Old Infomercials!

At its core, Dino Drac After Dark is a tribute to those lost, lonely nights of youth, when I’d grab at whatever was available to add a little noise to the silence. In a world without the internet, the pickings were slim!

Case in point: I used to treat infomercials like “real” TV shows, and came to count on their hosts as surrogate friends. Every weekend, or perhaps even every single day during my summer vacations, I’d spend the late hours watching pitches for fad diets and psychic hotlines, not so much “entertained” as merely comforted by the fact that I had something there to make lights and sounds.

I only “half-watched” them most of the time, using the infomercials as background noise as I putzed around in my bedroom. Still, I saw some infomercials so many times that I ended up memorizing every single line in them. Here are a few that I remember most:

Ronco Showtime Rotisserie!

Richard Simmons’s Deal-a-Meal Program!

Anthony Robbins: Personal Power!

Jack LaLanne Power Juicer!

Watching ‘em again now is such a trip. I need my old blankets and flannel shirts, and a sleeve of Ritz crackers, and maybe some well-worn issues of Wizard Magazine.