Slim Suit Commercial

February 20, 2009 8:38 AM

The Slim Suit helps you shed pounds by merely wearing it. [SLYT]
posted by rageagainsttherobots (47 comments total)

I was waiting for them to break out the Jonestown Kool-Aid.
posted by rageagainsttherobots at 8:40 AM on February 20, 2009

I wore mine for most of the 90s. I actually lost more than I weighed! I now weigh a fantabulous negative 130 pounds. I float! Yes, that's me, up in the sky, wearing my slim suit, watching you masturbate.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 8:45 AM on February 20, 2009 [36 favorites]

Man, I remember that commercial. Too bad it doesn't improve hairstyles.
posted by ardgedee at 8:45 AM on February 20, 2009

I can't believe the commercial doesn't mention that you can fill the suit up with food and cook while you wear it! Pot roast anyone?
posted by orme at 8:49 AM on February 20, 2009 [2 favorites]

Hope that blonde woman doesn't waste away to the point she can't lift her enormous cordless phone.
posted by DU at 8:50 AM on February 20, 2009 [2 favorites]

It was $19.95 then, it's $19.95 now..

and...those people are all aliens.
posted by HuronBob at 8:51 AM on February 20, 2009

"It's simple. The more active you are, the more Slim Suit works for you!"
posted by creasy boy at 8:54 AM on February 20, 2009

Plus you win more at laser tag.
posted by BrotherCaine at 8:56 AM on February 20, 2009 [2 favorites]

Holy shit. Is that Laura Bush?

I'm so glad I don't live in the same world where women sit around the house all day talking on the phone about how they can't believe they're losing weight by watching TV. It's like the makings of a horror movie.

Also, I notice they say "temporary weight and inch loss"- Is that because wearers get dehydrated from sweating? Sure, you can "actually wake up weighing less"-- because everyone wakes up weighing less.

At least everyone can look good in Slim-Suit due to their exciting one-size-fits-all design.
posted by dunkadunc at 8:57 AM on February 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

And then there was the strange and terrifying convergence of the Slim Suit, leg warmers and Jogging. What is terrifying is that this was considered high fashion at one point.

Great Cthulhu sleeps in his Slim Suit.
posted by Severian at 8:58 AM on February 20, 2009

"And it's so flattering and comfortable, you'll want to wear it everywhere you go."
posted by adamrice at 8:58 AM on February 20, 2009

I thought this was going to be something like Fat Foe (explanation).
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:58 AM on February 20, 2009

Last summer, I would regularly see a guy wearing one of these (or something very similar) while he jogged around a local park. That can't possibly be a good idea, can it?
posted by MrMoonPie at 8:59 AM on February 20, 2009

That can't possibly be a good idea, can it?

Depends how much you like dehydration I guess. OTOH, maybe it's the only exercise wear approved by 9 out of 10 paranoid schizophrenics.

I think Rule 34 is temporarily broken.
posted by BrotherCaine at 9:02 AM on February 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

> Is that because wearers get dehydrated from sweating?

Yup. It's a dull industrial grey mylar track suit with elastics at the cuffs. Needed only a bleed valve at the ankles to let out the pooled water.
posted by ardgedee at 9:03 AM on February 20, 2009

I remember one night I stayed up all night doing something really interesting, came home and my Bulgarian housemates had left the TV on. There was an informercial on for some kind of electronic muscle-building device, and the gushing host was making dark hints you could "enlarge yourself" with it as well.
I sat there transfixed for what seemed to be ages, marveling that (A) they actually think people are that stupid and (B) there are actually enough stupid, insecure people out there to make a half-hour infomercial for their bullshit product profitable. Then the TV started to give off really insidious vibes and I had to turn it off.
posted by dunkadunc at 9:06 AM on February 20, 2009

Oh, wow! There are 3 different people at my gym who I've never seen do anything exercise-y, but they wear these in the sauna. I always wondered what they were doing. The one dude takes it off before he gets in the hot tub, and he (and the suit) just drip with sweat.
posted by ferociouskitty at 9:12 AM on February 20, 2009

I am sick of people wearing slim suits! Making funny of skinny people by dressing in such a suit is wrong. When will people learn?

