Mick Hastie of the Magic Bullet Infomercial: English or Australian?
January 4th, 2010 by 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
Mick’s accent is pretty clearly Mancunian: Manchester and environs.
Comment by Petey — August 1st, 2010 at 9:21 am
1. Robin Leach is British, not Australian.
2. While Mick Hastie is definitely English (and, I’d agree, probably from Yorkshire) Australian slang (‘Strine’) infact uses a lot of Cockney rhyming slang.
Hope this is useful!
If anyone’s interested, ray Puxley has written anumber of books on rhyming and other Britslang.
Comment by Lyndon bournon — October 17th, 2010 at 7:33 am
Like you, I’m fascinated by the sheer silliness of infomercials, and have recently been particularly engaged by Mick and Mimi (the Nick and Nora of the shopping channels: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0025878 ).
However, as a lad from the north of England, I can pretty definitively say that Mick Hastie is from Liverpool, with an accent slightly obscured by years of living in the US: for instance, he says ‘bay-sil’, ‘vye-tamin’ and ‘tomayto’ instead of ‘basil’ (with a short ‘a’ sound), ‘vitamin’ (short ‘i’ sound), and ‘tomahto’. For comparison, listen to other transatlantic Liverpudlians like Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr and you’ll hear what I mean.
Oh, and one odd coincidence: that other celebrated Liverpudlian, the late John Lennon, had an Aunt Mimi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimi_Smith ).
Hope this helps.
Comment by Trevor — March 14th, 2011 at 3:15 pm
Mick is not from Yorkshire!!!
He is from Preston, in Lancashire. I am also from the same area and know this to be a fact.
Stupid people, Australians and English sound very very different, I can prove this as I am an English person married to an Australian and living in Australia.
Comment by Ashley — April 11th, 2011 at 12:57 am
He’s definitely English and probably Yorkshire/Lancashire. To Trevor… not in anyway a Liverpudlian accent but definitely uses Americanisms.
The more unnerving thing is he sounds exactly like Mike Myers in The Cat In The Hat when he’s doing his “Cupcakeinator” thing in the kitchen! So, who came first… Mick “The Bullet” or Mike “The Cat”?!
Comment by Gaz — July 27th, 2011 at 3:13 am
Hes definately a pommie bastard not Orstrayun And yes Bobs your uncle is a saying used in Orstraya as well. Rythming slang carried over to Australia. Would your china plate steer you wrong. Anyway forget Mick I liked Mimi until I found out she is a professional actress….whos the old bag with the cigarette hanging perenially from her mouth
Comment by rastus — October 10th, 2011 at 1:50 pm
He’s English – his profile is here
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=39636917&privcapId=39636984&previousCapId=39636984&previousTitle=Alchemy%20Worldwide%20LLC
Mick Hastie serves as Vice-President of New Product Development / Founding Partner of Homeland Housewares LLC, a division of Alchemy Worldwide LLC. Mr. Hastie serves as Vice-President of New Product Development of Alchemy Worldwide LLC. For 14 years now, he has been a front runner in the DRTV industry and has nearly 20 years of expertise in the homewares industry, where he has enjoyed great success both in the U.S. and in his native home – England. He is responsible for creating and developing new product in the housewares category where his track record of repeatedly identifying and creating products that have gone on to become successful DRTV campaigns is second to none. In concert with Mr. Caverly and Mr. Clifford, Mr. Hastie identifies and develops all homeware products and is an integral part in the creative, writing and marketing process of each campaign. Prior to joining Alchemy and founding Homeland Housewares, Mr. Hastie established his own company, Hastie2Market, where he created numerous winning DRTV campaigns. Prior to that, he served as Senior Director of Product Development of National Media Corp., where he was responsible for identifying and creating some of the most successful products/campaigns launched by that company. To date, Mr. Hastie has played an extensive role in creating direct-to-consumer marketing campaigns that have grossed nearly $1 billion in sales worldwide.
The blender is rubbish
Comment by Jonno — October 19th, 2011 at 2:34 am
Mick was born and raised in Manchester, England.
I know this because he told me.
Comment by mer — January 1st, 2012 at 5:01 am