America’s Hilariously Awful Infomercial Products

“THERE’S GOT TO BE A BETTER WAY!”

~Every infomercial ever

sham wow beating up hookers

Of all the side effects of American consumerism, infomercials are by far one of the strangest to an outside observer.  Apart from selling generally pointless items that will just end up gathering dust in your kitchen, American infomercials themselves exist in a strange alternate universe where everyone has the mental acuity of Forrest Gump but none of the coordination. Everyday tasks are so impossible to the actors, and watching them try to, say, make a salad, is like watching Stephen Hawking try to run a 5K after having his mind swapped with Sean Penn from I Am Sam.

There was, of course, a brief period in 2008 where infomercials were the apex of culture.  The Snuggie had just started first-ironically-and-then-kind-of-unironically warming our households, Billy Mays had yet to snort enough cocaine to make his heart explode, and the Sham Wow guy was just an excitable guy with a lot of hair gel who, as far as we knew at the time, had absolutely no interest in beating up hookers.  It truly was a golden age.  But all of this was just a smokescreen, fooling us into thinking that infomercial products were worth our time for a reason other than pointing and laughing.

The fact of the matter is, for every Snuggie that people actually buy, there’s a magic poop wand that is only purchased by morbidly obese serial killers.  And each and every one of these products are hilarious in their ineptitude.  Since this is America, it seems only fitting that we put them on full display so we can make fun of them to make us feel better about the fact that half of our staff still watches TV on a bean bag.  Because no matter how low we get, we’ll never feel like buying the following products.

America’s Hilariously Awful Infomercial Products

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Goddamn it Japan, You’re Doing it Wrong: The Pizza Little Party Pizzeria

“Pizza Little Party?  Oh man, let’s try to avoid jokes calling Pizza Little Party a Japanese pizza establishment, I’d be so rac…oh God, it’s real, isn’t it?”

~Johnny Roosevelt, Editor-in-Chief of AFFotD

let's summer pizza party

Before we get started, let’s take a deep breath and look at that screenshot.  Just, really soak it in.  Let it wash over you like a cool stream.  This is a thing that exists, that happened in real life, that is currently happening in real life.  Don’t let yourself forget that.                                                                       

For a website that dedicates itself to the Americanness of being American, we sure do seem to talk about Japan a lot.  You might wonder, “Why?  Why are there more articles about Japanese Doritos on this site than ones about Ben Franklin?”  Well, for starters, if you ever tried to write about Ben Franklin’s life, you immediately would come down with a severe case of 18th century syphilis, and we’ve yet to find a writer to volunteer for that (though, come to think of it, we might have a perfect candidate).  But secondly, Japan takes American ideals but then warps them in fascinating, terrifying ways, and we hope that maybe, just maybe, by showing them the craziness of their ways they might take things down a notch and start embracing a more normally (read as, “less tentacles”) American way of life.

You’re right.  It’s futile.  They’re too far gone to be saved.  Just look at how they do pizza chains.

Goddamn it Japan, You’re Doing it Wrong:  The Pizza Little Party Pizzeria

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This Week In Beer: November 12th Edition

“How many beers must a man down, before you can call him a man?”

~Bob Dylan

this week in beer

A wise man once said, “Shut up I don’t care if you ran out of introductions to do for this weekly beer news gimmick, just have one of the interns jot down a random sentence once he’s done with his AFFotD sanctioned cage match.  You can tell him I made you do it, me, Johnny Roosevelt, editor-in-chief of America Fun Fact of the Day.”  We’re pretty sure it was Ghandi, but the real quotation attribution has been lost to time.  Anyway, beer time.

This Week In Beer:  November 12th Edition

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The 10 Messiest Burgers In America

“I mean, how do I…finish this?  It’s EVERYWHERE.”

~Consumers of the following

messy burger

Hamburgers are a wonderful.  We’ve often explained why in great detail.  We’ve searched around for the largest in the world. Hell, we’ve even unleashed our wallets to let you know the most expensive burgers in the world.  Hamburgers are wonderful.

That past paragraph was technically a palindrome.

Anyway, as much as we love hamburgers, America loves them even more, which is why there are millions of variations of the suckers out there to clog your arteries.  Some are fancy, some are plain.  Some are tofu.  All are delicious.  Except for tofu burgers, you get that right the hell out of our face, eat yourself a nice rare steak, and write us a 4,000 word essay on why you are bad and should feel bad.  No, we’re serious, go home and think about what you’ve done.  We’ll wait.

Ahem.

Of course, as we can see with doughnut burgers, Americans love their burgers unhealthy and sloppy.  That’s why we’ve decided to scour the google internet our contact list the nation, on foot, forming painful blisters from thousands of traversed miles to find you the sloppiest, messiest burgers that our fair country has to offer.  Are there other examples of potentially messier burgers out there?  Well, probably, Jesus “messy” is such an objective term and maybe if you’re nice we’ll do a follow up to this article.  But in the meantime, sink your fangs into…

The 10 Messiest Burgers In America

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This Week in Beer: November 5th Edition

“To beer, the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.”

~Homer Simpson

this week in beer

As our memories of warm summers slowly fade into oblivion to be replaced by cold, overcast winter nights, there is one thing that we can use to make our season just a little brighter.  No, you big softies, not family and friends, we’re talking about beer.  Delicious happy hop juice.  And, continuing our weekly series, here’s some beer news you might not have heard.

