Offer
"Vince" Shlomi (born April 25,
1964 in Haifa
, Israel
), also known
as Vince Offer or the
ShamWow! Guy, is a writer,
director, and
comedian widely known as the
owner and pitchman of two
sold-on-TV
products: ShamWow! absorbent towels and the Slap Chop food
chopper.
The Underground Comedy Movie
In 1999 as a writer, director and actor, Offer released the
The
Underground Comedy Movie to less-than-favorable reviews. The
New York Post said it "may be
the least amusing comedy ever made," and 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 led to 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
Mary were 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
baloney." The
case was dismissed with prejudice on a motion for
summary judgment by order of the court in
2000, and Twentieth Century Fox was awarded
$66,336.92 in attorneys' fees. In
addition, Offer successfully sued
Anna
Nicole Smith for breach of contract, alleging that Smith had
agreed to appear in
The 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 commit libel against 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.
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 via direct order.
ShamWow!
The success of the
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 that he saw there, an absorbent
towel that he called the ShamWow!.
The advertisement, filmed in the summer of 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 the late
Billy Mays and the
Home Shopping Network hosts and
concluded that Offer's "smooth-talking condescension" was more
suited to the present "
zeitgeist" than the
"earnest fervor" of spokesmen like Mays and
Ron Popeil.
Consumer Reports reported
that the infomercial for ShamWow! initially featured Offer claiming
that the product held "20 times its weight in liquid". Later, the
infomercial was changed to Offer claiming the ShamWow! held "12
times its weight in liquid", then again to "10 times".
Consumer
Reports did its own test on the product and found that it does
indeed hold 10 times its weight in liquid but no more. The official
ShamWow website claims that the product holds 12 times its weight
in liquid.
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 to be in the film business.
Pitchman Billy Mays had been promoting a similar product called
Zorbeez two years prior to Vince Offer's
ShamWow! product. Mays noted that the ShamWow! commercials use many
of the same product demonstrations as the earlier-produced Zorbeez
commercial. In February 2009 while on the
Adam Corolla radio show, Billy Mays publicly
challenged Offer to a "pitch off" between their respective
absorbent towel products.
Popular
Mechanics actually did compare the absorbency of two towel
products and declared ShamWow! the clear winner. This result had
been hotly contested by Billy Mays before his death, and was a
major part of the season finale of the
Discovery Channel show
PitchMen. During the finale episode, it was
suggested that the
Popular Mechanics tester did not use
the Zorbeez correctly. Fox's Deal Or Dud segment tested the
ShamWow. However, they struggled to get the product working as
advertised, and they called it a "Dud".
Slap Chop
Vince pitching the
Slap Chop.
In December 2008, Offer, who had previously sold kitchen utensils
at
swap meets, appeared in another
infomercial for the kitchen utensil set which included the Slap
Chop and the Graty. The Slap Chop is a hand-held utensil the user
places over food items and by rapidly pushing down on the handle,
the blades inside "chop" the food. The Graty is a cheese grater
operated by placing the cheese inside and then turning the outside
housing of the utensil which causes the cheese to be grated.
Offer's
aggressiveness and use of
double entendres like "you're gonna love my
nuts" have earned him notoriety, and, according to an
Adweek blog, helped make Offer "the man who
could beat Billy Mays at his own game."
Billy Mays had been promoting a similar
product set which included the Quick Chop utensil and the Quick
Grater utensil prior to Vince Offer's Slap Chop/Graty product set.
Mays noted that the Slap Chop commercials use many of the same
demos as the earlier-produced Quick Chop commercial. Mays said in
the same
Adam Corolla radio show
interview in February 2009, that Offer not only stole the Zorbeez
product idea but also the Quick Chop idea.
DJ
Steve Porter made a
music video remix of the original Slap
Chop infomercial, dubbing it "Rap Chop". After posting it to
YouTube on April 25, 2009, it quickly
spread over the internet. As of
September 4, 2009, it has been viewed over 5 million times through
its original upload, and millions more as it was posted across
other sites. It reached #13 as the all time Top Rated and #3 all
time Top Rated in Comedy on YouTube. On May 15, 2009, Porter
followed up his "Rap Chop" music video remix with a music video
remix of the original ShamWow! infomercial, dubbing it "Jam Wow".
In July 2009, in an apparent deal between Porter and Shlomi, the
"Rap Chop" was made into a real infomercial that began airing
nationwide. Porter's original remix included footage from the movie
House Party and TV show
The Fresh Prince of Bel
Air; however for the national infomercial this footage was
replaced with that of a woman
break
dancing and another dancer dressed in a pink bunny rabbit
costume, as the rights to use the
Breakin' film footage had not been
obtained.
Arrest
On
February 7, 2009, Offer was arrested in Miami Beach,
Florida
on a charge of felony
battery after an altercation with a 26-year-old prostitute. Offer, who appears in police
reports under his real name Vince Shlomi, contended that he struck
the prostitute when she "bit his tongue and would not let go."
Prosecutors later declined to file formal charges against either
individual.
References
- Dave Karger, Suna Chang. Monitor: Celebrity News for October 16, 1998,
Entertainment Weekly online.
- Offer v. Farrelly, Case No. CV 98-7697 RAP(RCx) (C.D.
Cal. Jan. 13, 2000); id. (Mar. 14, 2000).
- Consumer Reports: ShamWow fails to wow in Consumer
Reports tests
- The Daily Tube: Billy Mays 'ShamPows' ShamWow
Guy
- Shamwow vs. Zorbeez: Which works Better? As Seen On
TV Lab Test
- Pitchmen, episode: "Revenge of the Pitchmen" (2009-07-01).
- [1]
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWRyj5cHIQA
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CztvSpKdCeY
- TMZ.com: Slap Chop Rap Remix -- Coming to Your
TV!
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