Popular Infomercial Products That Were Actually Terrible

Sick days, bouts of insomnia, and late-night movie marathons are often enlivened by infomercials, extra-long commercials dedicated to products that are often... niche, shall we say, and sometimes feature your favorite stars selling food dehydrators to try to pay off a boat loan. These products, often solutions to problems you didn't know you had (and couldn't imagine anyone else having) could be yours in just a few easy payments, promising you a future of smooth skin, perfectly chopped vegetables, and exquisite storage solutions.

But for every ThighMaster and ShamWow that flew off the shelves, either due to entertaining and persuasive marketing or because of the actual quality of the product, there are dozens more "As Seen on TV" also-rans gathering dust in basements across the United States. These infomercials are often still out there, and thanks to the magic of YouTube, we can explore the questionable taste (and iffy personal finance management) of the TV shoppers of yesteryear.

Exercise is one of the classic areas of life infomercial products claim to improve. Pressed for time but still self-conscious, consumers were tempted by gadgets that offered to sculpt, tighten, or build various parts of their bodies in minutes a day. One of the most memorable exercise products marketed was the Shake Weight, a spring-loaded barbell that you... shook. It came in a 5-pound version for men and a 2.5-pound version for women and promised to use "dynamic inertia" (a nonsense phrase) to build and tone muscles in less time than it would take using traditional weight training.

Users looked goofy standing there shaking a dumbbell, and the dirty-minded snickered at the arguably suggestive arm motions used to exercise with the Shake Weight. People might happily look silly and prurient if the exercise worked as advertised, but a National Institute of Health study poured cold water on the product. Sure, it was exercise — people were moving weight with their bodies — but the NIH study pointed out that the Shake Weight used weights far below what gym goers would realistically use to train. Additionally, regardless of the muscle targeted, much of the work appeared to be done by the triceps. If you want to build muscle, shaking a tiny weight isn't going to get you very far.

According to the origin story on the MyPillow website, pitchman Mike Lindell was once just a kid with a dream: a dream of a more comfortable pillow. After tossing and turning his whole youth, the adult Lindell became a bedding entrepreneur, offering pillows personalized by firmness, quantity of filling, and external fabric, all for what he seems to think is a reasonable price. Sleepwear, sheets, body pillows, coffee with a flag-waving Lindell on the packaging, and apple cider vinegar gummies supplement the pillows for the very image of a coziness empire.

Unfortunately for people who want the government out of their bedrooms, Lindell has emerged as an outspoken conspiracy theorist and devotee of former president Donald Trump. "The MyPillow Guy" has been in and out of courtrooms for the past several years, having been sued for defamation in his attempts to sow doubt about the 2020 election results and found financially liable for having lost a bet that the election was rigged. (He's now allegedly personally bankrupt.) Lindell also made headlines in September 2024 for marking some of his products down to $14.88. (Both "14" and "88" are numbers significant to some neo-Nazi groups.) While none of this directly reflects on the quality of his products, consumers turned off by Lindell's positions and those who simply want a pillow uninvolved in the culture war will likely turn elsewhere, capping MyPillow's market share.

Sex, finances, childrearing... gas? According to the marketers of the defunct Better Marriage Blanket, the humble toot poses as great a threat to marital harmony as any of the more traditional friction points. This combination comforter and filtration device positioned itself specifically as a product to safeguard your marriage from the strife that could result from imperfectly digested cabbage. (Not married? Fire away!) Available in frumpy beige or hard-to-keep-clean white, the Better Marriage Blanket concealed an inner layer of "activated carbon fabric," ostensibly the same substances used by U.S. armed forces to guard against chemical weapons.

The original website has disappeared from the internet, so we can't say if the Better Marriage Blanket was machine washable or had to be trucked to a hazardous materials station for safe incineration. The product was, according to reports, invented by a bow hunter who had the brainwave while researching ways to conceal his giveaway odor from deer. It's hard to imagine the Better Marriage Blanket really taking off  — at $49.95 in 2010 dollars (reduced from the original $120 price tag), it was a little steep for a gag gift, and a genuine presentation under the Christmas tree might have sparked the very argument the product claimed to avoid.

Another classic product to sell on late-night TV is psychic advice. Ditch the crystal ball and leave the tarot cards at home: If a voice can travel through the telephone wires, so can the uncanny. One of the most prominent of these services was the Psychic Readers Network, fronted by the highly animated Miss Cleo. Speaking in a vigorous pseudo-Jamaican accent, Miss Cleo exhorted viewers to "Call me now!" and get advice on love, finances, and anything else you might need... billed by the minute, of course.

