This unholy union of 900-number and infomercial is a real silver bullet of a moneygrab. Leveraging bona fide nostalgia for one of television’s great game shows, Monty Hall leads this effort to milk callers out of at least 18 dollars in the hopes of winning $1000.
The concept’s sort of simple: call this 900 number and play a telephone version of “Let’s Make A Deal”. The calls are $2.95 a minute and the average call is 6 minutes. Don’t remember “Let’s Make A Deal”? Well here’s 30 minutes of nostalgia to prime your pump.
The “content” part of the infomercial is a bizarre sort of retrospective, with Hall (presumably) in his house reminiscing on the history of the show. In some segments he hosts guests, who join him in remembering specific moments that we’re then treated to clips of.
Surprise, the guests are also callers who won the contest! Monty holds their payout checks in front of them, and tempts them with a round of the game by telling them that one of the boxes in front of them has a $2000 check. The first guest, Blanche, bites. And loses!
We cut to another memorable moment and then back to the couch where the other contestant, June, gets a chance to play. And loses! Two zonks!
We get a reel of notable “zonks” through the years followed by a creepy reel of noteworthy kisses Hall received. In the final segment Monty does a few quickie deals with Blanche and June, offering them money for things in their purse.
This one’s pretty unique as infomercials go; someone could have mistaken this infomercial for a legit “Best of Let’s Make a Deal” special and gotten sucked in. If I’m being honest, it held my attention for a lot longer than it should have. But it’s also pretty slimy, harping on how the viewer needs a break like this “in this economy” and repeatedly emphasizing next-day payout like a payday lender. So ultimately pretty gross but hey, that’s infomercials and 900-numbers in a nutshell, right?
-ds