Before Dump Dinners, there was the Turbo Cooker. Recorded in July 2001, this infomercial features everyone's favorite infomercial chef, Cathy Mitchell.
This was in 2000. And while the 90s were over, the sentiment and style was the same until about 2001. Watch this, sip a Capri Sun, go play The Sims. Good times.
I remember watching this back then as a 19 year old and it was on late at night. No internet for me and many at that time and this what was on for entertainment. I never was gonna buy one of these but I was so intrigued by this woman's creative recipes and her charming personality there was something so calming about this half hour infomercial.
Right why did he say it like that? 😂 Almost like he was pissed that she kept making multiple things in the pan. Maybe she had already made like thirty multi course things, and we just didn't see those because of time restraints, and after each one, she would say variations of the phrase, "You can do multiple courses in the Turbo Cooker!" Maybe after the frozen corn, Fowler finally lost his shit. Way I heard it is, they edited it out, but he actually grabbed the Turbo Cooker with the frozen corn in it, and beat the director into a Turbo Coma. They had to hire a new director to finish the shoot, and because Fowler's actually the son of the CEO who owns the company that manufactured the Turbo Cooker, the original director had his medical bills covered as part of a settlement, and the rest of the crew were given large cash bonuses to sign non-disclosure agreements, so that what actually happened would be swept under the rug. The NDA had a stipulation stating that they weren't allowed to mention any part of the incident for twenty-one years (long enough to ensure that Joe Fowler would be retired by the time the agreement dissolved, so that news of the incident being made public could no longer damage his career, as he certainly wouldn't have that career anymore), otherwise they'd forfeit the bonus, or have to repay it if they'd already received it. The 21 years ended yesterday, and I was key grip on that set. That damned bonus wasn't nearly enough to cover the years of therapy I've needed to try and keep the image of Gary's battered body from being the last thing I see at night when I close my eyes to go to sleep, or to finally drown out the screams of "Multi course! Multi course! MULTI COURSE!", but I knew that nobody would get the bonus if one person refused (after all, what's the point in paying people not to squeal if one person squeals anyway?), and I knew that some of my co-workers needed that money bad. Plus it's not like having no money at all would've paid for more therapy. Well shit. Sorry to unload all that on you, a perfect stranger, but it feels good to get it all off my chest to someone besides my therapist. It's pretty horrifying, but at least Fowler can't hurt anyone anymore. Last I heard he was doing 25 years up at East Jersey State for arson. Tried to burn down a corn cob processing facility.
When I was in college, we always watched cooking infomercials ... an entire Fraternity House worth of dudes would be drunk and/or stoned on the couch, watching cooking commercials. One night I was wasted and with enough encouragement, I ordered a "Set It And Forget It" ... aka, a Ronco Showtime Rotisserie oven by Ron Popeil ... Whatever it cost ... $200-$300 etc. ... and 8 weeks later, it shows up on the doorstep on day ... and we quickly realized, cooking was hard ... it doesn't magically pop out the shit that you see on TV... you have to go to the store and *buy* the Chickens and Pork Loins and Salmon and Burgers and Cornish Hens etc. -- having had the money for them to begin with -- and THEN cook them etc. -- Whenever we saw the Turbo Cooker commercial, we were like, "This is bullshit.... it doesn't actually work... this bamboozling biatch is trying to sell us some shit right here ... frying chickens with no oil and warming tortillas on top of taco meat with onions and Diet-Cherry-Cola-Brownies etc." ... I love her, but she's a cooking-conartist- conniving with her douchebag partner in crime lol, but I love it!
Right. Like Chef Randall. Chef Randall this, Chef Randall that. What's his first name, Cathy? Joe, do you know? Oh, nobody knows it. So he can't be tracked down. Slimy bastard.
Insted of being “wasted “ and “stoned” all the time at college why not do your actual study 😅 you would of been way better then being drunk with guys all the time
I used to see this infomercial all the time and begged my mom to get it. I think we made every recipe she shows here, but the only one we made more than once was the cupcakes with the cola cherries. That was actually quite good. The rest was meh. We'd make fajitas with cheap store-bought packs and they were just as good as the Turbo Cooker ones. The taco casserole was no better than hamburger helper. And you could only use it to make things in the recipe book. You couldn't try taking a regular meal and turning it into a Turbo Cooker meal unless you didn't mind wasting a lot of money on the ingredients and time trying to figure out how to go about it. But those cupcakes with the cherries really were good. Worth it.
My mom had one of these when I was a kid. We had it for several years, it worked great and held up well. I didn't even know she bought it off of an infomercial until just now lol And no, we didn't use it like they did in the commercials. These recipes look like shit. We used oil in it lol
Growing up as a kid watching these, I've just noticed that the people giving opinions about the product aren't actually speaking, you're actually heating a voiceover, whereas the person could be saying that it sucks! 🤣🤣
I remember seeing a 90 or early 2000s video about food dehydrator I loved the kitchen lol it was a huge studio and was like it was in a jungle haha haven’t seen it since and can’t find it 😅 Vids like these are oddly relaxing and comforting
This guy was the perfect co-host for Cathy. He was enthusiastic but not in a hard to believe way. And he didn’t step on her toes or make it awkward. Dream team! He should’ve been in all her infomercials, where did he go??! 😫
He played a reporter in the movie Independence Day, but then there was something about him getting 25 years in prison for arson? I can't remember where I heard that though, so it may not be true.
@@theclaybor4352I just checked because it wouldn't have surprised me lol. Thankfully, it's not true. As it turns out, I'd seen him before. Besides being in Independence Day, which I didn't know until now, I remember him having a very brief stint in WWE in 1993.
It was the same way for me, when I was a little kid and my mom was still alive and tried to get different kinds of food for dinner than she was cooking she would always tell me that our home and kitchen were not a restaurant.
Right! Before I could drive mom would say, "if you don't like what I'm fixing you can have cereal." When I could drive she would say, "if you don't like what I'm fixing you know where McDonald's is. "
i can't believe this is on youtube. my buddy and i used to catch this particular infomercial on late at night in high school, and for some reason we found it totally hysterical. every single one of her products espouses cathy mitchell's obsession with cooking by simply "dumping" ingredients in to a single vessel. it's like she grew up living entirely on casseroles and thinks it is the superior method for preparing just about anything. i'll also never understand her ubiquitous use of soft drinks in baking... like, why not just put the splenda powder in the mix? all using the drink does is leave behind sticky God-Knows-What chemical residues. The same for sugar. She really is just America's senile grandma let loose in the kitchen.
Considering it’s for home and not a restaurant, it’s just a matter of preference. Nothing unsafe about it. Also, she did it to demonstrate that the flavors won’t seep. (Although, it’s an infomercial so who knows if that’s even true).
I agree, making pasta is normally labor intensive! Reminds me of the Cupcakinator from the Cat In The Hat movie, “you can make cupcakes out of anything!
It's too bad Ron Popeil didn't show up UNINVITED with his Showtime Rotisserie and BBQ and issue Kathy Mitchell and "Juicy" Joe Fowler with a NO Holds Barred Food Prep Showdown challenge.