But as quickly as Cleo's stars aligned, they fell. The Federal Exchange Commission began an investigation in 2002, and while the limited paranormal bona fides of the service's "psychics" lay outside the probe's purview, shady billing practices took the business down. Later coverage went on to reveal that the "psychics" were no such thing, just people who needed a job and were willing to use, or pretend to use, a computer-based tarot card program. Cleo herself was revealed to be a Los Angeles-born actress named Youree Dell Harris and merely a hired spokeswoman. As a mere (poorly paid) employee, Miss Cleo did not ultimately face the lawsuit that led Psychic Readers Network owners Steven Feder and Peter Stoltz to settle out of court for a cool $500 million. Harris went on to make a few self-parodying media appearances, come out as a lesbian, and sadly die young of cancer in 2014.

For more tales of "psychic" con artists, read our feature about false claims made by famous mediums. 

Ever wish you could combine your love of golf with your love of carrying around containers of your own urine? The UroClub has you covered. An... ingenious solution to the problem of needing to relieve yourself out on the links, the UroClub combined a hollow shaft that an uncomfortable golfer could relieve himself into (this product appears tailored for men and only the very boldest women), complete with a privacy towel to add plausible deniability to the whole enterprise. Once empty, the golfer simply seals up the UroClub for later emptying and what promises to be a slapstick cleaning process.

Plenty of people, especially in later life, face challenges with incontinence and urgency, and fortunately, they have access to products and strategies that don't involve the risk of giving a caddy the surprise of his life. The UroClub is now marketed not as a serious solution to an actual problem, but as a gag gift, complete with tie-in to luxe water brand Liquid Death. It's still one of the dumbest things you can buy online right now, but at least the manufacturers are honest about. 

Not to be misread as "bum pit," the BumpIt was briefly ubiquitous in the late aughts, thanks to the rise of high-volume hairstyles (goosed by the popularity of the "Jersey Shore" franchise) and the dramatic infomercials marketing the product. (Plenty of products feature sighing or grumbling "before" scenarios, but the BumpIt lady actually screams at her flat, lifeless hair.) For those unable or unwilling to create '60s-style Big Hair through time-consuming ratting, teasing, and spraying, the BumpIt offered an arguably elegant cheat. Simply place it at the crown of your head, conceal your new coiffure infrastructure with the rest of your hair, and try not to let anyone touch it. Sexy, elegant, casual, sassy, flirty, fabulous: All these styles can be yours.

The BumpIt's problem was not that it didn't work; it received a near-glowing review in Glamour. But fashions change rapidly, and the Snooki-fueled revival of the beehive and related styles now looks dated. But if you think "dated" is another word for classic or need a little help with an Amy Winehouse costume, never fear. The BumpIt remains ready to help.

"Creepy" is not a traditional selling point for a beauty treatment, but the Rejuvenique Electric Facial Mask was no traditional beauty treatment. Endorsed by "Dynasty" beauty Linda Evans, the Rejuvenique mask (ostensibly) did for the face what doing "eight situps a second" would do for the body. (Cause irreversible physical collapse?) Gold-plated contact points provided a mild electrical current to each of your 12 facial zones, powered by a 9-volt battery in the control unit. To give you an idea of the technological era this dates from, the control unit connects to the mask with a curly landline telephone-style cord, and the whole shebang comes with an instructional VHS.

The apparatus looks like something that, once you put it on, you couldn't take it off, even after you realize it's powered by blood you must take from teenage camp counselors. Additionally, it hurt: Emily McCombs, intrepid beauty reviewer for Yahoo, tried the Rejuvenique Electric Facial Mask even after reading a review that compared the sensation to ant bites to the face and discovering that the product was not FDA-approved. McCombs didn't find it painful but reports that it left red marks on her face and scared her mailman. If you're worried about visible signs of aging, give America's postal service a break and try hydrating first.

"Slap your troubles away" sounds like a pitch for a particularly flamboyant new martial art, but alas, it's just a line from the pitch for a subpar vegetable chopper. The Slap Chop offers to free home cooks from the Sisyphean hell of having to... cut vegetables into smaller pieces. Place the Slap Chop over a vegetable that you've, uh, already cut into small enough chunks to fit, think about your third-grade teacher who said you might not be college material, and slap away! The vegetable is chopped. 

The Slap Chop was pitched by Vince Offer, born Offer Shlomi but better known as the ShamWow guy for his more successful product. Offer fell from grace after a sordid 2009 incident that involved a physical altercation with a sex worker who reportedly badly bit him on the tongue, but the TikTok generation rediscovered the Slap Chop and gave it a try in recent years. A writer for food site Delish panned the Slap Chop in 2023, writing that it made a mess of her test onion half... and perhaps most damning to the product's claims, took a minute and a half to do so.

