"Clark Kent Is Superman's Critique On The Whole Human Race"

So I'm trying to do some work at home - and we all know what that means...PROCRASTINATING LJ POST TIME!! Yes, anything to distract myself from actually doing something productive.

Hence, it's time to discuss that most burning issue, that thing that anyone who keeps weird sleeping hours knows only too well:

Infomercial Exercise Machines


I have to confess being an avid infomercial watcher for years. I was hooked, like so many of my generation, by the motivational skills of Tony Robbins. That tan. Enough teeth to make a Great White cry. That unblinking yet still patronising stare. The fact he cannot be killed by conventional weapons.

He always amazed me - "Wow, he made that girl lose 20kg just by talking down to her!!" He was the ultimate icon of everything I wanted to be...filthy rich, smug, superior, spectacularly arrogant and worryingly similar to Christopher Reeves (pre-quadriplegia).

He was indicative of what infomercials are all about, and I quickly realised the essence of them. To the untrained eye, they may appear to be commercial vultures, preying on insecurities and picking at the scabs of our fears in order to relieve us of our cash in a desperate attempt to be beautiful by the easiest means possible. But no, that would be wrong. For infomercials are, in fact, a plot by aliens to make us look fucking stupid for their own entertainment.

Well, it's either that or a really piss-poor attempt to sell dodgy old lumps of plastic from the back of the garage of messrs Guthy and Renker to tubby bitches. But I'm going with Dr. Spock, ET, ALF and the little fellas off Close Encounters that look like Michael Jackson's fantasy date.

Things started fairly innocuously - with the Orbitrek Platinum.



Now, frightening silver lycra aside, this was a pretty standard beginning. A fairly confusing blend of biking and walking with the added bonus of never actually fucking going anywhere, the Orbitrek Platinum was always going to struggle because, well, the name sounds like someone who would stroke a cat in a Bond film. Not catchy, not sexy, just crap.

This was quickly resolved:



Unfortunately, things again fell flat for two reasons: firstly, no one wanted to order anything called the "Body Rider" for fear some massive black strap-on dildo with rotating heads would show up in the mail just as the vicar was dropping round for tea. And secondly, because...it didn't look silly enough.

Everyone knows exercise is a horrible thing. It has to be painful in some way - if the machine is practical, where's the suffering? Since the Middle Ages and iron maidens and racks were things of the past, there was only one avenue of pain for manufacturers to take: humiliation.



Now THIS was more like it! Combining a very dorky leg swinging motion with some sexually-dubious gymwear (the machine was the only thing able to "easily hide in the closet" it seemed), infomercial men knew they were on to a winner. The race was on to make the silliest exercise machine imaginable, that worked more of your body in a shorter time.

The Cardio Cruiser was one such example.



More complicated than backwards astrophysics using only long division or understanding the appeal of System of a Down, the Cardio Cruiser was a combination rowing machine/exercise bike/butt sander/nut cracker and promised tighter glutes, longer legs and firmer breasts in only minutes a day. And I'm sure I speak for all of us when I point out just how important firm breasts are to the world. I want funbags that can bang in nails, thankyouverymuch. Where do I sign up?

But wait, there's more...of the same, really.



The Ab Dolly 2, despite conjuring up images of partners for the socially challenged did not actually feature three likelike vibrating orifices but rather gave you a flatter stomach, bigger shoulders and, apparently, a cleaner floor. I guess the Ab Dolly 1 was recalled when male workout junkies found that the flatter stomach was achieved by progressively smashing their genitals into their pubis.

Things ultimately got too silly, with the release of the Gazelle Freestyle Glider. Like some ghastly Frankenstein's washing line, this thing made you look like a mad power walker pernially trying to kick yourself in the face. All with a vacuous smile in place, of course.



This time, you got whiter teeth, firmer calves, fatter ewes, x-ray vision and the ability to fart the complete works of Shakespeare - all in less than four microseconds. Which, by an extraordinary coincidence, is how long it took to write the plot of the House of Wax remake.

Understandably, the infomercial world has gone into something of a tailspin since the heady heights of the Gazelle Freestyle Glider. After all, what can you do to top the visual of fat blokes doing the splits inside a step ladder?



Gunnar Peterson tried to take things back to their roots - he just wanted hot girls in skintight outfits to play with his swollen blue balls. We've all been there, haven't we, lads?

Others tried to make exercise simpler still - like why not do all your workout sitting down? I mean, exercise really isn't something worth actually getting up for, is it?



And now, at last, they've got it. Last night I was witness to an ad for the ultimate exercise machine for couch potatoes. And I'm not making this up, it's called The Bean.



Yes, it's a fucking bean bag. That's it. I'm not making this up. You sit on your fat arse and somehow magically look like Carmen Electra. Probably without the self-hating taste in men.

The manufacturers worked it through, and they achieved. Somewhere, a benevolent Tony Robbins is looking down and smiling.

Well, he always is, isn't he?