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The tubular rocking cradle with the headrest that promised perfect crunches without the neck strain — rock forward, feel the burn, order now. Flip channels late at night in the mid-'90s and the Ab Roller infomercial was simply there, somewhere, always.
The black beard, the blue shirt and khakis, and the friendly bellow that opened every pitch: "Hi, Billy Mays here!" He was the face and voice of the entire As-Seen-On-TV universe — the man who made OxiClean a household word by sheer force of enthusiasm.
A wax stick rubbed on your forehead while a voice repeated the same phrase three times and never explained what it did. The most annoying ad on television—and it somehow worked.
The Jamaican-accented tarot reader who ruled late-night cable — 'Call me now!' — as the face of the Psychic Readers Network. For a few years around the turn of the millennium, Miss Cleo's pay-per-minute readings were an inescapable TV-ad fixture, until the whole operation collapsed under federal scrutiny.
Twelve DVDs, ninety days, a pull-up bar wedged in the doorframe, and a magic phrase — "muscle confusion." Tony Horton's basement bootcamp was the infomercial phenomenon of the late 2000s, and for a while it seemed like every dad, coworker, and college roommate in America was "doing P90X."
The blanket with sleeves. Regular blankets "slip and slide" and trap your hands, so America was sold a backwards fleece robe for $14.95 — buy one get one, free book lights. Everyone mocked the commercial. Everyone bought one anyway. It was, infuriatingly, cozy.