Facial Flex infomercial is somehow both classy and weird. Mostly weird.

Just in case you're sold, it's available on Amazon.

[found at Reddit]

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GlenBlank

I see Jack@45 beat me to it – but, really: “No weirder than injecting botulinum toxin into your face to paralyze your facial muscles” is an awfully low bar to hurdle. :-)
Italico

Let’s enjoy the song on it’s own:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwWxR3S2DmE&feature=related
Rich Keller

It’s fun to watch with some German Baroque oratorio going on in another tab.

And I’m glad that it’s Lynchian and not Cronenbergian. Ewww.
Italico

Oops, I meant “its”. Sorry.
dculberson

Word to the wise: Don’t try to eat while watching this.
Blaine

I kept waiting for the Pickle Surprise genie to appear.
holtt

Needed a redub to replace that music.

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_u5L1DwtMo for her doing some impressive overtone singing from Rajasthan, India with that thing in her mouth. Do watch the “ecstasy” moment around 2:05 – it fit well. That said, the entire video goes on for about 3 minutes longer than it needs to, even with her now singing.

The music is from http://www.khoomei.com/types.htm by the way.
boo

My grandmother used to do this exercise (without the weird paraphernalia): she called it “prunes and prisms”, from what one might say while alternately contracting and stretching ones lips.

Note to those worried about signs of aging: this exercise will certainly tighten your facial muscles, but will also cause wrinkles around the mouth. They don’t show on the model (she’s pretty young) but judging by my grandmother’s face, the wrinkles become quite pronounced with age. :}
iamhobo

this reminds me of that creepy “Rejuvenique Electric Facial Mask” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXcYVh-W14E
Anonymous

So this isn’t a… um, marital aid but a beauty product? Somehow I’m both confused and disappointed.
nemofazer

I love the way her left eyelid keeps drooping like she’s one synapse away from a stroke.
Zoman

This:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neknmD3hkmM

98% of the time my face is completely immobile. It’s natural state is expressionless. Expressions benefit other people, and well, I’m a misanthrope so… why bother. I’m in my mid 40′s and don’t have a single wrinkle. I expect I’ll die completely friendless, but I’ll have the smoothest skin in the morgue.
msbpodcast

WTF?

Those people are the reason that laws were enacted against “Snake Oil Salesmen.”
vytautasmalesh

Facial Flex – brought to you by David Lynch.
- Halloween Jack
  
  Starring Courtney Love.
Lelielle

Ok lady, now say “i was born on a pirate ship”…..weeeeeird
dolo54

Speaking of weird beauty products. This remix of the Rejuvenique add is the best ever. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZbPsIYzbnE
Anonymous

Trololo
just a guy

Now that is a pretty specific fetish…
- spool32
  
  Welcome to rule 34…
jfrancis

I’m waiting for the Bob Basset version in leather and brass
Glippiglop

Gee I hope I wasn’t the only one turned on by all this mouth action.
Abelard Lindsay

I don’t quite understand why, but that just made me laugh so hard I was crying.
Deidzoeb

Rehabilitates mouths that have been over-botoxed?
David

One of the peculiar things I’ve noticed about popular culture – hardware and fashions seen in porn theaters, no matter how weird, always show up in public as a commodity in regular stores. Super high heels, latex dresses, thigh spreaders, Pee Wee Herman…
adamnvillani

Yeah, I’m voting “weird.” Somehow this thing seems to send this woman into orgasmic ecstasy.
Anonymous

Tim and Eric territory.
Anonymous

Hopefully someone will build a device that combines the Facial-flex with Shake-weights and a Thigh-master.
Jack

Baby wants to flex! Baby wants to flex Blue Velvetâ€™s mouth!
creesto

Three words: the movie Brasil
J.C.

Is this a preview of the new Saw movie?
Art

Hello, Dean,

How does the concept of “classy” apply to this commercial?

Is it the combination of Muzak and earrings?
igpajo

I just know if I tried it I’d somehow catch the tip of my tongue in that thing.
Anonymous

It feels like the uncanny valley just got a little deeper…perhaps a little wider.
- Ed Ligget. Tuba.
  
