Women At Large: Breakout, 1987

Women at Large is the first exercise program designed for large women by large women. Because when your target weight is "large" that really lets you relax. Hell, you can reach that goal with NCIS and a pizza.

The hostesses begin the video by listing their accomplishments and qualifications. Sharlyne has dropped four clothing sizes, has "redesigned her body," and has what she describes as an "incredible" resting heart rate of 60. Which I think means that 60 percent of her blood has retired to become butter. Her co-host Sharon is more modest with her achievements: she no longer requires special medication to stay alive. This video does not exactly shoot for the stars. They admit their goal is not to help you lose weight -- this is so you can one day use a regular toilet.

Like all workout videos, it warns you to consult with your physician before any physical activity. But if you're obese and your physician tells you

The video begins with seven obese women warming up to John Tesh music, maybe because it's the only thing that goes more awkwardly with a workout than seven obese women. Here's something I learned from this video: Fat women scream when they exercise. Not in pain, just because. Every time they change positions, one of them lets out a "Wooop!" or an "ooooh MY!" At one point during a long stretch to the side, each of them simultaneously shouted a variation of "Alright!!!" I can only assume that they were either not expecting their arm to remain attached or a stripper in a hot dog suit jumped out of a cake. In the large woman community, that's called a Triple Threat.

The video is a pie eating contest of emotions. After the

Baby & You, 1998

A Complete Body Workout That You Can Share With Your Baby

Baby & You is a team aerobics routine where your partner is an infant strapped to your chest. I suppose one of you is more like an unwilling prop. How do things like this happen? Did someone see a Shakeweight commercial and think, "I can make one of those myself with a little sperm and nine months of gestation." What's more notable than how pointlessly stupid this is is that this may be the first warning on a workout video that's there for someone's actual safety and not as legal umbrella for liability. I mean, besides the obvious risk of dropped babies, look at the dangers involved in using this tape:

This video has a chance of giving you something called "Bright Red Vaginal Discharge." I wouldn't wish that name on my worst enemy's band. What's the treatment for something as terrifying as Bright Red Vaginal Discharge? A wizard with a runed cork? I swear if I was a gynecologist I would misdiagnose the coming of a biblical apocalypse every single day I was at work. And if one of my patients came to me asking if she should do aerobics while wearing a baby I'd tell her to leave her the kid alone -- it'd be more medically responsible if I just gave her 22 breast implants instead.

Pregnancy Exercise Program, 1985

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

As you know, every workout video starts with a warning, but this one is almost more of an apology. An unidentified man in what has got to be a fake mustache comes on to make excuses for how easy all these exercises are going to be. This might require an explanation if these were a bunch of women with beer bellies, but I think I'm capable of figuring out why pregnant women aren't throwing medicine balls at each other's stomachs.

There's something creepy about a man in a fake mustache introducing a pregnant aerobics video. I doubt anyone bought this tape to masturbate to, but now I'm sort of thinking that's what this guy intended. This guy's entire face is nature's warning that inappropriate things give him an erection. This is the kind of guy who sees a sonogram and accidentally says, "How young is too young, am I right!? Yum!"

Once the doctor(?) leaves, this video might be the most feminine thing ever made. Five women in leotards are gracefully moving like they were inseminated by unicorns. The set is five giant birth control pills floating in a pink sunset. These women are so soft and pure that I can feel my 5 o'clock shadow scuffing their beauty when I look directly at them. This video makes me want to call ex girlfriends and apologize. And the creepy guy wasn't kidding about this routine being easy. It was probably tougher for these women to squeeze 36 combined months of pregnancy into five catsuits than it was for them to gently stir to adult contemporary music. In fact, most of their workout is a simultaneous nap. No bullshit, for over seven minutes they lie motionless while the camera gets closeups of them pretending to sleep. I can't imagine what creep came up with

Angela Lansbury's Positive Moves, 1988

A Personal Plan for Fitness and Well-Being at Any Age

After Angela Lansbury made it to the age of 63, she decided it was her duty to share her secrets of long life with the world. Spoiler Alert: she's been putting her mouth over yours while you slept since you were six. She begins the video by admitting she's not an expert in fitness or nutrition, which almost seems like gloating when you're talking to someone who just purchased your product about fitness and nutrition. I guess the first step in Angela Lansbury's wellness program is

The second step in her program is that you're an idiot. Angela Lansbury solves murders by taking nothing for granted, so she leaves the possibility open that you're a person who recently crashed here from space or have had your brain eaten by one. She explains walking, biking and salads as if you've never heard of them. Never underestimate a non-expert's ability to overestimate the stupidity of the people who require their wisdom. You get things like "tips" on how to walk and "advice" that salads are for eating. To her credit, though, Angela Lansbury was on the coalition that invented salad.

Like any non-expert who mistakes common sense for research, Angela Lansbury assumes that if she's still alive, it's because of her exact combination of interests. For example, she suggests sewing as a great workout. Oh my god, that explains how when I'm done making pants, they are always way too big! I thought I was going crazy! Careful: Angela warns that she once "crippled herself" by doing too much sewing, so keep this in mind if you're pursuing a sleek and sexy seamstress build.

Besides a long list of Angela's hobbies, there are some actual exercise routines on the tape. Although that might be too generous a description for what I should have probably called "slow motion napping." I get that the elderly can't do jumping jacks without a necromancer, but Angela Lansbury's exercises are only slightly more difficult than laying down and waiting for death. She has one sequence where she does aided leg movey-things by wrapping a scarf around her feet. I think you'd get a better workout using the scarf to attach a pint of ice cream to your mouth. Plus, there's a good chance this certified non-expert made these moves up herself and you're burning more minutes off your spine's lifespan than you are calories.

If you're in the age group being kept alive by some kind of machine, this video is as close to pornography as your ancient ways will allow. Angela starts every day with a full body lotion massage, and you don't have to take her word for it. She shows you. She narrates this and the rest of the video with the same voice I imagine she uses when she's telling the telegraph operator to send, "I need your John Thomas. Stop. Unnhh deep inside me. Stop." This is wall-to-wall senior sexiness.

During her workout routine, Angela Lansbury seduces you not only with her voice but with her peach jumpsuit as the camera pans up and down her slow, inviting pelvic thrusts. For someone with failing eyesight, this must look more naked than a childbirth video. And for someone with good eyesight, it's a great way to incorporate screaming into your low impact hip-and-back stretching routine.

For most of the tape I thought I might be mistaking some kind of old-timey naivete for sexuality. I'm not a historian, so maybe it used to be perfectly innocent for people to lotion up, put on a flesh-colored leotard, and pump their crotch in your face. Then I got to the scene with Angela Lansbury taking a bath, and just like every time I've walked in on a woman in the bathtub, I realized I was right. Half-expecting to hear her theories on how hot water melts away fat or how shampooing tones your triceps, she instead reassures me the viewer that yes, this entire time she's been trying to fuck me. With her panting voiceover she talks about the myth that elderly women aren't sexual. And then, as her fingers slide under the bubbles and into this star of stage and screen's vagina, she shatters that myth. It's very important there's no misunderstanding here: at the end of her aerobics video, Angela Lansbury jerks off in the tub. She made this for senior citizens everywhere who needed something to masturbate to, but didn't want their surviving family members to know it was porno when they found it in the VCR. Angela Lansbury might not know anything about fitness, health, nutrition, or sewing, but that's pretty brilliant. Behold: