The Real Must See TV III

In our second of this three-part series on the wonders that are infomercials, we left you with a cliffhanger, teasing you with a taste of the most ubiquitous of all the early morning, cable station fare--the diet and exercise infomercials. As I noted in concluding then, they are not always presented together even though their goals are presumably the same--the "sculpting" of a wonderful new you. The diet ones don't always emphasize workouts, just meal plans that have helped these so-personable women (and occasional man) lose the equivalent of an adult male in fat (old joke--how can you lose ten pounds of ugly fat in one second? Cut off your head. Bada-boom. . . . sorry). And the meals come right to your door!!! Or, if you prefer not to diet but actually exerting your muscles yourself is too onerous, try the electronic belt that will send currents of electricity into your muscles in patterned intervals. Surprise, they contract without your having to do a thing, unless that special gel doesn't prevent the third degree burns. Or the Parkinson's doesn't set in later. It's great to watch the models just smile as they're being electrocuted, like being administered shocks is cool. (If nothing else, you can put the belt on your dog to teach it not to jump on people. . . . please, don't call the cops on me. . . .)

If you want real tone, though, to look hot in your bikini or Speedo, you need one of many tried-and-true exercise programs (with "diet" in small print, like "caution: results may not be typical. . . no fooling, jack). The heavy duty machines for arms, biceps, pecs, and upper body tend to be more male-oriented, with bodies well-oiled enough to draw the Playgirl crowd. Abs, butt, and thighs? Women's territory (although there are definitely guys who should pay attention). Some of the upper body stuff looks pretty tough, but that 50-year-old grandma in the bikini can do it, macho man. The ab and butt stuff essentially use machines to help you do the crunch, donkey kick, or butt lift that Jack Lalanne taught 50 years ago (speaking of whom, he still gets wheeled out to animatronically do a juicer commercial) or Denise Austin does with that "want to wipe that smile off her face" perkiness even now. But how could doing regular exercises be as much fun as these people are clearly having with the Firm Body Beach Ab Crunch Lounge Doer Shaper in Six, Twelve, or Thirty Seconds, Minutes, Lifetimes?

After a while you get to know the personalities because they show up over and over. The Total Gym commercials (Personal Testimonial: I have one, and it works) with Chuck Norris and Christie Brinkley are everywhere. I love watching little, round, potato-shaped Chuck in his tank top get to out-macho all these muscle-mag studs who marvel at his T-Gym prowess. He'll be the next Lalanne. Christie, of course, just has to look like Christie (and, while we're on the topic, WHAT WAS THAT GUY THINKING???? and don't get me started on Billy Joel), but she does the workouts much more impressively than Chuck or his scary skinny wife who needs less Total Gym and more Oreo.

Another ever-present guy is Body by Jake (don't know his last name but he's famous). He's got machines for everything, and he's sold them all on screen at one time or another. Deion Sanders swears by him, so what more do you need? This is just one of several exermercial (??) tropes--using the sports celebrity (or former movie/tv star or SI swimsuit model) to sell the product since they owe their professional careers to the machine. Okay. I like Jake, though, because he tells me "Don't quit" although lately he's started adding "on you" which seems too many words and a little colder and less personal. I don't know, it could just be me. I happened upon one of his commercials on Telemundo the other day, which was surreal (Jake in Spanish) but cool. The most obnoxious guy is Tony Little, who did do a funny GEICO commercial (and apparently wore himself out on his Gazelle (Personal Testimonial: I have one, and it works) and now is hawking pillows and juicers). Watch out, Jack. And Chuck.

There are female versions of these guys. Sometimes you already know them (Ali Landry, Daisy Fuentes, Charlotte Ross), but mainly they’re new faces, perky, perky new faces. Beach Body has a couple, one a spunky blonde named Chalene (I hate spunk) who will have knee joints the size of melons (which will go nicely with her chest, though) when her slim through kicking days are over. There's another one named Debbie who is into her third version of her routine now, at least since I've been watching, sidekicked by Julie Moran assuring us that the exercise helped her get rid of all that baby weight. (Which is a common gambit here--this woman lost 70 pounds!!! 10 of which turns out to be baby and placenta, and 50 more the baby weight coming off. Not that the exercise doesn't help, but 70 pounds worth? Please.) Debbie has undergone a chest area transformation herself since the earlier commercials. Maybe we’ll see her on those breast pill commercials next. One of my favorites is Darla Haun, a thirtysomething brunette who has sold pills, makeup, Gazelles (they tried someone else in the last one, lasted maybe two weeks), and Ab Lounges, although the last was with a Brady Bunch boy unfortunately (I thought they were all dead). She still looks remarkably good, thanks to the machines, no doubt, although the eye work has become noticeable. But, Darla, all these infomercials and we've never seen your legs, your clearly long, long legs? What's that about?

Of course, my academic interest in these particular infomercials is in the models, the female ones, many of whom confusingly got their perfect shapes from several different products apparently. You see them sweating to one machine/routine and then, ooops, there they are getting those great abs and terrific thighs and butt from something else. What gives? Do they think we're stupid? (Well, yes, actually. Practically every one of these has some scene which starts off with an overweight body then "melting" into the perfect shape promised by the machine, and in small print somewhere on the screen will appear the word "simulation." Really??? And does the US Patent Office really give patents for a revolutionary “sculpting arc”?)

For a long time there was a scary skinny but muscled blond female on everything who had moved over from the ESPN exercise shows (where are those things now???? In the soft-core porn section at SunCoast?). You can still see her with Chuck (if you haven't quickly changed channels). Right now there's a slightly better fed and more wholesomely pretty blonde turning up on everything from The Firm to Jake to Windsor Pilates, out-attracting Daisy Fuentes. For a while a dark-haired female broke the blonde stranglehold and did Jake (get your mind out of the gutter), Ab Rollers, and ended up in an anti-gas commercial (intestinal, not the other). That was disturbing, frankly, and made you wonder about the consequences of making yourself so skinny. It's bad seeing them hawking the exercise thing and then the next infomercial it's sound systems or "enhancement." Can they truly be so Renaissance, you find yourself asking, and then your skepticism begins to rise. (In the interest of gender equity, there is one guy, a “former professional soccer player,” who turns up with his Adonis body in everything. He annoys me.)

You might think, surely these things get old pretty quickly, and, in truth, most of them do, although not really watching them prop Jack up, like the Soviets used to do to Brezhnev. But, usually, just when you’re getting bored, something new pops up, a Time-Life series of 60s Beach Blanket songs or that software guy with the brunette in the tight knit white top and the tight split-side skirt . . . . Sorry. Right now there's a pretty good one about a moving seat that you can twist yourself back and forth on for your abs, although I think a bar stool would work as well, and one that takes off on the "Dancing with the Stars" craze that shows great abs but not much more. It's too much like "Yoga Booty Ballet," though. But now that I’ve found Jake on Spanish tv, whole new permutations are taking shape. I’m telling you, it’s neverending entertainment. Try it and see.

(You think I made that Yoga Booty thing up, don't you?)