ShamWow Guy the Movie: Noooo!

The news that ShamWow Guy was arrested for beating a prostitute is not all that surprising. Now that the story broke and the gruesome mugshot is making the rounds, some surprising details on ShamPow have come to light: did you know he produced a movie starring Joey Buttafuoco? Somebody get me a ShamWow to throw-up in.
Jason Cochran of WalletPop actually interviewed Vince Shlomi, a.k.a., ShamWow Guy, when he was promoting his film, if you can call it that:

He was [then] going by the name Vince Offer, and he told me he paid for production of his spectacularly tasteless film (The Underground Comedy Movie, which had cameos by the likes of Joey Buttafuoco and sketches like "The Miss America Bag Lady Pageant") through -- wait for it -- the sales of vegetable choppers at malls and flea markets across the country.

The guy is so good at talking that he funded a movie out of his knack for the pitch. Unfortunately, he wasn't so good at making movies. In fact, Anna Nicole Smith reneged on a promise to appear in his movie -- she said it would hurt her career.

According to Lawrence Van Gelder of the New York Times, somebody masochistic enough to sit through The Underground Comedy Movie, called it, "a monument to ineptitude and self-delusion."

I would have said, it should have stayed underground.

Unfortunately Karen Black, (who was in Five Easy Pieces--one of my favorite movies!) was also in the sketch-filled "comedy"/warning-to-amateur-filmmakers.

Comments

[SonnyBono]

04:04 AM on 04/01/2009

Am I the only one that thinks that this Vince dude looks like Bowzer from the old Sha Na Na group that was popular back in the late 70s and early 80s? What ever happened to those guys? They were really obnoxious after about twenty minutes or so - sort of like the Monkees on an endless loop of "Last Train to Clarksville".

[Clavis]

04:09 PM on 03/30/2009

Humanity is doomed.

[OtayPanky]

09:58 AM on 03/30/2009

To get the facts, go read the info on The Smoking Gun Website (link below).

He and the hooker were BOTH arrested, and neither was ultimately charged. Saying he "beat up a hooker" doesn't fit the facts of the case.

Read it for yourself:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0327092sham1.html

[LMPE]

10:10 AM on 03/29/2009

Who the hell is ShamWow Guy? I've never heard of him. I can easily identify Connie Hines and Dorothy Provine, but not this person. It sounds as though there's no reason to know about him.

[Aranxa]

10:38 AM on 03/31/2009

You're lucky.

[HyperInfluential]

09:46 PM on 03/28/2009

Vince has that *something* that makes it so you can't look away from him. He ought to be in movies! Sure, his movie was so monumentally bad it almost tore the spacetime continuum, but that just means he's a bad comedy WRITER. Ever see Dan Akroyd without good writers behind him? Some comics are just masters of delivery, not ideas.

Vince Schlomi as a movie star is no crazier an idea than Gilbert Gottfreid or Steve Buscemi! Hey...THOSE guys should have gotten the Three Stooges roles!!! OMG!

[Acidicscold]

07:48 PM on 03/29/2009

Why just last night Akroyd was a guest on SNL and had the worst lines in the opening skit. I never remember seeing him bomb, but he did last night as Rep. Boehnnner.

[Lucky123]

03:36 PM on 03/30/2009

Actually, Dan Aykroyd was and still is a writer. He wrote or co-wrote many of his SNL sketches.

I don't know if he had a hand in writing the Boehner sketch, but my guess is that Lorne Michaels needed a Boehner look-a-like and asked him to do a cameo.

[booboo111]

08:29 PM on 03/28/2009

In reality, that film is becoming a cult classic!

[GregJL]

10:43 AM on 03/30/2009

Isn't that what happens to most really bad movies?

[Nitehawk]

07:42 PM on 03/28/2009

I still wonder if that thing in his ear isn't beaming down instructions from aliens.

[CheGuevara]

09:11 PM on 03/28/2009

Interesting you'd mention that. Vince is an ex-member of the Church of $cientology, who realized it for the scam it is and got out, but not after having his life basically ruined and being nearly bankrupted (http://ocmb.xenu.net/ocmb/viewtopic.php?highlight=shamwow&t=30000). The ShamWow and SlapChop commercials were his making a comback, now this...

Such is life in LA.

[guitarchitectural]

11:47 AM on 03/29/2009

there's an article on the web that discusses the fact that he uses his profits to fight them...the whole incident reeks of a setup and I wouldn't be surprised - unfortunately no one in the media will go near this connection

[marxmarv]

04:36 PM on 03/28/2009

So that's what he meant when he talked about slapping your troubles away...

[TooLooze]

09:42 PM on 03/30/2009

Haaaaaaaa!!!

[Halfwit]

04:21 PM on 03/28/2009

Was he tweaking? Because he obviously was in the ShamWow commercial...

[ohdem]

12:58 PM on 03/28/2009

I'm not sure a cameo gives Joey Buttafuoco a "starring" role, but perhaps he's listed that way in the credits.

[arwing]

12:13 PM on 03/28/2009

The fact that he made a really horrible movie isn't as interesting as what Scientology did to him as a consequence of making the movie.

[vivachavez]

11:53 AM on 03/28/2009

I'm sure Vince is thrilled to be called out by a chick named after a taco.