Episode 156: 1-900-BUY-THIS: Infomercials with Dustin (part two)

Welcome to Clotheshorse, the podcast that has never called a 1-900 number.

I’m your host Amanda, and this is episode 156. Today I am joined once again by my other half, Dustin Travis White.

And we are going to be continuing our journey into the history of infomercials!

If you haven’t listened to part one, go back and give that a listen first because we cover a lot of the back story in that part!

So here’s where we left off in at the end of the last episode:

By 1992, every think piece writer was riled up enough about the influx of infomercials on the airwaves to write a few essays about it. What seemed to push them over the edge (and get them to fire up their word processors) was ABC’s test of a new 30 minute infomercial-adjacent program called Nite Cap, hosted by Robin Leach and Rae Dawn Chong.

But it’s also fair to say that at this point, infomercials were a big business. Infomercials generated more than $750 million in product sales in 1991.

The first infomercial aired back in 1949. It was for the Vitamix blender. It was so wildly successful, that lots of other infomercials hit the airwaves here in the U.S, but they were so scammy, that the the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) had to step in to limit the amount of advertising that could appear during an hour of television, effectively eliminating infomercials. And before that happened, Vitamix stopped making infomercials because they did not want to be associated with snake oil and scammy products.

Like all things peak capitalism and borderline dangerous for consumers, infomercials hit the airwaves again in the 1980s, thanks to massive deregulation of advertising by the Reagan administration.

And speaking of Ronald Reagan, as I was working on this pair of episodes, I asked myself “am I the only person who thinks that a lot of the problems facing our society right now began during the Reagan administration, explicitly as the result of its policies?” And I found a great essay which I will share in the show notes from Peter Dreier for The Nation. It was written in 2011 and it rings even more true now. It’s called “Reagan’s Real Legacy.”

“During his two terms in the White House (1981–89), Reagan presided over a widening gap between the rich and everyone else, declining wages and living standards for working families, an assault on labor unions as a vehicle to lift Americans into the middle class, a dramatic increase in poverty and homelessness, and the consolidation and deregulation of the financial industry that led to the current mortgage meltdown, foreclosure epidemic and lingering recession.

These trends were not caused by inevitable social and economic forces. They resulted from Reagan’s policy and political choices based on an underlying “you’re on your own” ideology.”

Reagan’s big thing was “smaller government,” ostensibly because government was holding back business and preventing people from being truly prosperous and free. “Indeed, Reagan’s most important domestic legacy is our government’s weakened ability to do its job protecting families, consumers, workers and the environment.”

Some of the things Reagan did on his watch:

Basically ignored the environmental impact of big business.

His “hands off” approach to regulating Wall Street and financial institutions really set us up for the subprime mortgage crisis and the recession of 2008.

Campaigned against so-called “welfare queens” with the intent of dismantling the social safety net.

Froze the minimum wage at $3.55/hour, while cost of living continued to increase. “The number of people living beneath the federal poverty line rose from 26.1 million in 1979 to 32.7 million in 1988.”

Tried to dismantle public housing and housing assistance. “In his first year in office, Reagan cut the budget for public housing and Section 8 rent subsidies in half.” The country saw a steep increase in unhoused people, many of whom were Vietnam veterans, individuals with mental illness, and families with children.

Sent cities into financial peril, really declining the quality of life for those living in the cities. “Reagan eliminated general revenue sharing to cities, cut funding for public service jobs and job training, almost dismantled federally funded legal services for the poor, cut the antipoverty Community Development Block Grant program and reduced funds for public transit. In 1980 federal dollars accounted for 22 percent of big city budgets. By the end of Reagan’s second term, federal aid was only 6 percent.” This money was used to fund schools, libraries, fire departments, hospitals, and sanitation. Many of these types of places had to close or make massive cutbacks in service. In other words: living in the city got a lot harder.

Let’s also not forget that he threw out most of the regulations around advertising to children and to the american people as a whole…hence, paving the way for infomercials to return in a bigger, more profitable way.

As a reminder, television stations sort of begrudgingly aired infomercials in the late night/early morning hours, as well as on the weekend afternoons, because not only did they not to have to spend money to create or use content to fill those spots, they also got PAID to air infomercials. So it was an easy, albeit sorta embarrassing, source of revenue in the midst of a sluggish economy.

