Episode 155: Food Dehydrators, Psychic Hotlines, and Vacuum Hair Cuts: Infomercials with Dustin (part one)

Welcome to Clotheshorse, the podcast that does not come with a money back guarantee.

I’m your host, Amanda and this is episode 155. Today I’m joined by a special guest, someone whose name you hear at the end of every episode, my other half, Dustin Travis White.

Dustin–would you like to introduce yourself to everyone?

You’re probably wondering why Dustin is here with me today. Well, he’s always here with me when I’m working on Clotheshorse, because our offices are next to one another in our house and the walls are very thin.

One of my obsessions this year for Clotheshorse is untangling all of the ways in which we’ve been turned into consumers. The sad reality (which I explained on a recent episode of The Department), is that for any of us who were children in the late 1970s or later…products (especially licensed products), commercials, and shopping form the backdrop of our memories. In fact, many of us now find common ground with one another because we share these memories: Happy Meals, Saturday morning cartoons, Fruit Roll Ups, American Girl dolls…entire communities are being built out of this shared nostalgia.

So far in my personal quest to understand all of the ways in which we have been sold stuff over the years, I’ve tackled catalogs, Saturday morning cartoons and “toy hysteria.”

Today Dustin and I are talking about something near and dear (or at least super nostalgic to us): infomercials. As kids of the 80s and 90s, these filled the late night and weekend afternoons on television, especially on local stations. One of my earliest infomercial memories (and it’s probably kinda my favorite infomercials) was for the Ronco electric food dehydrator. I was by default the in-house babysitter from about 4th grade on, so when my parents had something else to do on the weekends (or were just at work), I would try my hardest to stay up late to watch Saturday Night Live. I almost never made it because my body was used to getting up super early on school days (6 am), but sometimes I would wake up during the back half of it, which always felt like a sleepy victory. One night I woke up assuming that I was watching a very long SNL skit as a man and his extremely enthusiastic female cohost went on about turkey jerky, salmon jerky, and fruit leather. About 20 minutes later, I realized this was NOT SNL (but it was pretty funny and weird) and instead I was watching my first infomercial, for the Ronco Electric Food Dehydrator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ_-nEutSKw

We’re going to talk about Ronco more later…But I’ll say this: that infomercial made me want a food dehydrator. I was a child! IIf I had seen a 30 second or 2 minute ad for a food dehydrator, it wouldn’t have meant much to me. But a 30 minute segment that looked and felt just like a regular episode of Sally or Jenny Jones? Where someone had the time to break down every single aspect of the product? Where regular people just like us called in to say just how much the Ronco Electric Food Dehydrator saved their lives?

It made fruit leather, banana chips, regular jerky, turkey jerky, fish jerky, YOGURT, and it saved people lots of money. A product so miraculous, it needed a full 30 minute segment to explain all of its virtues.

And guess what? We do have one now (it isn’t Ronco brand)

Buying something from television was nothing new by the late 90s. Yes, we had regular old ads for products that you could buy at a store, but we were also being sold stuff directly via television. Just call the 1-800 number and pay with a credit card or a COD. (Collect on Delivery—believe it or not, the USPS didn’t suspend this practice until 2016!)

As I child I was obsessed with two particular items for sale whose commercials filled the local programming after school:

The Time Life Mysteries of the Unknown Series:

Pure Moods:

But there were others:

Freedom Rock

Various Do It Yourself book series

Franklin Mint dolls and coins

And the 80s also saw the rise of home shopping networks (don’t worry, that’s a future episode of Clotheshorse).

Wikipedia defines an infomercial as “ a form of television commercial that resembles regular TV programming yet is intended to promote or sell a product, service or idea. It generally includes a toll-free telephone number or website.” It is also called “paid programming.” Episodes tend to fill an entire 30 minute or 60 minute block in the off peak broadcasting hours between 1 am and 6 am. But some stations also air them on weekend afternoons or any other window with low viewership. Stations make a decent amount of almost passive revenue by airing these. Furthermore, research has indicated that these infomercials are most effective (meaning: driving the most sales) when there isn’t much else to watch on television.

Infomercials picked up steam through the late 1980s, and by 1992, they were on everybody’s mind (or at least the minds of people who wrote think pieces for newspapers and magazines.

