Half-Hour Obama Ad in Primetime to Feature Ron Popeil, Tae Bo

CORAL GABLES, Fla. -- Tonight's 30-minute nationally-televised, prime-time advertisement for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, will also feature Ron Popeil, inventor of the Food Dehydrator, and Tae Bo Master Billy Blanks, who has pledged to do 15 push-ups for every vote Obama receives on Election Day.

Obama spokesman Craig Gregg said the campaign invited Popeil and Blanks to tap into a key but often unreachable, solitary sliver of the American public: those who watch TV during that awkward time of each weekday between 10:30 am and 2 pm. Viewers of "The Price is Right don't count," Gregg said, "because without Bob Barker that show is a joke anyway."

"With this ad, we get people who watch TV in prime-time normally, and people who watch during the day," he said.

Rumors also surfaced early Wednesday that magician David Copperfield would make a surprise appearance, dangling from a basketball arena Jumbotron bound in a straitjacket.

Popeil, known as the chief executive and founder of Ronco, the world's greatest company, won the 1996 TV Guide/Alfred Nobel Prize for Food Processing Technology. During his acceptance speech at the Richmond, Calif., awards ceremony, Popeil famously declared that the "onion of his life's passion had been successfully peeled, diced and sauteed in 3 easy steps, 10 easy minutes."

He continued, "And now, every child in America can eat a dried flab of apricot instead of Froot Roll Ups, which are high in sugar and low in infomercial goodness."

Blanks, whom many insiders speculate will be offered a spot in a President Obama cabinet as Defense secretary, will present a new workout called Tae-Bobama during the ad tonight.

Once active in politics, Blanks was ostracized by the professional trainers circuit after a long dispute with fellow aerobician and activist Jane Fonda, who herself split with the traditional school of aerobics and developed her own technique.

The Fonda school of aerobics postulates that tight buns and abs of steel are best achieved through the use of Fleetwood Mac music and hot-pink legwarmers, not circular punching motions and stairmasters on a beach patio as Blanks had maintained.

Disgraced, Blanks retreated to Siberia to improve his technique and revive the Russian VHS cassette market. He re-emerged in late 2007, announcing that he "has re-invented himself, is ready to move on, and wishes to accept the fact that the DVD has supplanted VHS as the video medium of choice," though he stopped short of apologizing to Fonda.

Popeil and Blanks said they are committed to Obama's mission, but have grown weary of hitting the road to campaign, saying they will campaign on Obama's behalf "while supplies last."