Cal Ben Soaps

Cal Ben Soap, also known as Cal Ben Five Star Soaps, is a natural soap company that sponsored Alex Jones’ show since at least 2009. Though an end date of their sponsorship is unclear, they definitely do not advertise on Alex’s show anymore.

Marty Shackter

Cal Ben Soap is run by a guy named Marty Shackter, through whom the public gets an interesting glimpse into how Alex Jones supported his program in the late-2000’s.

In the late-2000’s, Marty Shackter is a fairly regular guest on Alex’s show, and to Alex’s credit, he does call out that Marty is a sponsor. Whenever Marty is on, the two generally spend about half an hour talking about how evil mainstream soap companies are, and how the chemicals in all other soaps will give you cancer.

There is nothing wrong with promoting a company that sells non-chemical soap products on your radio show. When a lot of your actual show is about how a shadowy group of “Globalists” are trying to poison you through adding chemicals to everyday products (like soaps), the line does become a little blurry about whether the advertisements are there to complement the content or if it is the other way around.

In this instance, we will give Alex the benefit of the doubt because his behavior when Marty is on his show indicates something a bit more important: it appears that what Alex Jones offers his potential advertisers is not just glowing product endorsements. It appears that he is offering to sell them time on his show.

When Marty is on, the show just becomes a Cal Ben infomercial. Alex does a commendable job as a salesman, seeking to create fear in his listeners of dangers that can all be aleviated by using Cal Ben Soaps. And then, at the end of each appearance, Alex will begrudgingly set Marty up to tell a dirty limerick.

For instance, here is Marty’s limerick from June 3, 2009:

And here is his limerick from January 21, 2009:

This is just so profoundly out of place on Alex’s show that it highlights something, namely that Alex is bending over backwards for this sponsor. Marty and Cal Ben Soap are holding all the cards, to the point where Alex is willing to transform a chunk of his supposedly serious political talk show into a soap infomercial, and then on top of that he’s willing to be the straight-man to set up horribly-delivered, hacky limericks.

What this signifies is one of two options. Either, a) Alex Jones was a completely desperate wreck in 2009 that he was willing to embarrass himself for a sponsor, or b) Alex’s business model is primarily based on selling his air-time. Regardless of which is the case, Alex should be really embarrassed to allow this level of superfluous brokered content to be a part of his show.