Vince Offer ShamWow

Welcome to VinceOfferShamWowGuy.com, a website dedicated to the career and achievements of Vince Offer, ShamWow infomercial pitchman and film director, writer, and comedian. Throughout his twenty-year career in the entertainment industry, Vince Offer has gained recognition for directing, writing, and starring in comedic movies such as The Underground Comedy Movie and InAPPropriate Comedy, as well as his work in note-worthy infomercials such as ShamWow!, SlapChop, and the Schticky. Vince Offer the ShamWow guy’s writing skills, comedic background, and on-screen charisma have led to the success of his infomercials and helped to build his reputation as a master pitchman.

Born Offer Shlomi, Vince Offer grew up in Brooklyn, New York, after immigrating with his family from Beersheva, Israel, in the 1970s. Growing up in Brooklyn, he admired different cultures in his neighborhood, the street humor style of NYC and the carefree vibe of being able to laugh at anything including yourself.   In 1981, Vince offer dropped out of high school to move to Los Angeles and found himself interested in the entertainment industry.

Vince first gained public recognition in 1988, while making skits for his show on Public Access called “The Underground Comedy Show”, and he started developing writing that street humor that he loved from Brooklyn.  Writing and filming skits would help him visualize the humor even more so, and he noticed the more he pushed the envelope the more people on the streets would come over and acknowledge how amazing it was to see something in comedy that was taboo and so funny.   He built a very nice fan base locally which gave him the acknowledgment that he’s doing something meaningful and groundbreaking.

In 1991, It impressed Tamara Rawitt, a producer for In Living Color, who contacted Vince to write 10 skits for the show.  This was another launching pad that got Vince even more interested in comedy and that officially started his career in comedy writing.

Film

Vince realized a lot of the skits he wrote for In Living Color was too risqué even for a well known outrageous urban comedy show.  He later went off on his own to create a skit movie that was raw, unfiltered, non-apologetic and most importantly… very funny! 

It starred celebrities such as Slash, Gena Lee Nolan and Bobby Lee.  Filmed in 1995 and 1996, it was the first movie to debut semen in a skit called Sperm Lake.    Knowing the movie was too much for mainstream distributors, Vince acquired an independent distributor Phadra Cinema who helped Vince get into some midnight screenings.  Movie critics from the LA Times, to NY Times, to LA Weekly and many other newspapers all reviewed it. To Vince’s shock, they all slandered the movie almost word for word.   Despite audiences coming out of the theater claiming it’s one of the funniest movies they’ve seen, the critics saw otherwise and slandered it as offensive and not funny.  But why would they lie about an independent movie?      Vince realized then that most movie critics were Political activists that despise street humor or anything that makes fun of their political aspirations.   

That’s when Vince saw them for who they truly are when it comes to offensive comedy.  That made him skip the movie critics and he had an idea that would get him into an underground street promotion style that has never been done before for a movie.


Alternative Advertising:

Vince knew the trailer for the Underground Comedy Movie was hilarious and he knew audiences would have an exuberant reaction to the trailer when he saw their reaction in the theaters.  He thought if he can just show the public on a broad scale, he could get a packed audience for his midnight showings.    He purchased a mini DVD player with a small screen, and with his producer buddy Jeff Jaeger, they hung out at Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles and showed the trailer to young people who liked edgy humor.   The trailer had “Dickman” a superhero who fights lesbians, “Supermodels on a toilet”, Slash as the “Host of the Miss America Bag Lady Pageant” and much more!   The trailer worked!   The owner of the theater Laemmle’s Sunset 5, Greg Laemmle said “This is one of the strongest Midnight screenings we’ve had in a long time”.  Usually screenings would last 3 to 4 weeks, Vince’s “Underground Comedy Movie” lasted 10 months generating sold out shows!

Infomercials:

Vince was content with the midnight screenings but he wanted more people nationwide to see it but how do you do that with a midnight screening?  You really can’t, especially with a corrupt pool of elitist movie snobs.   One night he saw a “Girls Gone Wild” ad that was selling a DVD of nude college girls, he had the idea of taking his trailer and adding an 800# for consumers to call to order his movie. If they drove to the midnight screening after watching a trailer on Melrose Ave, why not call and buy the DVD?    He aired it late night on Comedy Central and sold 100,000 copies in a few months.  This was the first time a comedy movie aired on TV and generated sales that led to a distribution with a prominent distributor “Image Entertainment”.

Not only did this movie help launch Vince into infomercials, it inadvertently helped the Farrely brothers launch their “Something About Mary” movie with many raunchy groundbreaking scenes in it that appears to be from Underground Comedy Movie.   There was a lawsuit that Vince started against the writers who he feels plagiarized his work, he unfortunately did not have the wherewithal to fight a long drawn out court battle that really doesn’t protect novel concepts from being ripped off.   However, stay tuned because truth always has a way of being set free! And Vince doesn’t quit!

ShamWow

Vince Offer realized the power that infomercials have for assisting with the sale of products early into his career.  He thought if he could have this much success with Comedy Central on late night ads, what if he had a product that could be on all channels, all time of day that was for everyone?  This thought led to Shamwow, a product Vince sold on the weekends in swap meets when he was younger to make a living but at that time it was called “Super Shammy”.  He originally thought of the name “Sham It up” during early stages of marketing development, but “Sham It” was already taken by another company. Offer acknowledged that audiences would often say “wow” every time that he demonstrated the absorbing qualities of the towel. That is when he came up with the name and tagline for Shamwow, a cloth towel that looks like a leather chamois.  

After the success that came from The Underground Comedy Movie’s infomercials, Vince Offer began to seek out other infomercial projects within the Los Angeles area and, in 2006, began working on marketing for the “ShamWow!”. To start, he visited the company in Germany that manufactures the product.The ShamWow! infomercial, filmed with a modest budget in the summer of 2007, quickly became a viral video that would go on to sell millions of ShamWow! products. While reviewers were quick to note the quality of the product, Vince Offer of ShamWow fame’s pitching ability was also brought up by the media. Since the release of the ShamWow! infomercial, Vince Offer, now the ShamWow guy, has been praised for his salesmanship by several media outlets. This includes Slate.com’s Seth Stevenson, who reported that Offer holds “a subtle mastery of the pitchman’s art.”

Following the popularity of his debut product Vince Offer the ShamWow guy would continue to host a variety of other infomercials, including the SlapChop, a handheld released the SlapChop, a chopping device, the Schticky, a reusable lint roller, Invinceable, a stain remover, and CranK Chop, a manual food processor.

If you are interested in learning more about the career of Vince Offer the ShamWow guy and topics relating to his films, infomercials, and salesmanship, return to vinceoffershamwowguy.com for frequent updates.