Top 10 As Seen on TV Products You Were Tricked Into Buying
#10: Big Mouth Billy Bass
There is no reason this product should have succeeded. Introduced in 1999, the commercials somehow convinced millions of people that a singing animatronic fish belonged on their walls. At the push of a button, Billy would twist, flap, and belt out songs. It was an instant hit, and immediately inspired a host of knockoffs. Parent company Gemmy Industries also created half a dozen spinoffs, including Lucky the Lobster and Travis the Singing Trout. Half the dads in North America must have gotten one of these as a Father’s Day gift at some point. Billy’s bizarre charm turned him into a pop culture icon.
#9: Bumpits
Do you dream of sky-high hair but dread spending hours in the bathroom teasing it? Luckily, there’s Bumpits. Although it feels like something straight out of the 80s, the product actually came on the market in 2008. Creator Kelly Fitzpatrick-Bennett, a former hair stylist, was immediately met with huge demand for Bumpits. The infomercial-style ads make using Bumpits look effortless. In reality, it takes some practice to perfect the art of hiding the plastic insert – and you’re still going to need plenty of hairspray. But at the height of the Great Recession, these inexpensive tools were a quick way to get tall, trendy hair.
#8: Shake Weight
Some products become famous because they work. Others become famous because people can’t stop laughing at them. The Shake Weight belongs firmly in the second category. The commercials insisted that the unique motion of the Shake Weight would deliver superior muscle activation. But it was precisely that unique – and highly suggestive – motion that turned the Shake Weight into a viral hit. The Shake Weight became a punchline across TV and the internet, but you know what they say: Any publicity is good publicity. Two million Shake Weights were sold in the first year alone, despite the product delivering questionable workout results.
#7: “Sweatin' to the Oldies”
Richard Simmons was the original fitness influencer. After dealing with childhood obesity, he started his own gym in the 1970s and lost over 100 pounds. When the aerobics craze of the 80s hit, Simmons cashed in with the now-famous series of VHS tapes, “Sweatin’ to the Oldies.” They’re exactly what they sound like, and we can almost guarantee your mom or grandma had at least one of these. Unlike most exercise tapes, “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” featured regular people working out with Simmons, not fitness models. The low-impact routines were designed to feel more like a dance party than exercise. Did that help people stick to them better than other exercise routines? Probably not, but the tapes were bestsellers nonetheless.
#6: Big City Slider Station
We would buy anything from Billy Mays. These ads used the classic infomercial formula: Make something that’s actually really simple look difficult, then sell you a completely unnecessary product to solve the problem. Is cooking burgers in a pan truly that complicated? No. Does this gadget look like a hassle to clean and store? Yes. And how often are you actually feeding your family sliders anyway? But none of that stopped people from ordering them. To be fair, the Big City Slider Station does look fun to use, and we all know Billy Mays could sell sand at the beach.
#5: Happy Hot Dog Man
If you got the Big City Slider Station for your summer barbecue, you might as well get the Happy Hot Dog Man to go with it. This completely superfluous product is pretty self-explanatory: You put a hot dog in it, and it slices it into a little guy – something that could easily be accomplished with a knife. But you got four of them for eleven bucks – that’s less than $3 per Hot Dog Man! Who could resist a deal like that? Not to mention the added bonus of the condiment creatures that definitely won’t encourage your kids to waste tons of ketchup and mustard.
#4: BeDazzler
First introduced in the 1970s, this gadget has been revived time and again thanks to the power of the infomercial. If anything in your house was lacking rhinestones, your crafty mom would find a way to add them with the BeDazzler. And heaven forbid a stylish 90s tween got ahold of one of these things. Her entire wardrobe would be jewel-studded within a week. The downside was that the novelty of the BeDazzler wore off pretty quickly, and most of them ended up in a closet collecting dust. But they sure were fun to use until then.
#3: Snuggie
By the time the blanket with sleeves hit the market, the infomercial had become a parody of itself. No one actually finds it difficult to function with a blanket on, and the Snuggie makers know it. But the commercial still makes it look so darn appealing. Of course, anyone who actually ordered a Snuggie – which was most of you, admit it – found that it didn’t work as well in real life. It’s just a cheap, shapeless piece of fabric with sleeves that doesn’t stay in place nearly as well as it does on TV. It’s also extremely thin and doesn’t actually keep you very warm. A lot of Snuggies ended up at thrift stores and people went back to regular, perfectly functional blankets.
#2: Pillow Pets
Jennifer Telfer came up with this idea in 2003 and we gotta say, she’s a genius. Pillow Pets don’t do much that any oversized floppy stuffed animal couldn’t do. In fact, Telfer herself says she was inspired to create them when she noticed that her young son had flattened his own stuffed animal by sleeping with it so much. But the marketing is brilliant. They’re cute, they look super soft, and now there’s tons of different ones to collect. Telfer has made millions of dollars off her invention. Now, Pillow Pets has expanded into other products like slippers, blankets, and hats. Because if you have a favorite character, of course you have to collect the whole set.
#1: Chia Pet
Is there anything less necessary than a terracotta animal covered in sprouts? So why did everyone have one of these as a kid? For many people, it was their first foray into gardening … or at least the exciting world of houseplants. When Joseph Pedott bought the rights to sell Chia Pets from inventor Walter Houston in 1980, neither probably imagined that they’d become such a sensation. Millions of the little planters are still sold every year, mostly around the holidays. We just have one question: Has anyone ever bought one for themselves?
Which of these as-seen-on-TV products did you buy? Which ones did you want? Let us know in the comments.
