"Billy Mays Here........."

"Powered by the air you breathe, activated by the water you drink……" OK, who doesn’t enjoy a good infomercial every now and then!?

My fascination with the infomercials is twofold – first, I ponder for a few seconds if the product can perform as advertised. For example, would the Robo Mower work in my yard? Does the Ding King aka Dent Remover 3000 really work? How can the Turbo Express Oven cook a 20 pound turkey or other hunk of meat so quickly? Obviously most of the products are gimmicks and the scrutiny phase is rather short.

The main drawing card for me is the hyperactive spokesperson, the Billy Mays types, and/or the overly exuberant audience members whom are never short on the "eeewwww’s and aaahhhhhh’s." The audiences always marvel at the products with growing amazement and gasps of wonderment as the segments move along. The best is when they show the corny shots of the audience members nodding in approval to one another.

I recently saw a product that caught my eye, a kitchen gadget that promises to allow the user to peel potatoes in 8 seconds – Tater Mitts! I love me some mashed potatoes and with Thanksgiving coming up I was ready to buy a pair of these magical gloves…….that is until I did a quick web search. The commercial conveniently fails to mention that first you have to cook the potatoes only half way, peel them, then finish cooking. Probably not a huge deal but my parade was really rained on when I read reports that the gloves quickly fall apart after only one or two potatoes. Doh!

Oh well, I’ve still got my Shark Vac and Perfect Omelette to play with!