The invention of the Chop-O-Matic caused a problem that marked the entrance of Ron Popeil into television. The Chop-O-Matic retailed for US$3.98 and sold over two million units. Personal life and careerrPopeil learned his trade from his father, Samuel, who was also an inventor and carny salesman of kitchen-related gadgets such as the Chop-O-Matic and the Veg-O-Matic. He is well known for his appearances in infomercials for the Showtime Rotisserie ("Set it, and forget it!") and for using the phrase, “But wait, there’s more!” on television as early as the mid-1950s. Popeil (born in New York City pronounced /poʊˈpiːl/) is an American inventor and marketing personality, best known for his direct response marketing company Ronco. The ads for Veg-O-Matic inspired comedian Gallagher to create his trademark “Sledge-O-Matic” act, as well as Dan Aykroyd as a fast talking commercial pitchman in sketches on Saturday Night Live, especially the famous “Super Bass-O-Matic 76” during the 1970’s. Sales were nearly exclusively via direct marketing, and Veg-O-Matic was one of the first products (if not the first) to bear the red-and-white “As Seen On TV” logo on the box. In the ads, Popeil would rapidly demonstrate this, while boasting “It slices! It dices!” By putting the slices through the machine a second time, they would be diced into small cubes. By rotating the top holder, the blades could cut flat slices or square strips, such as for French fries. The steel cutting blades were contained in a circular, cast-metal holder several inches in diameter. The item to be cut, such as a potato, was placed on the top set of blades, and then would be pushed vertically down through the blades by the handle, while the user’s hands were kept safely away from the cutter by the shape of the handle. The Veg-O-Matic was shaped approximately like a capital letter “H” and had an integral operating handle. Made famous by saturation television advertising in the mid- and late 1960s, Veg-O-Matic was a manually-operated slicer, primarily made of injection-molded plastic, which held two sets of parallel cutting blades. Popeil and later sold by his son, Ron Popeil, and Ronco, making its début in 1963 at the International Housewares Show in Chicago, Illinois. Veg-O-Matic was the name of one of the first food-processing appliances to gain widespread use in the United States. Print ads in 19 declared that the Veg-O-Matic “slices and dices.” Ron Popeil’s television ads for the Veg-O-Matic in the 1960s announced that “It slices! It dices!” “Slice and dice” is a culinary term that now has a jocular use because of the ubiquitous Popeil television advertisements. The Veg-O-Matic debuted in 1963, invented by Samuel J. The term “slice and dice” has also been used in computer science to mean smaller packets of information. "Slice and dice” (to cut into small cubes) are rhyming words that have been cited in print since at least 1912.
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