And to be fair, they weren’t just a little thing. Infomercials generated more than $750 million in product sales in 1991. The Washington DC-based National Infomercial Marketing Association formed in 1990, boasting more than 200 members by 1992. And infomercials had their own awards ceremony, the Play awards (Play is an acronym for program-length advertisements of the year). Sadly I couldn’t find any videos or lists of winners.

The most broadcasted infomercials during the week ending September 26, 1992:

1. “Psychic Friends Network.” Host is Dionne Warwick; 900-number psychics.

2. “Tony Robbins — Personal Power.” Martin Sheen is featured; self-help.

3. “The Big Green Clean Machine.” A vacuum cleaner.

4. “Video Professor.” Computer-education video tapes, learning how to use Windows!

5. “Aquasentials.” Host is Cher; hair care products. Cher was paid $1 million and a share of sales for her appearance.

6. “Stairclimber Plus.” Exercise equipment.

7. “The Secret of Creating Your Future.” Hosts are James Brolin and Linda Gray; self-help.

8. “Kathy Smith Fat Burning System.” A weight-loss program.

9. “Victoria Jackson Makeup.” Beauty products. We are going to talk about this a lot more in the next episode.

10. “Ronco Food Dehydrator.” Kitchenware.

I was really shocked that Topsy Tail wasn’t on that list because I felt like it was always on television on weekend afternoons. Also:

Thighmaster (Suzanne Somers) only $19.95, the company has earned more than $100 million in revenue since its launch in 1990),

Sweatin’ to the Oldies (Richard Simmons): generated more than $200 million in sales since it aired in the late 80s)

Bedazzler, Hairagami, Blo Pens, Hooked on Phonics, Flowbee, Hair Club for Men

So how did we reach a point in the 1990s where the evening hours of television were filled with long form commercials?

Well, let’s travel back in time to the early days of television. Back then, many television shows were created by sponsors (advertisers) specifically to sell their product. This is actually how soap operas began, as they were often sponsored by soap makers like Proctor & Gamble. In the era of radio, the company started producing its own daytime dramas to promote Oxydol soap powder. In the 1960s Proctor and Gamble had produced 20 soap operas, including Guiding Light, The Young & the Restless, Search for Tomorrow, Texas, and As The World Turns. The company had complete creative control over the show.

But it wasn’t just soap operas! Lots of brands were doing similar things, having the main cast pitch products at the beginning of each episode:

The Andy Griffith Show: Post Cereal

Ozzy & Harriet: Coca Cola

Bonanza: Chevrolet

The Flintstones: Welch’s grape juice

Leave It To Beaver: Purina

The Twilight Zone: Sanka

The Beverly Hillbillies: Kellogg’s

I Love Lucy: Phillip Morris

The Jetsons: Colgate

These weren’t infomercials, but they definitely blurred the line between entertainment and advertising. The infomercial was actually invented by Vitamix (the blender company ) in 1949. It starred Vitamix founder William Grover Barnard (known as “Papa Barnard). Now, Papa Barnard was a consummate salesman. He started the Barnard Sales Company back in 1921, selling can openers and other kitchen utensils. His big guiding principle: value should always exceed the price. And the value of the things he sold was HEALTH! Can openers gave customers access to fruits and vegetables when they were out of season. Vegetable graters allowed people with dental issues to still consume produce. The blender–which came later–gave all kinds of people easy ways to eat more healthfully. Barnard traveled from trade show to expo for years and years, demonstrating the items he sold and explaining all of the ways in which their value exceeded their price. The demonstration element was key: it gave him time with the customers. It gave customers the opportunity to envision the ways in which these items would fit into their day-to-day lives, ostensibly improving their health and happiness. And it worked!

Vitamix’s inaugural infomercial (called Home Miracles for 1950) was broadcast live from a Cleveland television studio. It was allegedly created by the Natural Foods Institute of Olmsted Falls, Ohio. Papa Barnard billed himself as “Author, Lecturer, and Food Specialist.” It was 30 minutes long, with Papa Barnard showing all of the things one could make with a blender.