Lots of money was made from infomercials in the 90s, and it continues to be made even in 2023. Today we’re going to talk about some of the iconic infomercials of the 90s and the people and businesses behind them. We’ll also talk about some of the biggest infomercial products of this century, because they are still going strong. We won’t be able to touch on every single one (because there are just so many) but maybe Dustin and I can do a follow up in the future.

Infomercials (no matter what they were selling) always leaned on the same recipe:

A mix of “talk show format,” usually (but not always) with a studio audience

A sprinkling of call-in (or video) testimonials from real people

The ‘ACT NOW’ CTA, which usually promised a special price or free gift for a limited time only.

The reminder of the value extending beyond the actual price of the product or service.

When we think of infomercials, we tend to think of stuff, right? Food dehydrators, cleaning implements, and a whole litany of supplements and miracle pills. But in the 90s, there were infomercials that were making a killing just from selling…conversation? Psychic advice? Phone calls?

Yes, we’re talking about 1-900 numbers!

For those of you who may have forgotten about this, or maybe were just lucky enough to not live in the era of 1-900 numbers, these were numbers you dialed from your touchtone phone and you were charged a higher rate per minute than normal local or long distance calls. The very first 1-900 number was used in 1980 when Nightline (an ABC news magazine) asked viewers who they thought won the Ronald Reagan-Jimmy Carter presidential debate. Viewers could call and vote for a mere 50 cents. Then AT&T totalled the calls and reported on them. Reagan won.

These early 1-900 numbers tended to be information focused:

Dial A Shuttle (1-900-909-NASA), listen to live conversation between space shuttle crews and ground control.

Weather

Johnson & Johnson used a 1-900 number to share information about the infamous cyanide tampering

The thing about these numbers? Customers paid to use them, but the phone company kept the money! In 1987, AT&T opened up the use of 1-900 numbers to any entrepreneur, and by 1989, all of the major telephone companies followed. Why? Because these numbers were wildly lucrative for both the phone companies and the entrepreneurs. Phone companies handled the billing and collections (you paid the phone company), taking a cut and giving the rest to the entrepreneur.

Now, I could do a whole episode about 1-900 numbers alone, because there is so much history there. Congress passed a law banning “dial a porn” in 1988 that was overturned by the Supreme Court a year later. The news was filled with cautionary tales of children ringing up $10,000 phone bills, families destroyed by phone company debt, kids calling phone sex lines. And there were SO MANY of these numbers, for things as innocent as crossword puzzle help to video game tips to dating to phone sex. And lots of celebrities made money off of the 1-900 era:

Corey Haim and Corey Feldman’s fan hotline

Paula Abdul (supposedly she had news for you)

Not a “real” person, but a celebrity nonetheless: He Man

Hulk Hogan: From a Buzzfeed article “According to a factoid flagged “citation needed” on Wikipedia, the Hulkster’s line was the most profitable 900 number from 1991-1993 on AT&T.”

New Kids on the Block

Freddie Krueger

Grandpa Munster?

Lots of other WWF stars & G.L.O.W.

Kiss

Warrant

Santa?! WTF Santa: reminds me of that time I was a little high and talking about Santa as man making a career out of exploitation and forced labor. Apparently this commercial would tell children to hold their phone up to the screen and then a special tone would auto dial the 1-900 number

There were also just weird ones like this UFO one: https://youtu.be/bqZ0T8jeLDc

The Crying Hotline: https://youtu.be/M-akWAWOp2Y

In a pre-internet era, 1-900 numbers were a source of entertainment. Maybe a source of information? Definitely a bit of socialization and of course for many, sexual contact. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfVA8iSGgDc

1-900 numbers were a big business, generating about $60 million in 1988 and growing to a billion dollars in 1991. They peaked in 1993, coming in at $3 billion. And these were definitely fueled by some of the heavy hitters of 1-900 infomercials.

One of those people was Jessica Hahn. She was thrust into fame in the 1980s when she was sexually assaulted by televangelist Jim Bakker, leader of the PTL. Because the media and our world as a whole still doesn’t know how to treat sexual assault victims with care and respect, she was tabloid fodder for years and years. Her first 1-900 number was “Jessica Hahn Tells All,” in which callers could pay by the minute to hear the truth about what really happened with Jim Bakker.

