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unusual facts about Infomercial


Original Black Entertainment TV

Teleshopping - broadcast in slots that range from 30 minutes to two hours at midnight


Adrienne Janic

In 2009 she was a Co-hostess, with Tinker Keck (as Ty 'Tinker' Keck), of an infomercial for the "AbRocket" Fat Blasting System.

Bridgetta

Bridgetta Tomarchio (born 25 December 1978), an actress, model, and infomercial host.

Cricket Lee

She was the first to create and pitch the concept of putting fitness programs into infomercials with Susan Powter.

Darth Vader's Psychic Hotline

While the film primarily spoofs the Star Wars universe in the format of an infomercial, there are several other notable targets, including subtle references to Star Trek, Babylon 5, Back to the Future, Red Dwarf, Battlestar Galactica, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Flowbee

It was featured on The Fourth Hour, hosted by Pat Gray and Stu Burguiere on GBTV, during the Infomercial Friday segment which aired on June 22, 2012.

Ginsu

A line in the Weird Al Yankovic song "Mr. Popeil", written about the infomercial giant Ron Popeil, mentions "If you order today, you get a Ginsu knife and a smokeless ashtray."

How to Be a Megastar Live!

As an added bonus, Saturday Night Live member Fred Armisen participated in the concert, first in Rock Manual Infomercial and later in "Mono: Save the Boxy TVs," a special feature on the DVD.

KUPX-TV

The station had previously been the WB affiliate in the Salt Lake City, and Paxson continued that affiliation, but also replaced Home Shopping Network programming with Paxson's infomercial network, inTV, and religious programming.

New America

Porter Stansberry, an American conservative subscription-based investment advisor and the creator of the 2011 online video and infomercial titled "End of America"

Quackwatch

Quackwatch has also been cited or mentioned by journalists in reports on therapeutic touch, Vitamin O, Almon Glenn Braswell's baldness treatments, dietary supplements, Robert Barefoot's coral calcium claims, William C. Rader's "stem cell" therapy, noni juice, shark cartilage, and infomercials.

Queensboro Corporation

This may have been the first "infomercial", opening with a few words about Nathaniel Hawthorne before promoting the corporation's Nathaniel Hawthorne apartments.

Timothy R. Hawthorne

Hawthorne has also contributed content or chapters for nine direct marketing texts, including Seth Godin's eMarketing (1995), Frank Cannella's Infomercial Insights (1995), and Robert W. Bly's The Complete Idiot's Guide to Direct Marketing (2001).

Total Gym

In 1997 Total Gym aired its first television infomercial featuring long-time user Chuck Norris and co-host Christie Brinkley.

Ultimate Chopper

The first Ultimate Chopper infomercial featured an Austrian man named Horst Fuchs as the product demonstrator and Stuart Pankin as the co-host.

Voices Across America: A National Town Hall

Voices Across America: A National Town Hall was a live infomercial for Hillary Clinton which aired on the Hallmark Channel on 4 February 2008, the evening prior to the 2008 Super Tuesday primary election.

WBUW

Under the Byrne Group's ownership, local content on WBUW has expanded to mirror the approach of its sister station W48CX, including local news, sports, and discussion programming as well as long-form (half-hour) content featuring sponsoring businesses.

WFMJ-TV

This channel formerly signed off on weekend early mornings from around 2:30 to 4:30 a.m. until 2011, when it began operating on a 24-hour schedule with paid programming filled the former downtime; though color bars were placed on the over-the-air digital signal while "WBCB" continued to broadcast syndicated programming and infomercials during periods where WFMJ signs off the air.

William J. McCorkle

In the 1990s he and his wife Chantal created a number of late-night television infomercials, selling materials which purported to teach people how to make money buying foreclosed real estate properties.

WMFP

In May 2007, Multicultural took over WMFP, and switched the station to a mix of infomercials and home shopping network Gems TV; the Gems TV affiliation was dropped a year later.

WUVC-DT

As the years went on, stronger programming became more difficult to find, and WKFT moved toward more paid programming (though it did briefly serve as the over-the-air home of the Carolina Hurricanes).

WVPX-TV

Finally, in 1996, Paxson Communications – another company that specialized in home-shopping programs, though of the infomercial variety (and whose founder also launched the Home Shopping Network; although Paxson had owned a couple of major network affiliates years before, such as West Palm Beach, Florida ABC affiliate WPBF) – purchased WAKC.


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