our house has a problem my kids make up a song or commercial about it. We had some water damage in our bathroom and they made up a whole ad campaign for what they called “water damage pro”. The funny thing is that we don’t have cable TV, we only watch Netflix and PBS Kids on the projector. So they’ve never seen commercials, unless we stay at a hotel or go to families house every few years that still have cable. To be fair we’ve watched 90’s commercial compilations…because they are very entertaining
I would watch infomercials on weekend mornings (I woke up before the good cartoons came on 😅) I literally wrote my parents an "essay" about why we needed the Magic Bullet. They never bought us one but I used my adult money to get one and is one of the best purchases I've ever made lmao 😂😂
Fun video. I think one factor alot of people overlook for the success of infomercials was that at 2am and sleep deprived your reasoning skills are usually not great so what seems like a great idea in the middle of the night probably wouldn't during the light of day.
I remember sitting through this rotisserie cooker informercial that lasted one to two hours with the tagline "Set it and forget it!", waiting for Kids WB to begin so I could watch Yu-Gi-Oh! 😂
Also, while not an informercial, the Biggest Earworm Commercial Award goes to...
"HEAD-ON! APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD!"
"HEAD-ON! APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD!"
"HEAD-ON! APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD!"
And for those who blissfully never saw that commercial, it was a product that worked like a deodorant stick that you rubbed on your forehead...and it claimed it could get rid of headaches. They ended up releasing several other products that worked similarly for other parts of the body (I have no idea of their actual effectiveness) but none were as infamous as the one for Head-On (apply directly to the--aw, fuck, that shit gets stuck in your head quickly if you're not careful 😂)
Part of this was the volume on that commercial was like 3x louder than the programming and all other commercials so you couldn’t miss it
@@teubks I went and rewatched the commercial where someone had uploaded it here and read comments mentioning the same thing. Also read that the product was pretty much psudoscience garbage and was pulled from stores, lol.
RIP Billy Mays.
I distinctly remember a time where me and my sleep deprived friend, during a sleepover/lan party thing, and then the magic bullet infomercial came on. In our loopy and tired state, it was the funniest thing we had ever seen. We still refer back to that night as "magic bullet time". 🤣
His son actually makes music under the name Infinite Third. I highly suggest checking it out.
I asked myself this question last night and found this video had every thought I had. Awesome stuff.
The magic bullet was the one that I remember most. A whole extended family of only adults sitting around a kitchen talking about the product, and the drunk uncle type guy with the hangover 😂
One cannot forget the aunt with a [fake] cigarette hanging out of her mouth the entire time 😍😍
@@whfidjshdhfjfj5555fake cigarette? is that a thing?
there were two times in my childhood where i BEGGED my parents to buy my an infomercial product. One was the Pure Jazz CD (still a banger) and I remember waiting for the commercial to come on and then running to my mom with the landline so she could call right away. The other was an electric toothbrush that had this like circular brush that would go on either side of your teeth. I think it also would light up too, idk why I wanted it so badly but I did.
Really love your format on this channel.
an infomercial I think about all the time is the Gerber Baby Life Plan. there was at one point in high school where I had the whole thing, including the number, memorized.
unrelated note, my dog really enjoyed your singing at the end ❤
NOT THE GERBER BABY
Attention parents and grandparents of young children.
Proactiv targeting my teen self with their tactical assault "acne care" is what turned me off of infomercials forever. THANKS JESSICA SIMPSON! Gave me that pizza face, extra marinara.
Billy Meyes is the reason I buy OxiClean as an adult. I love that laundry product
The Showtime Oven and OxyClean were my childhood entry into the world of infomercials and will always live rent free in my head.
Oxyclean and pet rocks for me😂
i remember when i was about 6, my grandma didn’t have cable tv, so i had to watch local channels. one time, i stumbled upon a random channel with cartoons, so i ran along with that since i had nothing else to do. during the commercial break, there was this one infomercial about this one cup that came with a lid which you could store snacks in. i immediately fell in love with it. i started begging my mom to get me one, until she did! i used it every single day and still use it to this day :)
You still have it?! Wow!! I'm jealous. That cup thingy would have been a life changer for me as a child lol
Lucky! I wanted that cup so badly
Same thing here- exept it was “Fun Slides” the amazing way to Glide and Slide over Carpet! They’ve made everything in life more special: celebrating my driver’s license,, sliding out to greet my prom date( he was amazed!) When I wanted to storm out with some extra drama as I wailed drama.I’ll never grow out of them! They are perfect for all occasions ( mom thought I shouldn’t wear them at Grandpa’s funeral- but I showed her! Me and my fun slides stole the show(it would’ve been So BORING. My family were so upset they couldn’t even hide their jealousy . Heh heh!!! (Sliding way!)😎👍
@@icu3869im convinced that you also used to write their commercials (or could if you wanted to in the future 😂) but no jokes aside that's so cute
i will admit. while i never purchased any informercial product, i've lowkey always enjoyed watching infomercial fails or just old infomercials at times
Figuring out the time span of the buy 1 get 1 free was my biggest dilemma as a kid
Billy Mays commercials were my favorite. I was obsessed with Billy Mays when I was about 14, and went trick or treating as him in 2010. Honorable mention for Vince being my second favorite informercial host. And always being a night owl, I remember the FlavorWave and NuWave Oven coming on in the middle of the night while I'd be drawing or playing Pokemon Diamond. It sounds stupid and life in America is weird, but informercials, and a lot of commercials hold lots of nostalgia for people. I find myself looking up commercial compilations from the early 2000s on TH-cam to have on in the background as comfort, and I know I'm not the only one.
