Crazy Eddie sells out
July 4, 2006 12:08 AM   Subscribe

Crazy Eddie. His prices were in-sane! After a failed attempt to revive the home electronic brand known for wacky commercials, the name is being auctioned off on eBay.
posted by Yakuman (27 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
i bought my commodore 128 at crazy eddie's.

well, actually, my parents bought it for me.
posted by StrasbourgSecaucus at 12:10 AM on July 4, 2006


Second link is misdirected [has an extra http and redirects to w3.org]. It should lead here.
posted by yeti at 12:18 AM on July 4, 2006


i bought my commodore 128 at crazy eddie's.

crazy.

Crazy Eddies was the qunitessential New York/New Jersey thing. Shouting into the camera like a man insane was funny on TV, but it made me want to go nowhere near the place in person.
posted by three blind mice at 12:29 AM on July 4, 2006


Did that store appear before or after the Niven/Pournelle book "The Mote in God's Eye"? (Which came out in 1974.)
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 12:32 AM on July 4, 2006


Ahhh, memories.

Actually, for some reason I thought ol' Malfunctioning Eddie had passed away a while back, but apparently not.
posted by Gator at 12:35 AM on July 4, 2006


Didn't he go down for, like, tax fraud in the '80s?
posted by Afroblanco at 12:37 AM on July 4, 2006


yah, he spent some time in jail
posted by StrasbourgSecaucus at 12:39 AM on July 4, 2006


A detailed page of facts about the massive web of financial fraud that brought down the "Crazy Eddie"
posted by nanojath at 12:42 AM on July 4, 2006


Perhaps he should have pled insanity?

Heh, yeah, I remember Crazy Eddie.
posted by Smedleyman at 1:31 AM on July 4, 2006


Seems the reserve was not met.
posted by dabitch at 2:39 AM on July 4, 2006


800,000? He is crazy.
posted by IronLizard at 3:09 AM on July 4, 2006




For zero seller feedback, and a Buy-i-Now price of $800,000, I have to ask: is Jerry Carroll included?
posted by Smart Dalek at 5:07 AM on July 4, 2006


I knew a guy growing up who worked at the Kings Highway branch and he stole thousands of dollars worth of merchandise in his time there. I wonder what happened to the guy we all knew as "Crazy Rob."
posted by AJaffe at 5:34 AM on July 4, 2006


Oh man. Thanks for the link to those videos. Crazy Eddie was big part of my youth, you couldn't get away from him. It didn't matter what TV or radio station you listened to, you'd have to deal with his commercials. I once was sleeping with the radio on (probably old WNEW) and had a dream with the Crazy Eddie announcer in it.

My favorite commercial was one for Channel 9's Godzilla festival where he did the whole thing with a Godzilla head on and just made growling noises in the same cadence as the normal commercials.
posted by octothorpe at 5:52 AM on July 4, 2006


Ah, Crazy Eddie. Now how about JGE Appliances, "for union members and their families"?
posted by tommasz at 6:41 AM on July 4, 2006


I got a free nylon Crazy Eddie's wallet at the opening of the Bridgeport branch when I was a teenager. Then one day I lost it, with all my ID, at Crazy Eddie's. It was great fun asking on the phone if they found it. After going through huge rigamarole at the DMv to get a replacement liscence, I got a call from Crazy Eddie's. Somehow they found it.

Also, I bought afew records there, Def Leppard's Pyromania, I recall.
posted by jonmc at 6:46 AM on July 4, 2006


Just south of Eddie's on canal was Meshugina Ike's. The merchandise (broken phones, mismatched speakers) would often be dumped in front of the store in a heap on saturday where it would sit through the weekend, on monday it was cleaned up, repackaged, and in the store window.
posted by StickyCarpet at 6:53 AM on July 4, 2006


Weird - I was just thinking about Crazy Eddie the other day. I had the wallet, too, jonmc, and I also had a Crazy Eddie t-shirt which I wore in gym class.

I really like those commercials - more, probably, than I've ever liked any commercials, and it was great to see them again. (Thanks, Yakuman!) Largely for their nostalgia value, I'm sure, since I doubtless saw them all when I was a kid growing up in suburban NYC; but partly because they're good-natured and funny, and the announcer guy really is quite a good performer. It's hard to speak so fast, forcefully, and humorously all at once.

A cheap and easy Halloween or costume-party costume was to dress up as the Crazy Eddie guy: a blue blazer and a light blue turtleneck, and that was it. Everyone instantly recognized the costume.
posted by Dr. Wu at 7:45 AM on July 4, 2006


I have lots of old VHS tapes of TV specials from when i was a kid and my grandfather taped them for me, and invariably, every tape from that era has a crazy eddie commercial.
posted by teishu at 8:41 AM on July 4, 2006


he'd be better off selling all that crack he got in trouble for.
posted by shmegegge at 8:57 AM on July 4, 2006


I remember seeing this guy when my brother and I would stay up until midnight on Saturday nights just to watch WWWF wrestling on WOR out of NYC. Funny stuff!
posted by punkrockrat at 9:46 AM on July 4, 2006


Crazy Eddie's was where my family met the NES, Mario, and Link. For a brief time, it was where we went for electronics, replacing Circuit City (which we left behind in KY until they finally expanded into the NE), and earlier, Service Merchandise (which was FPPed, but I can't find it). Pretty sure SM is where we got our Intellivision.
posted by Eideteker at 11:32 AM on July 4, 2006


Six-four-five, eleven-ninety-six
Six-four-five, eleven-ninety-six
That's Six-four-five, eleven-ninety-six
CALL NOW!!
posted by ZenMasterThis at 11:56 AM on July 4, 2006


I went to highschool with a couple members of the Antar family.
posted by birdie birdington at 11:58 AM on July 4, 2006


Oh. I thought you were talking about Crazy Eddie.
posted by porpoise at 12:24 PM on July 4, 2006


Tha actor in those was a manic AM radio DJ, Jerry Carroll.
posted by HTuttle at 1:02 PM on July 4, 2006


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