Infomercial - Parodies

Parodies

The Infomercial format has been widely parodied:

• In a sort of self-parody, the movie Santo Gold's Blood Circus features a musical number in which mail-order jewelry salesman "Santo Gold" Rigatuso (who financed the film) advertises his wares. Santo Gold promoted the film heavily in its infomercials.
• A skit in the cartoon series Tiny Toon Adventures has an infomercial hostess trying to sell a clothesline for $39.95, but has to include additional offers to try to justify the high price.
• In the Garfield and Friends episode "Dread Giveaway", Garfield dreams of attempting to give away Nermal in an infomercial, but no one wants to take him.
• In the 2003 live-action film The Cat in the Hat, the cat performs an entire talkshow-style infomercial spoof for a magical (but disastrous) cupcake maker. In the spoof, the Cat plays the roles of host and guest/expert.
• In the direct-to-video movie The Lion King 1½, Pumbaa sits on the remote in mid-movie and the screen switches to a jewelry infomercial from QVC.
• Quebec-based Têtes à Claques has produced several informercial parodies in French.
• The comedy duo Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim have produced several infomercial parody segments that are showcased on their oddball comedy show Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, notably one for a CD-ROM-based version of the internet called the "Innernette". It employs many of the cliched infomercial hallmarks and phrases such as enthusiastic demonstrations, and outlandish claims of user satisfaction.
• "Weird Al" Yankovic parodied infomercials in the song Mr. Popeil, a homage to inventor and infomercial spokesperson Ron Popeil, on his 1984 album "Weird Al" Yankovic in 3-D (Popeil himself used the song in some of his infomercials). Well known pitchmen like Popeil and Billy Mays have been the inspiration for many of these parodies.
• Saturday Night Live's "Bassomatic" skit featuring Dan Aykroyd in the 1970s may have presaged the genre.
• In the "Home-Cooked Eds" episode of the Cartoon Network series Ed, Edd & Eddy, the Kanker Sisters decide to watch infomercials after taking over Eddy's house in yet another misguided attempt at affectation.
• Robot Chicken has parodied numerous infomercials, along with their hosts. Popular examples include Billy Mays, Mick Hastie, and Cathy Mitchell.
• Adult Swim aired a highly elaborate parody of an infomercial, Paid Programming, several times in November 2009. The clearest evidence that the parody, which advertised various fictional "Icelandic Ultra Blue" products, was not real was the use of profanity and the fact that Adult Swim does not air infomercials.
• The ABC improvisation-comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway? (U.S. TV series) regularly satires infomercials in two of its segments. One is "Greatest Hits", where the infomercial hosts (usually including show regulars Colin Mochrie and Ryan Stiles) attempt to sell an album of "greatest hits" about unlikely subjects, with songs mentioned usually sung by the other show regular Wayne Brady. The other one concerns them trying to make useless junk seem desirable.
• Some of the most outstanding sketches from the Australian television sketch show "SkitHOUSE" feature a fictional telemarketing company called "Nothing Suss".