“Jessica Hahn Tells All:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXJ7hnKTJjQ

Apparently this was successful enough to lead to a new 1-900 number and an entire infomercial to support it: Jessica Hahn Love Phone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK_o6AukoHA: about 90 seconds into video

Coverage of Love Phone has all but disappeared from the internet, so I don’t have much info here, but it was very heavily aired in the early 90s. This is one that would become an obvious first casualty of the internet, since you could get all the sexy stories you want for free from the internet.

The most iconic, 1-900 infomercial of the 1990s was Dionne Warwick’s “Psychic Friends Network.” In fact, it was the most frequently broadcasted infomercial in the early 90s. The number and the infomercial were run by a company called Inphomation, who created other 1-900 numbers with corresponding infomercials.

I go down some deep rabbitholes to find info sometimes, and I stumbled across this 1998 Slate article called “What Psychic Friends Failed to Foresee,” which was essentially about how and why Inphomation filed for bankruptcy in 1998 (nothing surprising here: the internet, lack of changing with the times, mismanagement), but I found some interesting facts about the Psychic Friends Network:

Between 1993 and 1994, the infomercial aired more than 12,000 times, and at one point Inphomation was shelling out half a million dollars a week to buy air time on cable stations.

At its peak, Psychic Friends was bringing in as much as $125 million a year, most of it through infomercials.

When callers dialed the number, they would be transferred to a network of “psychics” working from their homes. From there, it was in the best interest of the “psychic” to connect with the caller and keep them on the line as long as possible. According to Slate, in its final years, calls were $3.99 per minute!

The format was once again that familiar “talk show” format with Dionne Warwick hosting. A psychic gave readings to audience members.

Psychic Friends Network should not be confused with Psychic Readers Network, owned by Access Resource Services, a company that had constant legal and financial issues. This was the home of Miss Cleo, another icon of late night infomercials. Do yourself a favor and watch the HBO documentary about her!

I found this XO Jane article from 2012 called “It happened to me: I was a phone psychic for Miss Cleo.” It touches on a few of the “tricks” of the 1-900 game:

“the whole point was two things: keeping people on the phone as long as possible (the more calls would come through, also the more money I would earn) and giving people confidence — in other words telling people what they wanted to hear, even if we had to make it up. Great, I worked in sales before, I could totally do that.”

“We were instructed on different techniques of keeping people on the phone. When a person just asks one question, we were supposed to tell them we needed to feel their vibe to get their energy before we could answer any questions. The scripts were very general. You will come across money, love is in the future, someone at work is jealous of you, someone at work likes you — yaddayaddayadda. We also had the tarot script, which was the same bunch of general information.”

“oh yeah,” she added nonchalantly, “if anyone asks to speak with Miss Cleo, tell them she is on vacation in South Florida.”

Now, despite that peak in 1993 of $3 billion, the 1-900 industry declined pretty rapidly after that thanks to a few things:

Greater regulation of phone sex and pornographic numbers

Gradual shift in consumer sentiment regarding 1-900 numbers

And of course…the rise of the internet. You don’t need phone sex when you can get porn on demand. You could meet people from all over the world in chat rooms. There was a whole internet to browse to entertain you.

In 2002, AT&T announced that it would no longer support billing and collections for these numbers. Verizon held out until 2009.

Okay, let’s shift our direction here to talk about some of the iconic products and sellers of the “golden era” of infomercials.

Ron Popeil was THE guy of infomercials. He allegedly “invented” the phrase “but wait…there’s more.” He was born in 1935. He went to college for about six months, but it just wasn’t the right thing for him. Instead he started focusing on inventions. That’s where his passion was! His father Samuel was also an inventor and salesman, so they worked together. In 1963, Samuel invented the Veg-O-Matic food processor (“it slices! It dices!”) Next, he invented the Chop-O-Matic (another food processor) and the incredible efficiency of the Chop-O-Matic was essentially the reason Ron got into television. The issue with the Chop-O-Matic was that it processed vegetables and fruits so fast and so easily, that it was impossible for a salesman to carry all the produce needed to demonstrate it at each fair and expo. Instead, the company filmed Ron demonstrating the Chop-O-Matic, with the intention of showing this video rather than demonstrating IRL. It was so successful–and Ron was such a great pitch man–that the company began to air it as a commercial on television.