Oh, wait, that's my opinion of fat suits. I got thrown off there.
posted by cjorgensen at 9:12 AM on February 20, 2009

Btw, is this what people wear nowadays to make weight for a fight?
posted by creasy boy at 9:22 AM on February 20, 2009

Is that because wearers get dehydrated from sweating?

Yup. It's a dull industrial grey mylar track suit with elastics at the cuffs. Needed only a bleed valve at the ankles to let out the pooled water.

Your ignorance of science is appalling.

The Slim Suit works on a biological principle called "intercell shame matrix reactivity." Essentially, wearing it makes you ashamed at the molecular level, and the constant motion of your body's molecules as they try not to meet each others' gazes, stumbling sullenly around your physique attempting to forget that they collectively form somebody who has (a) bought a Slim Suit and (b) wears it, creates a sort of perpetual cellular agitation that in turn causes your body to vibrate slightly, which is kind of like exercise. The fat cells, suffering from extreme anxiety and anguish over being in part the cause of the Slim Suit being worn, actually vibrate out to the far extremities of the body, where they exudate in a whitish buttery substance that can be, with the addition of some garam masala, a delicious breakfast spread.

It is of the utmost importance that two Slim Suit wearers never touch, because should the fat cells escaping from one wearer's body in a panicked rush come into contact with similar fat cells escaping another wearer, they may explode.

See also "Blipverts."
posted by Shepherd at 9:23 AM on February 20, 2009 [43 favorites]

There's a fat guy that walks around the park that wears a black version of this. Even when it's 50 out, he's sweating like a pig. I want to stop and tell him it's BS, but....instead I get a chuckle every time I ride.
posted by notsnot at 9:27 AM on February 20, 2009

Trim-Jeans Theater

Mark: Terrific! Thrill to Thomas a Becket's Kierkegaardian moment of choice while making your physique tighter, firmer, neater.
posted by edgeways at 9:29 AM on February 20, 2009

Bah, Slimby all the way. Or perhaps poison berries.
posted by phax at 9:32 AM on February 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

This will look great with my new Snuggie.
posted by monospace at 9:32 AM on February 20, 2009

You can laugh, but you haven't lived until you've eaten a chicken-fried slim suit.
posted by digsrus at 9:37 AM on February 20, 2009

There wasn't anything new about this, even in the 80s. Wrestlers and boxers have been using sweat-suits, aka sauna suits to make weight for matches forever.

See:
Sauna Suits from Boxing Depot
"Dying to Make Weight" -- a personal account from an amateur wrestler

or read almost any John Irving novel.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:38 AM on February 20, 2009

You know, if they could just recycle the water these could be marketed as stillsuits.
posted by Nelson at 9:38 AM on February 20, 2009

We're sorry. This video is no longer available.

He wasted away to nothing.
posted by netbros at 9:42 AM on February 20, 2009

There was an informercial on for some kind of electronic muscle-building device

Just a piece of trivia, but the guy that introduced the electro-stimulation abdominal exercise device in the US went on to become a serial killer.
posted by StickyCarpet at 9:47 AM on February 20, 2009

That can't possibly be a good idea, can it?

Ask Martin Lawrence how that worked out for him.

