Infomercials

We allow our kids to watch (a limited amount of) TV and up until now that has meant PBS kids. I love PBS for their great documentaries, craft and cooking shows, and my children love the kids shows. I never worry about the content from PBS because usually it's of the educational nature and the best part, no commercials. Saturday mornings are a little trickier. On the weekends the children's programming on PBS is spotty at best, so my kids scan the channels for any type of animation and usually end up watching cartoons with tons of commercials. "Mom, can we get that cereal, I want that dolly that cries, when can we go to Chuck-E-Cheeseseseseses?"

So about a month ago we bought one of those digital converter boxes because we have the old style analog TVs and no plan to upgrade our TVs or get a dish before the Feb. conversion. Got the coupon, installed the boxes which by the way are rediculously confusing if you want to use anything else in conjunction with the TV, like a DVD player, stereo, etc. Now we need 3 remotes to watch the stupid thing and the sound is way diminished, but the up side is that now we receive MORE channels, like a lot more. We now get about 4 PBS channels, 2 weather options, a traffic channel, jazz and classical music, a channel called ion life that hubby loves (mostly for the drag racing and the big chested outdoors-woman shows) and Qubo (cartoons) for the kiddies. At first glance I liked Qubo, the shows are for the most part educational, and on all the time, perfect for those late night sick kid puke fests that we enjoy on a way too regular basis.

Now here's my bitch- the infomercials. Between each show there is about a 2 minute gap usually reserved for regular commercials, but Qubo chooses to run one really long commercial (usually starring Billy Mays) featuring some silly, can't live without household product. Mae watches these infomercials then runs over to try to get me to call the 800 number at the bottom of the screen.

"Mom we should get the craft cutter ba-cuz it's better than a
scissors and comes with a light."
"Mom, that vacuum is waaay better than ours."
"Mom, you should steam our curtains."

There are so many ridiculous products being advertised on that channel and they are all for adults, not the children who are watching. The handy steamer, sandwich makers, aqua globes, home improvement items, and my all time least favorite- The Bump-it. Seriously I had to see it to believe it myself. Bump its are a little plastic rounded framework that you tuck under you hair in the back to make it look like you have big Sarah Palin pageant hair. Seriously? Could you imagine walking around with a big hunk of plastic stuck to the back of your head just so you can have big hair? WTF?

Have you seen any bad infomercials lately?