Iconic Infomercials

The Snuggie; the icon that started the wearable blanket trend. All things considered this infomercial and product have held up really well. While some of the graphics and rhetoric used to convince buyers are fairly unrealistic, like not turning up the heat, but wearing your snuggie. Despite that the Snuggie remains the same simple, functional replacement for both a blanket and jacket that today lives on in so many interpolations today. 10/10 Very useful.

I actually got Floam as a birthday gift as a kid one year and I hated it. Not because it didn’t serve its intended purpose, but because it didn’t feel how I thought it would. I wasn’t expecting it to be just little foam balls that not only stuck to each other, but also stuck to you. I’m sure that it could have been the arts and crafts wonder that the ad proposed it to be, but I just wasn’t feeling it when I got it. I also think that Floam was a little ahead of its time, now that the slime craze has hit in the past few years. I’m also not sure how well this stuff would dry onto a non-porous surface. 7/10 has the potential to be a fun craft project and tactile experience.

How cool is this? Clapping to turn the lights on and off, what are you a magician? While this product might seem like a fun and easy way to control the lights in a room, it seems more like it could be a nuisance depending on how well the product actually works. Also, if you were ever up in the middle of the night and had to sneakily turn the lights on and off, I’m not sure the clapper would be your best bet. Either way, that jingle is incredible. “Clap on, clap off”. 5/10 could be fun and useful if it works right.

This one might be pretty niche, but it’s one I have personal experience with. The Old Brooklyn Lantern is essentially an LED flashlight made to look like a gas lantern is overblown into a room-filling, bright light to end all flashlights. My dad once got one of these as a white elephant gift at christmas and it sucked. It wasn’t bright and it wasn’t reliable. The ad doesn’t even make it look bright in most of the shots. Bafflingly off the mark. 2/10 it works as a flashlight…sometimes.

Why, just why? Whose dumb idea was this? The Fushigi is literally just a ball that people know how to do tricks with. Nowhere in the ad does it say what makes this ball so special or how to “defy gravity” with it, only that you can give the illusion of the ball floating in the air. Nobody but the actors in Fushigi shirts are able to do any cool tricks with the ball. A bad, over-hyped ad to go with a scam of a product. 0/10 a flat out scam to charge $20 for a ball.

Ok, I’m sure Perfect Brownie works to separate brownies and other baked goods, but honestly who needs them. It’s not hard to grease a pan before you bake in it and it’s really not hard to cut straight lines into freshly baked brownies. There’s a lot you’d need to look past to believe that you truly need this product. Also, whose kitchen looks like that? Seriously, you couldn’t make that look more like a set off of QVC. 3/10 Could be useful for a really horrible baker.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t still have my Pillow Pet panda at home. Another solid ad with another iconic jingle that I’m sure you’re singing in your head right now. Nothing about this ad is a bold-faced lie either. Pillow Pets do serve a dual purpose as a stuffed animal and a pillow, even if that pillow is often flat and unsupportive. They are indeed machine washable and are built to last, given that I know several people who still have them. 10/10 for the nostalgia and quality. No notes.