  Lemme tell ya though…when the uncanny valley is occupied by an actual human being? Now THAT’S AN ACCOMPLISHMENT!
Kimmo

Oh. My. Fuck.

That is the most comprehensively hideous thing I’ve ever seen…

Yay for capitalism.
Anonymous

Human – flex – blow-up doll – now relax – human again. (repeat)

Hot tip: raise your eyebrows towards the top of your head for better results.
Antinous / Moderator

How does the concept of “classy” apply to this commercial?

The Kubrickian pacing and lush score. This is the Barry Lyndon of the orbicularis oris. And having Andrea Martin play Olympia Dukakis was casting genius.
- Art
  
  Excellent, Antinous! LOL
- Boondocker
  
  I was getting more of a Lychnian vibe from it; throw in a dwarf and you’d be there. Had me in hysterics, though, unlike his films. Why they would choose to have the demonstrator talk rather than provide a voiceover is beyond me.
voiceinthedistance

You clowns are wasting your time with this puny abridged version of the video. The original director’s cut version, the one that played in theaters, was over three hours long. It’s impossible to address any meaningful character development in only four minutes.
VagabondAstronomer

Yeah, I agree with the whole Lynchian vibe here. What would have made it even better is to replace the soundtrack with Swedish or Italian avant garde music from the 1960′s…
- Anonymous
  
  As a Swede, you piqued my interest. I guess you mean that kind of Italian, German and US music that was played in 60′s erotic and porno movies made by producers from those countries, that took place in a fictional Sweden (often under the guise of being documentary).
  
  Otherwise, if you really mean avant garde Swedish music, could you mean Hansson&Karlsson (the favorite band and an important inspiration to Frank Zappa):
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c4EoiQwb4k
  
  Or do you mean the Progg music (to which Hansson&Karlsson was a precursor). A very broad music genre only played in Sweden (as the lyrics often was the most important part), but that somehow reached the ears of many influential international musicians, who often made uncredited and more bland covers (safe to steal, as nobody outside Sweden would recognise the music). Some of it was similar to how British Punk music would sound a decade later (but nobody but music historians would listen to that noise nowadays). I couldn’t find any recording from the 60′s, but some of the sound was similar in the early 70′s when the Progg musicians got record deals (music start at 0:42):
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c3MNulrHJE
  also from the early 70′s:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knLcQy3_pxU
  this was a big hit in 1972 (believe me!):
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d69hYZsGoo
  
  If you mean Swedish experimental electronica, it had its heydays between the 1890′s to mid-1950′s.
  
  Other then that, Swedish 60′s music was very main stream, either traditional Swedish folk music, jazz or music inspired by British and US pop music (sounding pretty much identical). The only other music genre that have originated in Sweden then Progg is the very commercial Svensk dansbandsmusik (Swedish dance band music), only popular in Sweden and Norway. Pretty much torture to listen to (it has its roots in country music and pop, but is more horrible then even the worst US made country music), but it is very nice and easy to dance to. Svensk dansbandsmusik also originated in the 60′s but had its commercial peak in the 70′s and 80′s, when there where thousands of musicians that made a living from playing it and tens of thousands of touring amateur bands at the same time, not bad from a population of only 8 million.
- kmoser
  
  I think something in the “Bow-chicka-bow-wow” genre would be more suitable.
dmceleven

Like a toddler playing with a mirror.
retrac13

This calls for the “wall of nightmares” treatment!

(a la http://boingboing.net/rob/nightmares.html )

Make it so!
Jake0748

nope, just weird. I watched about 12 seconds (without sound), can’t imagine doing 4 minutes.
Ed Ligget. Tuba.

