Extenze infomercials brighten late-night television

Television late night infomercials just haven’t been the same since the departure of Miss Cleo several years ago.

Back in the day, if I came home alone from a night of inhaling secondhand smoke and SoCo and lime shots, I could always count on being entertained by Miss Cleo handing out inspired advice to callers such as, “You run around looking like a pauper, and he runs around looking GQ.”

Eventually several lawsuits by disgruntled suckers busted up Miss Cleo’s operation and revealed that she’s about as Jamaican as the Olsen twins, and ever since then late night infomercials haven’t been nearly as entertaining.

That is, until the advent of Extenze.

The Extenze for Men infomercials have been around for several years now, offering men the opportunity to increase our intellectual abilities, since apparently the product is supposed to enlarge that area of the body where most of our cogitation takes place.

The infomercials are funny because they employ the talent of veterans of the adult film industry. These thespians (and by thespian I mean actors, not those ladies who like to have John Denver hair cuts and work at jails) spend most of the infomercial looking amazed that they’re being allowed to keep their clothes on and making embarrassingly lame jokes about size and, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, “that certain part of the body.”

Somehow along the way, someone at the Extenze home office figured out that there’s no use having the calzone ready to roll if the oven isn’t heated up, so they’ve released a new product for the ladies called Extenze for Women.

This product leaves me with some confusing questions that I may have to pop an Extenze to have the intellectual capacity to solve. For example:

What exactly do women have to extend anyway?

If they take an Extenze, do I still have to buy dinner and pretend to be interested in music and art?

What happens if a man accidentally takes a female Extenze pill? Will it make us more hygienic and better dressers?

Can someone please give adult film stars some acting lessons before you put them on mainstream television? Make them do a stint in community theater. It may create a few embarrassing moments, particularly if the theater is putting on a production of “Puss in Boots,” but the overall quality of late night infomercialdom will greatly benefit. 

What is a calzone, anyway?

The Extenze commercials have brightened up late night, often being funnier than the so-called comedy shows that are supposed to be entertaining us. But my fascination with these commercials, and the fact that I’ve managed to fill up the space between the ads with a whole column about them clues me in on one important thing.

I really need to start getting to bed at a decent hour.

Jim Cook can be reached at .