Crazy Eddie

His prices are insane…

Do you remember Crazy Eddie, the electronics store? If not, once again I shall allow Wikipedia to refresh your memory:

Crazy Eddie was a consumer electronics chain which was primarily located in the Northeastern United States. It was started in the 1970s in Brooklyn, New York, by businessman Eddie Antar.

The chain became well-known for its television and radio commercials in which actor Jerry Carroll delivered his lines rapid-fire, proclaiming in a loud voice that “Crazy Eddie will beat any price you find”, always ending his sales pitch with the memorable tag-line “Crazy Eddie - His Prices Are In-saaane!”. The hyperactive TV spokesman became so identified with the company that many viewers assumed that he was the owner of the company, despite the fact that Crazy Eddie was always referred to in the third person.

In 1989 the chain suffered a major scandal when Eddie Antar and his family were accused (and eventually convicted) of “cooking the books” in order to skim money and inflate inventory. Antar was found to have sold used electronics as new, committed insurance fraud, faked inventory, and skimmed most of the cash payments to avoid taxes. Having taken the company public (the stock was soon worth hundreds of millions), Antar began selling his stock and the stock price began to collapse. The firm was bought in a hostile takeover by another company, but the buyers were quick to find that some $80 million in inventory did not exist. Antar fled to Israel using the name David Cohen, where he lived until 1994 when he was extradited back to the United States. He was subsequently sentenced to eight years in jail, ordered to pay over $150 million in fines and also owes more than a billion dollars from civil suits.

In 1999, the grandchildren of Eddie, Allen and Mitchell Antar revived the Crazy Eddie electronics chain with a store in Wayne, New Jersey, and as an online Internet venue. However, in 2004 Crazy Eddie went out of business again.

Do you remember now? Did you know that there is even a website tribute page devoted to Crazy Eddie (http://pocketcalculatorshow.com/crazyeddie/), check it out, it’s rather impressive. The reason I’m mentioning all this, is because today on TV I saw an add for a store here in Los Angeles, called Crazy Gideon’s (http://www.crazygideons.com/), and I swear to you that for a second I thought I was back in NJ circa 1985. But, then after listening for a few more seconds, I realized that Crazy Gideon had an extremely thick Russian accent and his tagline was slightly different.

“His prices are In-saaane” – Eddie
“If you don’t buy from me, then you crazy” – Gideon

Nevertheless, the similarities are striking. Both stores sell/sold wholesale electronics, and both stores have really low budget commercials with horrible production values (Eddie at least had the fact that his were made in the 80s and in NY/NJ going for him. I’m not sure what Gideon’s excuse is, unless it was done in an intentional ironic manner to purposely remind those familiar with Crazy Eddie of the fond nostalgia of the days gone by. If this is the case, well-done Crazy Gideon, perhaps you are not so crazy after all).

Anyways, I just wanted to bring that to your attention. I think sometime in the near future, I just might have to take a trip down to Crazy Gideon’s and see what’s what, but for now, time for dinner and then some new episodes of TV.