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.