Mick Hastie of the Magic Bullet Infomercial: English or Australian?
January 4th, 2010 Paul Lucas
American viewers of the Magic Bullet infomercial (and its sequels the Magic Bullet To Go and the Bullet Express) no doubt notice the accent of host Mick Hastie.
When I first wrote my review of the Magic Bullet infomercial, I described Mick as “British” because his accent sounded English to me.
However, several sources on the Internet described Mick Hastie as Australian. I particularly remember one online source (it might have been Wikipedia) that said Mick was Australian but “sounds British.” So I updated my review to describe his role in the infomercial as Mimi’s “Aussie husband Mick.”
Recently, I received the following email from reader Dave:
Enjoyed reading your synopsis on Mick, Mimi, and the Magic Bullet. However - Mick is not Australian, he’s English, northern England, actually - probably Leeds / Sheffield (you know, Def Leppard and all that…). Definitely Yorkshire, anyway.
So, if he was Australian, he’d hardly be using cockney sayings (Bob’s Your Uncle, etc) - real cockneys are from East London. These are actually English sayings which we’ve (as English people) been bought up on. If you could amend your bio, that’d make it that more accurate. Otherwise - keep up the good work!
So I decided to revisit the issue of Mick Hastie’s nationality. A web search came across this bio from direct response company Alchemy Worldwide LLC, which states Mick Hastie “has enjoyed great success both in the U.S. and in his native home - England.” Since Mr. Hastie serves as “Vice-President of New Product Development” for the company, I am going to credit the page as an authoritative source.
I don’t know why those other sources claimed he was an Aussie (perhaps he lived worked in Australia for a number of years?).
Therefore, I have changed the description in my Magic Bullet review to read:
The events of the Magic Bullet infomercial occur in the morning aftermath of some vaguely-described “barbecue” held the day before by a perky blonde named Mimi and her British husband Mick.
Which should also cover me in case Mick turns out to be Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish!
Aussie, English accents…..I can’t tell the difference half the time.
Comment by Sara DaCosta — January 4th, 2010 at 11:42 pm
Anyone who thinks Mick is Australian needs to get out more. No way does that accent remotely resemble Australian. Silly Yanks.
Comment by Barman — January 15th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
So there is no one on the entire continent of Australia who speaks with an English accent? Good to know.
Comment by euGene — January 15th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
“Even you can’t make it that fast Aunt Martha.” (The look of uncertainty on Martha’s face…thinking “i’m being replaced by a machine!”)
Comment by Angry — January 18th, 2010 at 4:50 am
I also thought he was Australian…
Comment by Hazel fan club — January 19th, 2010 at 10:32 am
I think the reason for confusion is his uncanny vocal resemblence to Robin Leach. Who is an aussie…but Mick does sound more northern England if you really listen :)
Comment by jen — February 23rd, 2010 at 5:31 am
I just think the commercial is only telling half truths. Who cares what mick really is. Australians have a distinctive twang. Just listen to the way the late Steve Irwin the crocodile hunter speaks. Mick does not.
The results of the magic bullet are not only lucky but untrue. We had purchased one of these machines thinking it would be a quick alternative to a blender or cuisinart but it isn’t. Now on the results the salsa result did not come out for us. The onions tomatoes and garlic didn’t even chop up in that 3 second pulse. So, I had to run it longer and it liquidated everything into a unappetizing pink zero. The onion chopping, same result. The parmesan cheese does not pulverize completely. There is a chunk that doesn’t grind. If you notice they turn the container away from the camera, cap it or move it away quickly. Probably cause this is the result. The ice in the smoothy never crushes down that far. the thing that bothers me most of all is how easy that spinning mechanism made of plastic just snapped off and left me with an unuseable machine. The other thing is that one does not know how many takes they made on that show to get the results they demonstrate. Sorry, am not impressed with the magic bullet.
Comment by Jerry — February 25th, 2010 at 8:26 am