Don't miss the aerobic body shaper from the same youtube poster.
posted by Rhomboid at 9:49 AM on February 20, 2009

This reminds me of the one of the worst Halloween costumes ever. I vaguely remember saying "why don't I be a California raisin" for some reason. My mom probably in an effort to get me out of the house for a few hours or for a good laugh takes a black trash bag, cuts three holes in it and put it on me. All my friends were either jason or freddy or some evil looking barbarian and there I was the poor kid with a trash bag as a costume. No one knew what I was suppose to be and the bottom of the bag (where my head was) had the corners of the bag pointing out like old lady style shoulder pads. I looked more like a bum then a raisin. I should have tied an electrical cord around my waist and been done with it. Somehow that was better than the homemade knight costume a year after that and the lady bug costume when I was 4 (both of these were made out of colored cardboard and pipe cleaners if that gives you any idea). I had allowance money... she could have dropped me off at the mall with my friends... but where was the fun in that? She said her and grandma had lots of fun designing costumes and then trick or treating. I can't wait until I have kids to pass down this lovely family tradition! I would tell you about the infamous homemade pink panther costume but that is a whole other story altogether...
posted by Mastercheddaar at 9:53 AM on February 20, 2009 [2 favorites]

Finally, a way to lose weight while exercising!
posted by starman at 9:57 AM on February 20, 2009 [6 favorites]

There is someone in the aerobic body shaper video wearing a slim-suit!
posted by a womble is an active kind of sloth at 10:10 AM on February 20, 2009

Wrestlers and boxers have been using sweat-suits, aka sauna suits to make weight for matches forever.

Ew, now you've gone and reminded me of High School, when the wrestling team would carry around plastic bottles and spit in them all day long. Seeing the guy next to me in math class spitting into his 3/4 full bottle actually did make me thow up a little bit in my mouth, long before it became popular.
posted by StickyCarpet at 10:13 AM on February 20, 2009 [2 favorites]

I think Rule 34 is temporarily broken.

or read almost any John Irving novel.

And there you go.
posted by dhartung at 10:21 AM on February 20, 2009 [2 favorites]

I wonder if the company has had to settle any slim suits.
posted by terranova at 10:39 AM on February 20, 2009

@Rhombold: It's like a room full of living animated .gifs!

Also, I love the slim suit cameo about 3/8 through. I thought the lazy susan thing looked dorky, but then I saw the metallic gray suit and realized that this was the exercise dance craze of the future.
posted by mccarty.tim at 10:58 AM on February 20, 2009

Mock on all you want but I got one and found I could lose weight while masturbating in my Slim Suit. I lost not only weight but my hearing too.
posted by Postroad at 11:23 AM on February 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

I was waiting for them to break out the Jonestown Kool-Aid.

Flavor Aid, goddamit.
posted by dersins at 11:52 AM on February 20, 2009 [3 favorites]

And the smell! Ahhh, that's the money! After a month the smell is the sweet sweet smell of thinness and success!
posted by From Bklyn at 12:32 PM on February 20, 2009

I remember wearing one of these--a non-mylar version--back when I was a teenager and I was trying to get down to the next-lower weight class for the Golden Gloves, which my mother, to her credit, refused to give me permission to enter (I was a minor). That said, my favorite part of the commercial was the group of people in Slim Suits sitting around the table, eating. Appetizing!
posted by adgnyc at 1:10 PM on February 20, 2009

Formerly known and loved by former high school wrestlers everywhere. Now though they have tests for hydration which have made the suit obsolete, unless you know how to cheat the test.
posted by caddis at 1:43 PM on February 20, 2009

Do you think I could wear the SlimSuit under my Slanket? Then I could enjoy the convenience of losing weight while watching tv without always having to readjust that troublesome blanket.
posted by donnagirl at 1:49 PM on February 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

MasterCheddar -> Doesn't sound to me like its your family tradition that has the problems so much as your mom's artistic skills and ambitions
posted by mannequito at 3:16 PM on February 20, 2009

I'm pretty sure this is an incomplete product. Jimmy Tango's Fat Busters provides the complete package. (Transcript, for posterity, as SNL clips don't usually last long)
posted by filthy light thief at 4:47 PM on February 20, 2009

I'm losing weight while posting on MetaFilter!
posted by mazola at 10:02 PM on February 20, 2009

Why can't I stop thinking about Jiffy-Pop popcorn?
posted by Ron Thanagar at 11:03 PM on February 21, 2009