HI, Amber Ambrose here for dailyfork.com. Have a closet full of appliances that are spectacular in their specificity? Love products you don’t really need? Enjoy watching television between the hours of 1:00 to 5:00 a.m.? Then this blog is for you.
Mr. Mays, in honor of your untimely passing, we’ve compiled a list of our favorite food infomercials. Don’t worry, we knew you weren’t ShamWow-Slap-Chop-gets-in-fights-with-hookers Vince’s biggest fan, so we’ve purposely left him off our list. May your soul live on in Pitch Man Heaven.
1. Magic Bullet
Although it sounds like something shoved up the most holiest of holes to relieve nausea or a mystical piece of ammunition used to kill werewolves, it claims to be a piece of culinary necessity. Mick, the token Aussie, and perky-racked Mimi, cheerfully exclaim the joys of the Bullet to a kitchen full of their “stock character” friends and family all while blending and unnecessarily liquefying things. The colorful cast of drunks, emphysema suffering aunts, and the “normal” cousins are actors that must have credentials up there with even the most seasoned of community theater thespians. It literally is like watching a dinner theater in Port Arthur, Texas.
Like turning normally texturally enjoyable dishes into paste? The Magic Bullet can magically make chicken salad into a poor man’s paté. It can turn delicious blueberry muffin batter, with chunks of juicy, fresh blueberries into a purple haze. Perhaps you like making mystery omelets, where you have no idea what the ingredients are because they’re blended into oblivion. Magic Bullet can tackle all these dishes with gusto, and more!
2. Grater Plater
Who knew that traditional graters were so crappy? Now you can grate stuff on a plate and it stays on the plate. Amazing. But, yes, our favorite pitch man, Mr. Mays himself touts this gastronomic invention, so we feel the need to include it on the list.
It’s basically a plate with tiny spikes on it that allow you to pulverize anything that’s grateable. And if that weren’t enough to sell you, it’s triple glazed, so nothing sticks to it. Ok, so it’s kinda lame, but it’s one of the few food-related products pitched by Billy.
3. Jack Lalanne Power Juicer
Who doesn’t like a good juicer infomercial now and again? Mr. Longevity, Jack Lalanne is here to satisfy your liquefied dreams of beets, carrots, apples and more.
Truly an infomercial classic, mostly due to the classic personality involved, Mr. healthy himself, it touts the benefits of all things liquid. Apparently juicing has been a hobby of Jack for over 7 decades (according to the Power Juicer website) — not to be confused with being “on the juice.” Then again, he does have quite the muscular exterior for an almost-centurian, so perhaps his juicing isn’t what he leads us to believe.
4. Anything involving Ron Popeil
Knives, pasta makers, food dehydrators, oh my! Don’t forget the solid flavor injector, the rotisserie and the Veg-O-Matic.
The king of all single use kitchen appliances has kept us entertained for years with his many gadgets. We’re still contemplating buying a food dehydrator for making homemade fruit roll-ups and beef jerky (to remind us of our college years).
5. GT Xpress 101
It sounds like the name of a spaceship from a cheesy, low budget sci-fi movie, but Cathy Mitchell pitches the machine that bakes everything in half-moon shapes. Apparently, there’s nothing you can’t cook in this thing. Christmas dinner? No problem! An entire birthday cake? It’ll be ready in 7 minutes! It’ll even ice itself.
Cathy leads the old dude who claims to have a hectic schedule, Joe Farago, around the show kitchen and teaches him the joys of single appliance cooking. Omelets, cakes and perky old people dominate this quality infomercial.
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