I caught an episode of PitchMen on Discovery last night… if you haven’t seen/heard of it, it’s a reality type show featuring Billy Mays and another guy (Anthony Sullivan) and shows a behind-the-scenes look at how infomercials are made.

Like most reality TV, it’s like a train wreck, so you can’t really change the channel once you’ve landed on it.

Seeing the show reminded me that was overdue with a post about Billy Mays and Vince from ShamWow! based on an article I read a few weeks ago in Fortune magazine.

It seems that the two have something of a rivalry. You see, Mays feels that Vince has violated some type of pitchman code by hawking the ShamWow! after Billy had previously hawked a similar product called Zorbeez. And, to add insult to injury, Mays feels the Slap Chop is a rip-off of Mays’ Quick Chop.

“You know what, rip me off once, shame on me. But twice? I’m coming after you and taking back what’s mine”

According to Mays, he and Vince “exchanged words” during the super bowl (they were both guests in the same suite). That lead to Mays going on the Adam Carolla show challenging Vince to a “pitch off.”

As for Vince, he says the Super Bowl altercation never happened, and accuses Billy of posturing to increase his ratings.

The totality of the Fortune article and the Discovery show did lead me to one important conclusion: Billy Mays is a world-class douchebag.

(I know – who would have thought that in an altercation with Vince from ShamWow! the other guy would come off looking like the douchebag.)

If you had any lingering doubt about Mays’ level of douchebaggery, let it be solidified by the fact that he refers to himself in third person.

“When I’m up against a wall, that’s when Billy Mays performs his best.”

But, alas, he’s a rich, Bentley driving douchebag, so more power to him, I guess.

Source: Fortune Magazine