Vince Offer Tries to Sell the ShamWow in Spanish
January 3rd, 2009 Paul Lucas
Are you surprised to find out Vince Offer from the ShamWow and Slap Chop commercials is really a Mexican? If so, that’s because Vince is nowhere close to being a Mexican and this video proves it:
The ShamWow ad isn’t the first English-language infomercial to be translated into Spanish, but usually they either dub over the original video or they remake the commercial with someone who, you know, actually speaks Spanish. Vince, however, is so confident (or arrogant) about his ability as a supersalesman that he thinks he can sell ShamWow cloths in a language he can’t even speak.
I’ve never felt sorry for an entire language before, but my sincere condolences go out to the language of Cervantes and all those who speak it as their native tongue.
If Vince ever tried to order from the Taco Bell menu, the person behind the counter would just look at him with a confused stare—yet here he is wielding Spanish for a full two minutes of broadcast TV.
I hope this commercial sold a lot of ShamWows to the Hispanic community; otherwise Vince’s mastery of español would probably only earn him a C- in a Spanish 1A class at some community college in New Jersey.
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Muchas gracias to Ridiculous Infomercial Review reader Sam Krysiak for letting me know about Vince Offer’s crime against the Spanish language.
Vince es un pinche pendejo.
Comment by Richard Simmons — January 3rd, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Hi did you know spanish is spoken like this with long gaps between words ?
Comment by TimNRA757 — January 3rd, 2009 at 8:14 pm
He sounds like a japanese person trying to speak spanish with a french accent
Comment by Emilin8r — January 3rd, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Wow. I bet David Duke speaks Spanish better than that.
Comment by Tony — January 4th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
I hope they do a spanish slap chop
iVas a gustar mis huevos!
Comment by Emilin8r — January 4th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
I’m now all for making English the official language of the United States just so Vince will shut up.
Comment by Caleb — January 5th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
The accent is dreadful, the cadence choppy, the translation wholly incorrect in some places. Still, it eases my mind to know that the folks in “Alemania hacen cosas buenas.” He still can’t shut up about the damn Germans, even in the Spanish version.
Comment by Sarah — January 6th, 2009 at 8:52 am
Hilarious! My favorite part is at the end with the real Spanish speaker. He says something about “todos la dia.” They’re repeating that stupid “cause you know we can’t do this all day” line from the original!
Comment by Eric — January 6th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
I didn’t think the tale of Vince Offer could possibly get any more absurd, but here we go again. Vince has topped himself. How can he possibly do another spot more goofy than this one? I look forward to finding out.
Comment by Scott Mercer — January 8th, 2009 at 3:48 am
Great almighty that is hilarious.
It’s like a 7th grade Spanish project “Perform an infomercial in Spanish!” after only 8 months of learning the language slow-pace. Hahaha.
Comment by Lynnie — January 9th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
He has shat on the Spanish language.
Comment by Adreim — January 16th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Weird…he actually says that it lasts ten years(diez anos) in this one without it being dubbed in.
Comment by Duderino — January 20th, 2009 at 9:46 am
I used to knock this guy too, until I actually learned his story.
This guy has my support, no matter how cheesy his infomercials are. If shelling out $20 helps someone with this tenacity fight the Good Fight, I’ll do it once a week.
Comment by gneil — January 27th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Belly button fuzz!!
Comment by Leon — February 7th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
I think it’s fun. He’s not trying to be Robert DeNiro. You guys would pick the eyeballs out of road kill.
Comment by Lisa — March 17th, 2009 at 2:47 am
Heh, as a linguist I can appreciate his attempts. It’s kinda sweet. However, even as someone who doesn’t speak any Spanish, I can tell that this is horrible. Oh well. Keep trying, Vince. This is the first thing you’ve done that I didn’t find creepy.
Also, um, Lisa, what’s with the DeNiro comment? He’s not Spanish.
Comment by Canaduck — March 25th, 2009 at 11:40 pm
I don’t speak Spanish at all, but I know I could do a much better job at doing this infomercial than Vince. For anybody who speaks Spanish either their native tongue or a second language, you have my condolences.
Comment by Anthony — April 22nd, 2009 at 12:50 pm
It sounds like someone was feeding it to him him, and he was repeating like a Parrot, line by line. Oldest Gimmick in the book..He doesn’t really care if he speaks correctly or not, its part of the “wow factor” they use to get people’s attention to sell a product.
Comment by A Real Spanish Speaker — May 27th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
¡No podemos hacer esto todo el día! Hahahaha - a lot of this shit is translated terribly, but Vince absolutely had to convey the point that they certainly can’t do this all day. Even though he says that at Noon, 6:00pm, and 3:00am.
Comment by Eric P — June 21st, 2009 at 6:16 pm