TV Guidance

Jaime Weinman writes about all kinds of television and other kinds of popular culture. He does not write Gossip Girl episode reviews. Follow Jaime on Twitter: @weinmanj

Categories: TV Guidance

Would This Have Happened to Billy Mays?

by Jaime Weinman on Monday, March 30, 2009 9:12am - 6 Comments

vince

The big news over the weekend was not the GM guy resigning or even the news that Canadian broadcasters are doing better than they’d care to admit.

No, the biggest news in the world was the report that Vince, the Shamwow! guy, was arrested in Florida last month following “a violent confrontation with a prostitute.” His mug shot is already famous. Will this hurt his career as a low-budget TV pitchman? There’s no way of knowing, but this may validate the decision by the Snuggie people not to tie themselves to one on-camera pitchman. (Sure, the voice-over narrator could get arrested for something, but it’s not the same thing.)

And does it seem to you that celebrities get in legal trouble in Florida more often than other places? I don’t have any statistical evidence of this; it’s just that when I hear a celebrity was arrested in Florida, I find myself thinking: “Florida. Of course.”

Tags: Shamwow, Vince Offer

More by Jaime Weinman

Nick D

There will always be some messes Shamwow! will not be able to clean up, no matter how high quality of a product those Germans make.

Sophia Geffros

What? But the Germans always make good stuff.
Paul Wells

He looks like an Olympic swimmer used him for a towel.

sf

“The big news over the weekend was not … or even the news that Canadian broadcasters are doing better than they’d care to admit. ”

Yes, but reporting that would undermine the battle to get more funding for the CBC.

Journalists have no time for journalism or even honesty when there are ideological battles to be waged.
Nick D

Check the link. It’s specialty and paid channels, no news-gathering channels that I know of and not the over-the-air public broadcasters.

CBC has the strongest news gathering service outside the wire services in Canada (perhaps even better). That would be the main reason why the government refuses to give them a bridge loan, if I were a betting person.

Starve the only network willing to hold you to account…
sf

And your point is, other than another rant with no basis in reality?

Somehow these other Canadian channels make lots of money, but the CBC is bleeding money left and right, and yet, you fail to see the forest through the trees. The CBC is bleeding money because the incompetent CBC is incapable of producing content that viewers wish to watch.