Veg-O-Matic is the name of one of the first
food processor home appliance to gain widespread use in the
United States.
It was non-electric and invented by Samuel J. Popeil
[Gladwell in 1963, Malcolm: What the Dog Saw, page 20. Little, Brown, 2009.] and later sold by his son
Ron Popeil along with more than 20 other distributors across the country, and
Ronco, making its debut in 1963 at the International Housewares Show in Chicago, Illinois. It was also sold in Australia by
Philip Kives, who purchased it from Samuel Popeil and sold it as one of the first products through his own marketing firm,
K-tel.
[Mateja 2013, p. 26.]
Made famous by saturation television advertising in the mid- and late 1960s, Veg-O-Matic is a manually operated food slicer, primarily made of injection-molded plastic, which held two sets of parallel cutting blades.
The steel cutting blades are contained in a circular, cast-metal holder several inches in diameter. By rotating the top holder, the blades could cut flat slices or square strips, such as for French fries. By putting the slices through the machine a second time, they would be diced into small cubes. In the ads, Popeil would rapidly demonstrate this, with the now well-known catchphrase "It slices! It dices!".
Sales were nearly exclusively via direct marketing,
In popular culture
The "It slices! It dices!"
catchphrase is used tongue-in-cheek to satirize Veg-O-Matic ads:
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The ads for Veg-O-Matic inspired comedian Gallagher to create his trademark "Sledge-O-Matic" act
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Dan Aykroyd was a fast-talking commercial pitchman in the famous "Super Bass-O-Matic 76" sketch on Saturday Night Live
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Throughout the 1980s, Frank Zappa satirized the product, as exemplified by recordings on You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 3 and 4. The text of the songs were often modified ad-lib
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Jonathan Richman recorded a song, "Dodge Veg-O-Matic," in the 1970s
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A song by Steve Goodman entitled "Vegematic", written by Goodman, Shel Silverstein and Mike Smith, appeared on Goodman's 1984 album Affordable Art
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In the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, Michelangelo jokes "It slices, it dices, it makes french fries in three different..." while Leonardo is cutting a pizza into slices with his
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The phrase "It slices, it dices, it splices your multimedia data, it'll even julienne fries!" was used in a TV advertisement for the Ultimedia M57SLC computer in the early 1990s
[Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: ]
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A gag at the start of the Disney movie Aladdin has a salesman at a bazaar stating, "Look at this! Look at this! Combination hookah and coffee maker! Also makes julienning fries!! Will not break. (clonk clonk) Will not b— It broke."
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The second VeggieTales episode, called God Wants Me to Forgive Them?!, features a sketch advertising an invention called the Forgive-O-Matic, fitting in with the tape's theme of forgiveness. Just like other parodies of the Veg-O-Matic commercial, it has outlandish features like being able to turn into a Chia Pet.
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"Weird Al" Yankovic recorded a song called "Mr. Popeil" for his 1984 album In 3-D.
Notes
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