I find this video simultaneously revolting and intriguing. I feel dirty now. I’m gonna take a shower. No, I’ll be in my bunk. No, shower. No, bunk! Shower! Bunk! AAAAAGH!!!
Jake0748

Ok, I watched a little more, with sound this time. My updated opinion: stupid, gross, revolting and WTF? I kept waiting for some drool to happen.
- Jack
  
  You watched it some more? Looks like someone wants a Blu-Ray version for Easter ;)
  - Jake0748
    
    yes, please! :)
Cowicide

This product enables magnificent tea bagging abilities.
Quiche de Resistance

Can this device be used to stretch/strengthen other orifices?
bobk

I found a few of the Amazon reviews from Nov. 30th to be particularly helpful.
VICTOR JIMENEZ

Terry GillianÂ´s Brazil IRL.
Anonymous

And the background music. OMG the background music!
Anonymous

http://www.flexeffect.com/
Your face is a series of very tiny muscles that react to exercise just like any other – natch – but like any other, you need to do it right and you need to work at it – or you get the wrong results. this gimmick is the equivalent of the thigh master – it overworks some muscles and doesn’t provide the support for them from the surrounding muscles – thus – eventually sag and wrinkles – If you want the real thing from a body builder and believe me this works check out the link above – I’ve done my research – I’m a year shy of 50 and the results are amazing – check out the before and after – anyway – I don’t want the knife and I want to look “fit” and not saggy – I approach my body this way and my face is no different.

and NO this is not an advert from the woman who devised this thing – just an impressed customer.
Xeno

My God! She’s a blowup doll in training! ‘Just make an O’
wolfiesma

The problem with this commercial is that she is talking while doing her mouth exercises. Bad idea. If they did a voice-over while she did her routine, it wouldn’t have been nearly so weird. This certainly isn’t any weirder, more/less classy than Botox or whatever. The point is to shape and tone your facial muscles. Which I think is a pretty universal desire. So, in that regard, it is a pretty smart product. Whether it works or not, I couldn’t say. But I don’t see why it wouldn’t be a big seller. At least if you could have it delivered to your home in an brown, unmarked package. Amirite?

There was a more recent invention on TV, a chin shaper where you push your head down on this padded spring and let it gently out again and so forth. I gave it a try, but the thing made the most atrocious scraping sound with every repetition. I don’t know what kind of rusty metal they put inside it, or what other flaw in its design made it screetch like that, but it’s not something you would want to use for more than 10 seconds.

Still, in theory, I like the idea of these devices that could tone and shape your face without the aid of plastic surgery or sub-cutaneous injections.
Aaron

The music brings it all together, like Lovely Ludvig Van.
Jack

This certainly isn’t any weirder, more/less classy than Botox or whatever.

They are both weird. They are all based on the concept of non-aging adults which never really existed 30 years ago. Itâ€™s a modern dysfunction where everyone desires to look and behave exactly like they did in their 20s without any acknowledgement of life changing. Age is to be feared; youth uber alles!

Which is why this is a very â€œDavid Lynchâ€-like concept. Itâ€™s something that explores the dark corners of American death obsessed and youth obsessed culture.

Also itâ€™s snake oil. When do you find out it doesnâ€™t work? Maybe 6-12 months after purchase? And then what? You go and return some chewed saliva covered apparatus to who?

This my friends is a classic piece of neo snake oil.
- wolfiesma
  
  Well, the pictures on the package show some pretty dramatic results, but, I concede, it could be a case of “photoshop” or some such. Healthy diet and exercise is probably a better bet for slowing the natural decline and decay of the human body, but the inevitable is still the inevitable and it would be nice if we could handle it a little more gracefully without all the weird gadgets stuck to our faces, I agree.
  - Jack
    
    Well, the pictures on the package show some pretty dramatic results, but, I concede, it could be a case of “photoshop” or some such.
    
    Youâ€™re kidding me. You think box packaging is honest?
    - wolfiesma
      
      I want to believe. :)
Ryanwoofs

Ah, Community Access TV. Now digitized so we can relive the 80′s and 90′s forever.
peterbruells

I don’t get it. Is this some weird oral sex toy?

(I didn’t dare to unmute my PC – my wife is in the same floor as I.)
Anonymous

This is beyond Tim & Eric or even David Lynch.
It’s straight up Matthew Barney.