Dolly: You're Almost my Doppelganger & I (Mostly) Hate it.
Omg flavorwave!! 😂😂
My sister once bought an infomercial product. She was up at an obscene hour trying to get her infant back to sleep and was swayed by an ad for kitchen knives. To her defense, they were decent knives, even if they failed to help her ascend to a higher plane of being, as advertised.
rainbow art had me and my sister in a chokehold. the part of the commercial where they would say "it DRIIIIES instantly" with their fingers barely grazing the paper still makes me laugh 😂
I always found Infomercials hilarious for no apperent reason
Wdym no apparent reason the reason is very clearly there
It's a slippery slope. They're hilarious, and entertaining and very watchable. Utterly demanding mockery. But there's always a background subconscious temptation, some type of indoctrination. I somehow ended up with a shamwow no matter how cynical I was about what was sold on infomercials
I really enjoyed watching them for some reason
I'll admit I have a TV in my bedroom and i do sometimes use infomercials as background noise to sleep.
Your sound effects game is brilliant. Outstanding. I effin love it!
wow seeing the betty crocker bake and fill brought my back to my childhood
my parents actually brought a ton from infomercials when i was a kid and we still had tv, luckily most of the stuff we got turned out to be useful
The late 2000s were definitely the golden age of infomercials for me, I even remember quite a few of the products my mom bought were due to her watching the ads for them.
I remember as kids whenever me and my brother would see an infomercial for some toy we'd want it so badly that we'd rush to our mom and tell her to write down the phone number to "buy it later" but looking back, I think my mom would write it down to get us to shut up about it.
I remember so many of these from the 90s. The Ronco commercials were always the most common, with the chicken rotisserie and knives. I also loved the juicer ones for some reason. Watching them destroy vegetables and the juice came out different colors. I was six, leave me alone.
I actually like long form commercials; I like the information and explanation for what problem a product is fixing. I think it works well for smaller companies trying to sell a niche product
30 More minutes of Gabi content!! Truly a gift to someone who was already binging the channel 🙏😊
Gabi Balls*
That Shirley Temple dvd box set thing. “Had the most crackers in my soup” or whatever she’s singing has lived in my head for the past 24 years.
Also Lots and lots of trains
It was "animal crackers in my soup" but that's always sounded so gross to me so your version is definitely better 🤣🤣🤣
I remember that one too. They made a big deal of the whole set being in color. Looking back, it was a pretty good deal 😀
@@rosegoldhiips that makes more and less sense at the same time. Who would put animal crackers in soup? Psycho behavior.
@@rosegoldhiipsaybe it was a thing back in the day. They put cheese on top of apple pie back then gross.
My mom puts a lot of crackers in her soup! So that makes more sense than putting animal crackers in it! 🤮
I would love to see you do a video on the insane proliferation of commercials for collect call services in the late 90s. We were absolutely inundated with ads for 1-800-COLLECT and 1-800-CALL-ATT, and then, all at once, they just stopped.
gabi belle's the only channel that i instantly watch whenever there's a new video. let's fucking go !!
Gabi balls*
Gabi you're afflicted by a devastating combo of intelligence, wit AND musical talent. It's just too much!
My simultaneous favorite and least favorite thing about this video is that I had it on in the background and genuinely couldn’t tell when an actual ad came on and when it was just part of the video
The phrase "Just Set it and Forget it" will never leave my brain ever thanks Ron Popeil.
the magic bullet was an epic infomercial with an intriguing and complex cast of characters ✨️
The flip and fold comes to mind because my mom actually bought it (probably in store) and it was used only a few times before she gave up on it. She always would fold laundry while sitting on the couch to stay comfortable and the thing required being on a large flat surface so it didn't last
Gabi listing the stats is like me trying to find websites that match for a research paper 😭