As a Guilty Mum...

[fireheart]

This segment comes from a TV show on ABC (Australia ) that's doing the rounds at the moment. Basically, it looks at consumer rights, but doesn't go into the usual "how to be a sucky customer" stuff that some of these shows HAVE done. They cover things like clever marketing/advertising, scams/dubious products, consumer LEGAL rights and so on.

The "Guilty Mum" segment is one of my favourites. Basically one of the workers for CHOICE (consumer "watchdog" magazine) plays the mum and looks at all these products that are overhyped or overpriced for whatever reason. Here's a few of their segments:

Sleep

Safety

Bum Change!

Healthy\\

For the record, CHOICE does conduct rigorous testing of a bunch of products and then gives you the information as a good point vs. bad point, although sometimes the bad points can be solved by common sense or experimentation (ie they did a test on GPS's and one of the common complaints was "no trip log" which really isn't needed anyway).

As for these, I do have to laugh at how well Kate Browne does pull it off. Please note, these are primarily satirical, but based in research

If you DO want to watch the episodes in full, look up "The Checkout" on Youtube.

ETA: I like the sidecar idea!

[taxguykarl]

For the record, CHOICE does conduct rigorous testing of a bunch of products and then gives you the information as a good point vs. bad point, although sometimes the bad points can be solved by common sense or experimentation

A counterpart to Consumer Reports, I see. I'm definitely going to watch a few full episodes.

[fireheart]

A counterpart to Consumer Reports, I see. I'm definitely going to watch a few full episodes.

It's worth it. The information is correct, but the whole thing is presented humorously. The guys have been known for poking fun at just about EVERYTHING in the past.

Apparently they're doing to do ANOTHER area on "smartness". By that, I'm assuming they're looking at things like "little einstein" DVDs and whatnot.

ETA: During the sleep segment, have a close look at one of the items. It's an item that I remember seeing on Cracked before as one of the items that's disturbing for kids! (actually there's a couple that have cropped up) I giggled when I saw it

Some of the other segments they do are "F.U Tube" which allows people to address their grievances online via video (they do weed through them, so the ones that are actual legal grievances get aired and shown, the ones that don't are consigned to that big bin of cyberspace somewhere),
product vs. packshot (which looks at the label vs. the ACTUAL product inside, although the latest one wasn't so much a "packshot" since it was a KFC Twister),
"If I could just say one thing" (which usually involves an expert in something saying something. One guy from the government consumer watchdog group tried to hawk his app in this space )
"Truth in labelling": this one has been done with things that seem to have a lot of sugar in them and they actually make the labels look like their nutritional info.

Oh and just a couple of quick notes:

Coles and Woolies are Aussie supermarkets and are NOT in any way related to companies with similar names overseas (New Zealand is the only one with a Woolies link as they own branches over there). The TGA is sort of like the FDA overseas.
The information presented on The Checkout is correct AT TIME OF PRINT.
And finally, I strongly advise you to check YOUTUBE for these episodes, since they're only otherwise shown on ABC's iView, which if I'm correct, does not work overseas (like how I can't get hulu >.<)