"The amazing new toilet time golf game" sounds, at best, like something to amuse small children during the real grunt work of toilet training, but sadly this gimmicky gift was targeted to adults wanting to improve their performance on the green. The Potty Putter is just that: a small putting practice tool you can use from the most private area of the privacy of your own home. Just roll it out in front of the commode, arrange yourself, and get down to business.

The first and perhaps most minor objection to this product is that the average bathroom floor does not present the complicated topography that might actually give golfers a chance to improve their putting on challenging terrain. Additionally, experts recommend an efficient approach to answering the call of nature: Spending too long on the toilet can cause or exacerbate hemorrhoids and even worsen constipation. Finally, there's a basic public health concern. House Digest recommends homeowners avoid carpeting bathrooms because soft, hard-to-wash surfaces can encourage mold growth and harbor trace amounts of, you knew this was coming, feces. We're not here to pass judgment, but it's hard to imagine John Q. Toiletgolfer regularly disinfecting his bathroom Astroturf. Just bring your phone like everyone else. It's still gross, but it's easier to clean.

Static Media owns and operates House Digest.

"Bone-soothing heat" is one of the main selling points of the Heat Surge Roll-n-Glow Fireplace, which promises efficient, low-cost climate control, all from a device made by Amish craftsmen. (This particular ad also offers a tabletop version, for that hot-chest cold-feet sensation you crave.) Consumer Reports had a bit of fun with this one. In a 2009 triumph of "damning with faint praise," they point out that the amount of heat it puts out is fairly standard, the craftsmanship is adequate but nothing remarkable (veneer! nail holes!), and the price is about what one might expect to pay for a perfectly adequate space heater.

Where Heat Surge really got in trouble was with its claims of Amish craftsmanship. While the term "Amish" can encompass a number of similar groups, with varying relationships to modern technology, they're not generally electrical engineers. Amish craftsmen were making the outside frames or mantels, misspelled "mantle" in some Heat Surge marketing materials, but that's it. The rest of the components were made in America's traditional workshop: China. Additional concerns about the Roll-n-Glow's marketing led the Better Business Bureau to issue a press release warning consumers about the Heat Surge, along with other products shilled by the same company. Arthur Middleton Capital Holdings was also using misleading advertising to market armored safes and claiming to give away free $2 bills. Like the free money, the claims about the Heat Surge were simply too good to be true.

Cats: Love 'em or hate 'em, they traditionally poop in sandboxes. This is an established cat fact, so any owner exhausted by the cycle of scooping and refilling the litterbox can't honestly say they had no idea a housecat would produce a waste management situation. Enter the CitiKitty, a system that promises to teach cats of any age, size, or breed how to use the human toilet. According to the product's Amazon page, the process is simple: Just add the CitiKitty tray full of litter to the toilet you want the cat to use, then remove rings until the business end of the cat is over the water. And then all you do is flush!

The main issue facing users is that the CitiKitty's success involves (checks notes) cooperation from a cat, an extremely rare resource. Additionally, for however long it takes the cat to learn, there's going to be a ring of cat litter installed on the toilet, which is hard to imagine resulting in comfort and ease of use for all concerned. Finally, even in the event of success, you still have to check the toilet regularly to see if Morris has been by to lay his burdens down. If the goal is less net interaction with cat waste, it's hard to see the CitiKitty as really solving the issue.

No discussion of infomercials and the products they sold could claim to be complete without mentioning the patriarch of the genre, the doyen of the art form, peerless pitchman Ron Popeil. An inventor of numerous products of varying quality, Popeil was one of the first to harness television for sales and did so for decades, becoming a bit of a punchline but also a household name and a wealthy man. The coiner of the "O-Matic" suffix and classic taglines "But wait, there's more!" and "Set it and forget it!," Popeil sold generations of Americans karaoke machines, pasta makers, food dehydrators, BeDazzlers, rotisseries, Hair in a Can, and more.

Unfortunately for the as-seen-on-TV true believers, Ronco, the company Ron Popeil named after himself, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in April 2018 and Chapter 7 liquidation that June, after a quick succession of sales. Popeil was not directly affected, having sold the company in 2005, and tartly criticized the most recent owners for having "retooled [the Showtime Rotisserie] and started over in China" (per the New York Post). Popeil died in 2021, leaving a legacy of entrepreneurship and a significant fortune. Ronco's rights and portfolio of products were bought in 2022, and Ronco products remain on the market; time will tell if they sell without the charisma of their inventor.