My Favorite Part of Infomercials

I admit to a certain fascination with infomercials, and as I'm coasting around the dial, I'll stop for a minute or two and watch. I love the fakeness of the enthusiasm. I love the fakeness of the awe the bystanders have, but most of all I love the demonstrations of the "old way" of doing something.

For example, there will be a commercial for a gadget that slices tomatoes, and you see tomato after tomato being perfectly sliced with this gadget ... then the film goes to black and white and there's some ham-fisted woman with stringy hair trying (of all things) to cut a tomato with a knife and she squishes down on the tomato which goes flying across the counter. It's hilarious.

Just now saw one for a file folder that expands into a lap desk and there are all these pockets in it for your papers. The "old way" is a woman who can't even put her scattered papers that are on top of her desk in a pile without ripping her hair out as the papers go flying.

I bet the infomercial people have a name for this segment -- I don't know why I love it -- I think just that people can't do the most basic things -- like pouring water into a glass, and the water will go all over the counter. I love it.