But he also focused on the VALUE of the blender. It saved you money! The butter you could make with your milk each week (using the blender) would pay for the blender in just a few months. And there were less dishes to wash, ease of use and cleaning, and most importantly: HEALTH. You can’t put a price on that, right? “You can’t afford to go another day without a Vitamix machine.”

And there was another “classic” move of infomercials: act now and get this special deal/add on. In the world of retail, we call that the “call to action (CTA)” or “sense of urgency.” Meaning: don’t sleep on this, give us your money now.

It was a wild success. The phone was ringing with orders all night . In the middle of the night, the operator cut through and said “Mr. Barnard, this is your operator, but I’m going home.” The infomercial continued to air live for the rest of 1949, and then it was recorded in 1950.

The Vitamix company continued in the infomercial game for years, eventually leaving because they felt too many scammy products had arrived on the scene from competitors. They didn’t want to be lumped in with them.

And that’s what infomercials of the 1950s tended to be: scammy and full of snake oil. Here in the United States, 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. However, infomercials that sold music compilations could run, because including enough snippets of the songs would decrease the amount of actual “advertising time.”

So, at the end of last year, I did a series of Clotheshorse episodes with my friend Jess about toy crazes of the 80s and 90s. And we talked about how deregulation of advertising to children resulted in toy companies making cartoons that literally functioned as 30 minute advertisements for toys. One could even argue that they were kinda infomercials, right? That deregulation happened during the Reagan administration, who felt that rules around advertising to children were stifling business growth. The Reagan administration felt that rules around ALL advertising were preventing the economy from growing, so in 1984, the administration erased the Federal Communications Commission’s limit of 12 commercial minutes per hour of programming. So that meant…INFOMERCIALS WERE BACK, BABY! This time with disclaimers like “All claims and representations made in this program-length advertisement are the sole responsibility of the sponsor.”

Almost immediately, the airwaves filled with scammy products. The president’s own son, Michael Reagan, hosted an infomercial for Euro Trym Diet Patch. The manufacturer was later sued by the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) for false advertising. The same company was also sued for selling bogus impotence pills, too. Jeffrey Knowles, counsel for the National Infomercial Marketing Association in Washington, told the New York Times, “ It was like a frontier town.” Congressional hearings threatened to shut down the entire infomercial industry for YEARS, so the more legit companies got together to form its own trade and lobbying group.

Despite all of the drama and scams, infomercials still found their way on to the airwaves. Why? Because television stations needed money. While the Reagan era is considered a time of great economic growth, what we really saw was income inequality expanding. And by 1992, when Bill Clinton defeated Republican George Bush in the US presidential election, “10 million Americans were unemployed, the country faced record deficits, and poverty and welfare rolls were growing. Family incomes were losing ground to inflation and jobs were being created at the slowest rate since the Great Depression.” Btw that info is from a really early website created by the Clinton-Gore administration. The economy was not great. And broadcasters were feeling that pinch. But infomercials–despite their seedy reputation–were easy money. According to a 1992 New York Times article called “The Stepford Channel,” in the early 90s, “Stations charge companies anywhere from $500 a half-hour in a small market to $50,000 for a slot in New York or Los Angeles, though many are embarrassed to admit it.”

From the same NYT article:

“What do you want me to say?” said Martin Blair, a spokesman for New York’s WCBS. “Yeah, we run them. So what?” Substituting commercials for programming is a recession necessity, said WNBC’s president and general manager, Bill Bolster, predicting that “as the economy improves, they’ll be the first thing to go.”

So the infomercials were here to stay (and yes, they are still here). We’ll talk about that more in the next episode. Many sold tangible products like makeup and home goods, while others sold advice and social contact (more on that in the next episode).

Most infomercials arrived in a form that was super comfortable and familiar to us: as a quasi-talk show. The live studio audience, celebrity guests, the call-ins from happy customers. They were so comforting! As a person who has always struggled with insomnia, I found that I could easily and blissfully be lulled back to sleep just by turning on one of these programs. No one was sad on an infomercial because everyone was hysterical with happiness. All problems were solved by miracle devices and psychic advisors! And if they weren’t? No big deal because there was always a money back guarantee! Infomercials built a world that was perfect, where no one was ever disappointed because everyone was delighted. Satisfaction guaranteed!

Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media studies at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore told the New York Times, “What people seem to want from the infomercial is an experience that is wholly and brainlessly affirmative. It may be commercial television in its purest state.”

Despite the strange appeal of infomercials, large networks still felt that they weren’t exactly premium content. Fine for generating some extra revenue late, late at night, but never worth shouting about. Maybe even a dirty secret. But in 1992, ABC decided to test something in a big way: Nitecap, a late night 30 minute show starring Robin Leach (of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous) and Rae Dawn Chong,. It featured all-star guests that would encourage viewers to call a 1-800 to order products and/or receive special offers and coupons for those products. It aired on 52 stations for six weeks.

ABC was getting into the infomercial game because shopping from home could no longer be ignored. According to a 1992 Chicago Tribune article about the show, “Increasingly, customers are shunning retail stores in favor of shopping from the home. The trend has spawned a $5 billion-a-year direct-marketing industry in which Home Shopping Network and its cable rival, QVC Shopping Channel, claim a combined total of $2 billion.” It’s interesting to think that as far back as 1992–when ecommerce was really about 15 years off in the future–people were already bored with shopping IRL.

But furthermore, for many of us in the pre-internet world, television was a window to the world and often a source of education in one way or another. I remember when my mother found out that I didn’t own a television (not sure why this shocked her as I never had one as a young adult), she gasped “how will Dylan learn anything?” Well, viewers (for better or worse) viewed infomercials as education content, too. Prof. Todd Gitlin, director of the mass communications program at the University of California at Berkeley told the New York Times, “Shopping is pleasure for a lot of people, and with infomercials they can fool themselves into thinking they’re learning something at the same time.”

So naturally someone is going to listen to the shopping suggestions of Robin Leach and his celebrity friends. Now, making this show was a bold move. It would be going up against David Letterman and Arsenio Hall! The show was designed to be a “toast” to retailers, to get customers back into stores. The show partnered with brands like Burger King, Estee Lauder, Seagrams, and lots of weird diet products. Stations would get a 5% cut of any sales made during the broadcast in their viewing area. This is not unlike a lot of content made today, from Bustle to Buzzfeed to Refinery 29. Any time a reader clicks the link in an article called “30 best dresses on Amazon right now” or “Our Picks From the ______Summer Sale,” and then makes a purchase, the publisher gets a cut of the sale. These “affiliate links” are shaping fashion, pop culture, cooking, and beauty media right now. Nitecap was sort of the inception of it all.

I couldn’t find many clips of it…okay, I could only find one clip of it, but it seemed to feel like a big party where Leach cruised around with a microphone and people talked about products. The sound quality isn’t amazing here, but I bookmarked this section just for you, Dustin.

Nitecap only lasted 12 weeks (which kinda surprises me), but then again, it was a block that ABC struggled to fill for years. I did find two reviews on IMDB for it, and I thought that I would share them, to at the very least amuse Dustin.

Review #1:

‘Nitecap’ will end your day… by putting you to sleep!

Written by Rambo-726 in February 2006

“Disastrous.” …and that’s being kind. ‘Nitecap’ offers up a mix of party-time, interviews, infomercials and the self-indulgence that host Robin Leach found through his ‘Lifestyles Of The Rich & Famous’ series (a show I actually enjoyed!).

‘Nitecap’ is an attempt to capture the free-wheeling attitudes of Hugh Hefner’s ‘Playboy’s Penthouse’ (1959 – see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052503/ ), but without the feeling of pizazz, or the wow factor, that came with it.

‘Nitecap’ drags along in a sloppy, disconnected way, with Leach and co-host Rae Dawn Chong stumbling through the little scripted material provided (ad-libbing was apparently thought of as a good idea).

Review #2:

I worked on Nightcap and thought I would kill myself

Written by leesofl2 in April 2021

Robin was a pr*ck to work with, Chong was pleasant but never connected with him. It did make air in 12 markets for its two week tryout. It was put to sleep after that run.

That’s where we are going to end this episode…but we will be back next week with more infomercial info! We’ll be talking about the business behind it (and yes, there were a few big companies steering it all), the most legendary hosts and products, and where infomercials went in this century.