In 1964, Ron started his own company…Ronco. And over the decades he invented a lot of stuff:

Dial-O-Matic: successor to the Veg-O-Matic (and very similar to a mandolin slicer). “Slice a tomato so thin it only has one side.” “When chopping onions with this machine, the only tears you will shed will be tears of joy.”

Mr. Microphone: a short-range hand-held radio transmitter that would broadcast over an FM radio.

Inside-The-Shell Egg Scrambler

Showtime Rotisserie: “Set it and forget it!”

Solid Flavor Injector

Ronco Popeil Automatic Pasta Maker

Electric Food Dehydrator

Ronco Rhinestone Stud Setter: “It changes everyday clothing into exciting fashions and you don’t have to spend a fortune.”

The Cap Snaffler: bottle opener. “Snaffles caps off any size jug, bottle, or jar …and it really, really works.”

Ron was really the master of all of the tricks of selling that we learned in the last episode: value beyond price, that call to action (special deals that are only available now):

Let’s watch a clip of the 2001 Showtime Rotisserie infomercial:

I read this lovely essay about Ron Popeil written by Malcom Gladwell and I’m going to link to it in the show notes. Here is how we meet Ron:

“Ron Popeil is a handsome man, thick through the chest and shoulders, with a leonine head and striking, oversize features. He is in his midsixties and lives in Beverly Hills, halfway up Coldwater Canyon, in a sprawling bungalow with a stand of avocado trees and a vegetable garden out back. In his habits Popeil is, by Beverly Hills standards, old school. He carries his own bags. He has been known to eat at Denny’s. He wears T-shirts and sweatpants. As often as twice a day, he can be found buying poultry or fish or meat at one of the local grocery stores—in particular Costco, which he favors because the chickens there are $0.99 a pound, as opposed to a $1.49 at standard supermarkets. Whatever he buys, he brings back to his kitchen, a vast room overlooking the canyon, with an array of industrial appliances, a collection of fifteen hundred bottles of olive oil, and, in the corner, an oil painting of him, his fourth wife, Robin (a former Frederick’s of Hollywood model), and their baby daughter, Contessa.”

In 2005, Ron sold Ronco to another company, but he continued to work on inventions until his death at the age of 86 in 2021.

As I mentioned earlier, there are just too many big infomercials of the 90s to cover them all, but there is one that really illustrates how this industry worked in its heyday, and that is Victoria Jackson’s Beauty Breakthroughs, which sold more than $150 million in cosmetics from 1990-1992.

( go to 14 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TzkLPSVtvk

Unintentional ASMR | Victoria Jackson Cosmetics | VHS Commercial 90s

Victoria Jackson (not the comedian from SNL) had a hard home life as a child. As a teenager she was sexually assaulted and stabbed by a serial rapist called the “Pillowcase Rapist.” After that attack, she never returned to her house again and she missed her high school graduation. In 1976 she won a scholarship to beauty school, where she trained to be a makeup artist. In the 80s, she developed her trademark “No Makeup” makeup look. She created her own line of cosmetics, Victoria Jackson Cosmetics, in her garage. And soon she became a well known success story, selling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of her makeup on her own infomercial. A real all american success story, right?

Except not. Or maybe it is ULTRA all american because everything was not as it seemed (and someone got scammed).

From a 1995 LA Times article about Jackson and what was really happening behind the scenes:

“While the cosmetics line she created has probably earned millions for the company that produces her infomercials, American Telecast of Paoli, Pa., for several years Jackson was earning a relatively modest $3,000 to $8,000 a month.”

That’s because Jackson had signed a contract with American Telecast that was based on “adjusted gross,” meaning that she was only entitled to small portion of the company’s earnings, after expenses like air time, production costs, marketing costs, salaries, etc were deducted. She was actually being paid less than the celebrity guests on the infomercial (Meredith Baxter Birney, Ali McGraw), who were receiving 2% of the gross revenue before costs were subtracted.

