A friend of mine used to sell the magic bullet to stores - he said it was one of his best-selling items!
Having an insomniac as a father in law, I'm the lucky recipient of many infomercial items. Here's an honest run down of stuff I've received (and used):
- RotoZip (a spiral saw): The one thing that the infomercial didn't tell you is how loud the sucker is. It's like a screaming banshee when you turn it on and cut into something. The bits have a tendency to wonder (if you don't cut in the right way - counterclockwise or clockwise, I forgot which). It worked all right, but other tools do the same thing better (like if you want to cut into drywall, then a drywall saw works just fine... without the ear damage that comes with using the spiral saw)
- Little Giant Ladder (folding ladder): Works perfectly fine, except that for a lot less money, you can buy a ladder that does the same thing at Home Depot. Heck, you can buy TWO ladders!
- George Foreman Grill: worked like once or twice, then it stopped working. Which is okay, because crud started to build up around the grill anyhow. I later heard that to shoot the infomercial, they run through dozens of grills.
- The Gopher (a grabber tool): Works pretty good, actually. If I had to buy something on an Infomercial, this would be it. The tool looks kind of silly, but it has come in handy to pick up toys and whatnot off the floor!
Sometimes I wonder about Neatorama too - I've posted upwards of 10,000 posts in the last three years and it gets really tiring at times, especially before we have guest authors on Neatorama.
Now, it's kind of fun - since I get to read about new stuff on the blog (thanks, authors and commenters!) So fear not, Neatorama's not going away. Not for a while anyhow. :)
Having an insomniac as a father in law, I'm the lucky recipient of many infomercial items. Here's an honest run down of stuff I've received (and used):
- RotoZip (a spiral saw): The one thing that the infomercial didn't tell you is how loud the sucker is. It's like a screaming banshee when you turn it on and cut into something. The bits have a tendency to wonder (if you don't cut in the right way - counterclockwise or clockwise, I forgot which). It worked all right, but other tools do the same thing better (like if you want to cut into drywall, then a drywall saw works just fine... without the ear damage that comes with using the spiral saw)
- Little Giant Ladder (folding ladder): Works perfectly fine, except that for a lot less money, you can buy a ladder that does the same thing at Home Depot. Heck, you can buy TWO ladders!
- George Foreman Grill: worked like once or twice, then it stopped working. Which is okay, because crud started to build up around the grill anyhow. I later heard that to shoot the infomercial, they run through dozens of grills.
- The Gopher (a grabber tool): Works pretty good, actually. If I had to buy something on an Infomercial, this would be it. The tool looks kind of silly, but it has come in handy to pick up toys and whatnot off the floor!
Now, it's kind of fun - since I get to read about new stuff on the blog (thanks, authors and commenters!) So fear not, Neatorama's not going away. Not for a while anyhow. :)