This Week in Beer:  November 5th Edition

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AFFotD Book Review: 1943’s “You’re Going To Employ Women” by the US War Department

“Holy…welp, the 40’s were…a different time.  Goddamn.”

~AFFotD Editor-in-Chief, Johnny Roosevelt

you're going to employ women

Wow.  Just look at that for a second, everybody.  Let it really sink in.  Don’t worry, there’s a reason behind it.  We’ll get to that in a moment.

While it’s easy to assume that AFFotD exists as a singular location for all the fatty food and alcohol adoration articles you can hope to find from a website whose logo prominently features a shotgun toting Grizzly Bear, we occasionally do read.  Shocking, we know.  Sometimes, a book even strikes our fancy enough that we decide to do a full-scale book report on it (usually because they’re short and don’t employ any metaphors).  Books are important, and not always because they get turned into much better, easier to digest movies.  Okay, most times they are, but sometimes, books can teach us about ourselves.  Or, in this one particular case, they can teach us to be embarrassed by ourselves.

Yes, that last link takes us to the 1943 War Department pamphlet, “So You’ve Decided to Hire a Woman and Train Her Like a Monkey or a Seeing Eye Dog to do Simple Tasks” (we may have taken some liberties with the misogyny we interpreted from the title).

Yup, it was a different time for the Greatest Generation.  All the men had gone to war, and all the dogs had gone to war, so all the women had to be counted on to make things.  The horror!

Anyway, fasten your seat belt, and prepare your “cringing at now comically outdated and borderline-offensive beliefs of the past” face, as we review this sumbitch for you.

AFFotD Book Review:  1943’s “You’re Going To Employ Women” by the US War Department

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This Week in Beer: October 22-October 29

“Wait, haven’t they posted, like, four beer articles in a row now?”

~AFFotD Readers

this week in beer

Yes, we realize that some of you are scrolling down right now and are spotting two beer news article, and one beer-related article that reads a lot like a beer news article, all in a row, but don’t worry about that, we’ll be getting back to mixing in non-beer stories to go with our “This Week in Beer” segments, even if you wouldn’t mind reading nothing but beer facts (sample fact for later articles—did you know that beer is delicious and gets you drunk?  Well you do now!)

Of course, part of the reason why it’s so easy to spend all our time writing about beer is that beer always has something newsworthy going on.  And this past week was no exception, which is why we’re here to continue our This Week in Beer series with…

This Week in Beer:  October 22-October 29

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Five Delicious Frozen Beer Treats For The Summer (Posted In The Fall)

“I’m honestly not sure if this is an ice cream headache or a hangover.”

~Americans currently pressing their tongues to the roofs of their mouths

 ice cream mug

Summer has officially come to an end, and as the hot, disgustingly sweaty nights of August brace to be replaced by the dreary, drinking-bourbon-alone-in-your-studio-apartment subzero evenings of February, we at AFFotD like to look back and think about all the products we could have told you about to make your summer better, but waited until the week where you finally reached below-freezing temperatures to tell you about them.

Basically, a lot of people have found a way to turn beer into a refreshing summer treat.  And now you’ll have to wait a year until you get to enjoy them.  Send all hate mail to the email address listed on the right.  Come at us, bro.

Five Delicious Frozen Beer Treats For The Summer (Posted In The Fall)

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This Week In Beer: October 16-October 22

“Beer beer, the wonderful brew, the more you drink it, the more you spew.”

~Ancient Chinese Proverb

this week in beer

Last week we introduced our newest weekly segment, “This Week in Beer,” where we detailed the latest trends in beer.  We don’t mean to overstate its impact on your life, but we spent a few paragraphs berating the government for shutting down, leaving breweries unable to get new recipes or labels approved, and six hours after we submitted the article, the government opened again.  That’s right.  Remember, when everyone in America wakes up to find a pony in their front yard that has been given to them as a gift by their local Congressman, you can thank us for telling them to do that (or you can shout, “What the fuck, AFFotD, my apartment is going to be covered in pony shit” which is totally a valid response.  We really didn’t think this whole pony plan through, to be honest).

An educated American is a drunk American, so we’re going to continue our quest to give you all the most relevant beer news you can, because you’re far too sober for a Tuesday right now.

This Week In Beer:  October 16-October 22

Obama beer

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This Week in Beer- Inaugural Edition

“God bless you, Michigan.”

~Michigan residents who like to refer to their state in the third person

this week in beer

Our staff at America Fun Fact of the Day know we have one of the most important jobs in this nation—to keep our citizens informed of the best that America has to offer.  Sometimes, we might deem it important that you know about badass presidents from the past, or just general badasses from our history, but more often than not this duty involves telling you about alcohol and fatty foods you should be putting in your body at all times.  It’s our sworn charge, and we take it pretty seriously.

Which is why we’ve decided to create a weekly installment here on America Fun Fact of the Day to make sure that you area always up-to-date on one of the most important topics we can imagine.  That’s right—beer.  So strap yourself in, because we’re about to deliver the latest, most important beer news from the past week (or thereabouts).  Because beer is serious business.

AFFotD Presents:  This Week in Beer- Inaugural Edition

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