She told the LA Times: “I’ve always referred to this as my deal from heaven and hell. From heaven because it put me on the map (and) let me realize my dreams and potential. But from hell because . . . I don’t own it, and I don’t make all the money I would have, had I done it differently.”

Back in 1988 when Jackson signed the deal with American Telecast, she was desperate. Despite a successful career as a makeup artist in Hollywood, she just hadn’t been able to successfully launch her own line. American Telecast promised her the opportunity to do that.

Per the LA Times, “American Telecast offered to pay up front for the research and development of Jackson’s makeup line, as well as manufacturing costs and the TV air time to sell it by way of a toll-free 800 telephone number. Jackson would receive 10% of an adjusted gross profit; until the profits started rolling in, she’d receive advances on future earnings. It was a take-it-or-leave-it deal, and she took it. With hindsight, Jackson says she should have found advisers more familiar with the vagaries of entertainment-industry accounting and of infomercials.”

For years, Jackson would receive little to no payment for the sales of the line, being told by the company that no profit was being made. In 1992, she hired a lawyer who was familiar with these kinds of agreements. An audit of American Telecast’s accounting was done…and wouldn’t you know it? It turned out that they DID owe Jackson money. And she was able to negotiate a better deal.

Let’s talk about American Telecast for a bit here, because it was one of the biggest companies benefitting from the infomercial era. The family-owned company began in the mid 70s as a direct marketing company, but pivoted into infomercials in the eighties, as infomercials were just taking off. And wow, they were behind some major ones:

Richard Simmons’ Deal A Meal (which grossed more than $250 million in sales)

Where There’s A Will There’s An A (more than $150 million), hosted by Michael Landon, John Ritter, Marie Osmond, and Hugh Downs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY7taMqDPqE

Jane Fonda Treadmill (more than $145 million in sales)

A series of videos called “Hidden Keys to Loving Relationships” ($125 million in sales) starring Connie Sellecca, John Tesh, Frank & Kathy Lee Gifford. Later they did a cosmetic line infomercial with Kathy Lee called “Mon Amie.”

It’s hard to find out much about American Telecast (they keep a low profile, telling the NYT in 1992 “The spouting whale gets harpooned”), but they were widely considered “the best in the infomercial business” in the 1990s. And their formula was easy: get a celebrity on board and give them a small portion of sales. They could pitch it as almost “passive” income to the star. Just film the infomercial in a day or two and watch the money roll in for years.

Ultimately what I found in my research I found that there were only a few major companies dominating the infomercial landscape in the 1990s, with American Telecast running the celebrity products circuit, Ronco doing his own thing, and all of the 1-900 numbers being run by a small handful of 1-900 conglomerates.

As I mentioned at the top of this episode, infomercials continue to air (even today). The industry was definitely a lot stronger in the 1990s and 00s, but we have seen some products launch as infomercials and become full-on regular bestselling products:

The Snuggie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xZp-GLMMJ0 More than 20 million Snuggies have been sold, more than $400 million in revenue

Oxi Clean (Billy Mays)

Proactiv (starring Judith Light)

Bow Flex

George Foreman grill (more than 100 million sold)

PedEgg (more than $450,000,000 in sales, at $10/each, that’s 45 million sold)

ShamWow

Shake Weight: okay, maybe not this one

Squatty Potty

Furthermore, many big box stores have an “as seen in tv” section.

But more than ever, social media has become today’s infomercial, thanks to a combination of influencer marketing and affiliate links. Think about your average influencer’s profile/posts and compare them to the standard recipe of an infomercial:

A mix of “talk show format,” usually (but not always) with a studio audience: we get that with influencer posts/reviews and follower comments/feedback

A sprinkling of call-in (or video) testimonials from real people: nothing more real as a testimonial than a post of an influencer actually using the product.

The ‘ACT NOW’ CTA, which usually promised a special price or free gift for a limited time only: most influencers offer special “exclusive” discount codes

The reminder of the value extending beyond the actual price of the product or service: can you put a price on the aspirational lifestyle of an influencer?

Okay, that’s all for this episode. Thanks so much for listening to another episode of Clotheshorse.