ShamWOOOOOW!
Please check out the link above, which will take you to the YouTube video of a Shamwow parody. I don’t know how this began because this product has been around for quite some time. If you can recall, Billy Mays (the OXY Clean, Hercules Hook, etc… guy) did the first Shamwow infomercial, but now the new ones have this Vince guy doing them, which is a whole OTHER story in itself!
Vince Offer is the guy’s name, and he is a writer, director, and comedian best known as the owner and pitchman of two sold-on-TV products: ShamWow! absorbent towels and the SlapChop food chopper. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Offer)
Underground Comedy Movie
In 1999, Offer released the Underground Comedy Movieto scathing reviews. Lawrence Van Gelder of The New York Times described the movie as “a series of sketches built around subjects like masturbation, defecation, alienation, urination, necrophilia, voyeurism, casual brutality, and mockery of the unfortunate”. He added that Offer “makes the common mistake of equating the recognition of comic potential for comedy itself. For the successful, talent bridges the gap, but, here, it is absent.” DVDs of the film were marketed via television infomercial.
The film also resulted in several lawsuits. Offer filed a copyright-infringement suit against Peter and Bobby Farrelly and Twentieth Century Fox, claiming that 14 scenes in There’s Something About Marywere taken from his own film. The Farrelly brothers responded, “We’ve never heard of him, we’ve never heard of his movie, and it’s all a bunch of bologna.” In addition, Offer sued Anna Nicole Smith for breach of contract, alleging that Smith had agreed to appear in Underground Comedy Movie but backed out, claiming it would hurt her career.
In 2004, Offer, an ex-Scientologist, sued the Church of Scientology with the help of attorney Ford Greene. He alleged that the church had declared him a criminal and had urged its members to print untrue and nasty things about him. Offer claimed that the church’s actions caused him to lose a successful business, as many of his employees were Scientologists who quit upon learning of what the church did.
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Infomercial marketing
Offer, who funded the Underground Comedy Movie with his own money, had trouble selling it. Inspired by the success of Girls Gone Wild marketing, he decided to put the trailer on an infomercial, and sold 50,000 copies direct order.
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ShamWow!
The success of the Underground Comedy Movie infomercial suggested to Offer that he should sell something more “mainstream.” Drawing upon his experience working in flea markets, he decided in 2006 to market a cleaning product he saw there, an absorbent towel that he called the “ShamWow.”
The advertisement, filmed in the summer in 2007 with a budget of $20,000, became a popular hit. Slate.com’s Seth Stevenson praised Offer for his “impressive and subtle mastery of the pitchman’s art” (with lines such as “you know the Germans always make good stuff”), and wondered if Offer’s “abrasive manner might also mark a unique, new strategy in the annals of pitchdom”. Stevenson compared Offer to earlier, “more upbeat” television pitchmen like Billy Mays and the Home Shopping Network hosts and concluded that Offer’s “smooth-talking condescension” was more suited to the present zeitgeistthan the “earnest fervor” of spokesmen like Mays and Ron Popeil.
Offer says that his experience in flea markets taught him that being aggressive sold more products than being nice. Offer says that he’s sold “millions” of the towels. Notwithstanding his infomercial success, Offer says that “this is not my career” and that he considers himself in the film business.
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SlapChop commercial
In December 2008, Offer, who had previously sold kitchen utensils at swap meets appeared in another infomercial for the kitchen utensil SlapChop.
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This is another parody that is worth checking out: YouTube Shamwow Parody
I don’t own a Shamwow, but after learning that part of the money Vince makes from them goes towards fighting Scientology, I’m highly considering purchasing one!! Ha ha, die Tom Cruise!!! DIE! Ok, that was harsh.. I mainly hate Scientology.. don’t people realize the man that created this “religion” is the same guy that said he was one day going to make up a religion and make millions off of it? Uh.. HELLO!! That’s exactly what he did!! Ha ha… man, people are so stupid! But c’mon, I won’t act like I didn’t already know that! 🙂
About the Author
Denise Borders 39, Los Angeles. Denise founded PWV in 2008 and remains the primary manager and photographer/videographer. She is not secretly obsessed with Joey Cape.
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