Its starts off innocently enough. Two guys are sitting at a desk, Scott Kennedy, a non-descript Irish looking chap who apparently has unlocked the secret to well-being through seaweed and Donald Barrett, a slicked-back-jet-black-hair shady rascal who Im pretty sure I bought shoes from a year or two back. Welcome to the show, Donald offers his guest. Nice to be here, Scott replies. And then they get at it. Thirty minutes of what appears to be legitimate question and answers with no commercial breaks, which I suppose would be redundant if they had, after all it is a commercial dressed in Meet the Press clothing. Im hooked, not so much by the pitch, this one happens to be about the benefits of popping pills from the sea, but by the format; the infomercial-by-interview format. There are plenty of others just like it. Probably the most omnipresent and successful comes from that natural cure expert, Kevin Trudeau. My personal favorite is the Dual Action Colon Cleanse System, where a man and woman, who look like a couple that might throw swinger parties at night, interview a guy, who I think I saw once before on Americas Most Wanted, about a product that will remove pounds of prehistoric waste from your colon in one easy bowel. Its an infomercial loaded with information you dont get everyday. Why did you know that during John Waynes autopsy, they discovered he had collected over forty pounds of history in his colon? No wonder he walked the way he did. Ah, the facts you learn when you venture out into those TV channels in the 70s. Regardless of the product being hawked, the format is precise and predictable. Just like the money shot in porno, sure as shooting they get to my favorite part. Can you hold that thought? We have a caller on the line. Yes, caller? Holy cow! This must be the real deal. They have people calling into the show. Then I start to wonder. When was this show first aired? What time slot does Donald Barrett have and on what channel? Discovery? Animal Planet? The Weather Channel? How do these people know when to call in? And what phone number are they using? Boy Id like to call in. I really have a few questions for Lorraine Day M.D. (well former M.D. actually), who claimed during one in-depth interview by fav Donald Barrett to have cured herself of "terminal" breast cancer through a 10-step program that features prayer and a "raw food" dietof course the ten steps are in her video which Donald pawned, I mean offered, at special discount throughout the show. Yeah, well Id like to ask in her opinionthey always mumble the in my opinion disclaimerhave more women with terminal breast cancer died after employing medical procedures or after chowing down on some raw food while conversing with God? Then Id like to ask her if God helped with the video pricing and does he get a percentage of the take. The king of the infomercial though is good old Kevin Trudeau. The guy is a god damn rich snake oil salesman, resilient but snake all the way. His book, Natural Cures, and his pay-to-play website have made him a wealthy, laugh-all-the-way-to-the-bank huckster. Slicker than a greased pole, he continues to slide past one legal action after another, even taunting regulators all the do-da day. He really is the best of the worst. At this point, a few of you Trudeau junkies might be foaming how do I know this stuff is bunk; who stuck the smart badge on my chest? Im not going to get into the details of why these guys are full of colon waste. The fact that they go to great lengths to fabricate an honest interview format should be grounds enough. Nah, debunking is not my interest. Besides, theyre all low hanging fruits anyway. If you want an expose on these lying bastards, I hang my hat on Stephen Barrett M.D., a gentleman who has a website called Quackwatch in which he does an extensive analysis of all the false claims, weasel wording, and flat out deceiving these folks spew. Im simply enthralled by the gullibility of the American consumer. Do they really think these interviews are legitimate? Based on the sales of the products pushed, Id have to say yes. Which leads me to believe that the old saying a sucker is born every minute needs to be updated to something like a sucker is channel surfing every nanosecond. I feel bad quite honestly for those folks who cough up the cash to buy this stuff. Im willing to venture a guess that a substantial portion of people who ante up are the same people who cant afford to; probably a good number cant afford healthcare eitherjust looking for a cheap alternative. As far as the promo predators are concerned, I have some advice the next time one of them breaks an arm, suffers a stroke or contracts bird flu: be sure to take two coral calcium pills, cleanse that colon, pray and call high school educated phenom, Tony Mahavorick (oh, Im sorry he had his name changed) Tony Robbins in the morning. Oh that Tony Robbins, hes a pip he is. Don't get me started. |
