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A Brooklyn entrepreneur has purchased the trademark for Crazy Eddie, a Northeast electronics retail chain famous in the '80s for its irritating, low-budget ads, which featured DJ Jerry Carroll hyperventilating about the store's "insane" sales. (Watch below.) The company went bankrupt in 1989 after the U.S. Attorney in New Jersey busted brothers Eddie Antar and his nephew Sam for fraudulent business practices.
Now one Jack Gemal has bought the trademark from Trident Growth Fund LP, which tried to auction it for $800,000 on eBay back in 2006. The top bid then was $30,100, but the deal was never closed. Gemal tells the Post he acquired the trademark for "less than the price of a Prius," and says he plans to open the first store this year near Penn Station. But Sam Antar, who spent six months in house arrest for cooking the books, says Gemal's the crazy one for buying the disgraced name: "Imagine starting a new investment firm called Bernie Madoff or a corporation by the name of Enron? It's nuts. The name has a vile, ugly history—because of the crimes we committed. We lost investors millions of dollars." And annoyed millions of TV viewers!
Mercifully, those strident commercials probably won't be revived, because it seems Carroll owns the rights to the Crazy Eddie character. In a comment that belies either a death wish or a tragic misunderstanding of an important Godfather plot point, he tells the Post, "All they have to do is make me an offer I can't refuse." Below, some video clips of Carroll's best work from the Crazy Eddie golden era.
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This is beyond awesome.
My dad bought me a Sega Master System there back around '86. We also got our first VHS player there.
Ahh the good ol' days!
They used to play plenty of these commercials at night during the Late Show on CBS...before Letterman.
I also remember Newmark & Lewis and Nobody Beats The Wiz.
I'm showing my age, I'll go hide now.
:(
Well The Wiz closed in 2003 so that's not showing really advanced age. Newmark and Lewis shut down in 1992, just three years after Crazy Eddie's finally disappeared.
"Imagine starting a new investment firm called Bernie Madoff or a corporation by the name of Enron? It's nuts."
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. It's a familiar name, but do the negative connotations override that? Certainly Madoff or Enron would be bad branding ideas, but those events were a lot more recent. And I don't remember there being a lot of public outrage against the Antars; a lot of people were sorry to see those stores go.
Man, it won't be the same if they can't do the commercials!
Totally! I would be disappointed if they didn't.
"The name has a vile, ugly history—because of the crimes we committed. We lost investors millions of dollars."
That's right, the crimes you committed. I think that most people never really associated it with the Crazy Eddie name. Heck, most college students today have never even heard of Crazy Eddie.
does anyone feel like technology is stagnant? it's like I've got me a mp3 player, a computer, a hdtv, and a digital camera already and what else is there? It feels like I don't NEED anything else. I remember when I was a kid I used to salivate over a new walkman or cd player. Now, it's meh. You can do so much with an old computer people don't even realize. That's why I feel Circuit City went out of business.
bit of crazy eddie trivia:
the opening line of the rolling stones song 'dance (pt. 1)' off the album 'emotional rescue' is "Hey, what am I doing standing here on the corner of West 8th Street and the 6th Avenue?"
at the time, there was a crazy eddie's there and they put a sign in window that repeated it and paid it off with something about buying the new album by the rolling stones, bla, bla, bla...
god, i'm old.
My mother still has a microwave I bought at the Crazy Eddie's that used to be on Coney Island Avenue near Kings Highway. That's insaaaaaaaaaaaaane.
did anyone really get a good deal at Crazy eddie's.
all their price stickers were coded, their were no price tags.
I don't even remember if I bought records from them?
Bought a monster Kenwood stereo system from them back in the day, for like one-third the retail price.
There is another major reason this is a risky/bad idea... Retail Box movers like Circuit City, Best Buy, The Wiz, etc, are a dying breed since online shopping has become so popular.
The Gemal family owned and operated Nobody Beats The Wiz.
Stay away...far away from these crooks.
I miss those Coronet guys - 'No talking orangutans!"
Everyone who lived in NYC in those days has a Crazy Eddie story. Mine goes as follows: before leaving for college, I wanted to purchase a new pair of speakers. I did careful research and decided on a brand and model. Crazy Eddie had the best advertised price on them (there was no Pricegrabber or Google Shopping in those days). So, with my dad in tow and my hard earned dollars in my pocket, I entered a Crazy Eddie store and asked for a pair of those speakers. Well, you know what happened...it's called the bait and switch. They told me they were out of stock, told me they could sell me a pair of Acousti-Phase Phase Monitors for half the price, cranked some rock'n'roll through a pair in their listening room and I walked out with a pair of Acousti-Phase Phase Monitors. Well, those speakers sounded incredible and they lasted nearly 20 years.
Would shoppers shop at Crazy Eddie's? I say they will if their prices are truly insane. Most people either buy impulsively in consumer electronics stores or research their purchase and buy at the lowest priced seller (how, then, does one explain the success of J&R, which doesn't seem to have the best prices, yet is always packed?).
J&R does do price matching, plus they have some good customer service.
The difference between today's stores and Crazy Eddie is that electronics now are already Walmarted down to a price they won't charge any less for - you shop around for a big screen TV and you might save, what, twenty bucks on the same make and model? While Crazy Eddie would push loss leaders that would make you say "HOLY S***!!" when you heard the price and force your ass in the store. "Portable TV sets only $9.00! Stereo systems only $39.00!" So a disciplined get-up-early stay-on-target shopper could walk away with some real bargains (those who were bait-n-switched and talked into extended warranties, not so much.)
The guy who bought the rights could still make a profit on hipster faux-vintage T-shirts and trucker caps.
AWESOME!
My Crazy Eddie story was their failed attempt to hold sidewalk actions in front of their stores. They would hold up unboxed clearance items and asked for bids. This wasn't a good idea because crowds of kids would make stupid offers to annoy the auctioneer. When he held up a decent car stereo I offered $10 and he sold it to me to shut the kids up. It was worth over 10 times what I paid for it, but I never saw another such auction again.
I'd only shop there if I knew my money would wind up in a suitcase on a flight bound for Tel Aviv.
You got to go to B&H on Saturdays to get the real bargains.
Will Crazy Eddie open up a branch store at the "flagship" in Union, NJ on route 22?
ok, i'll bite: b&h? on a saturday? wtf?
B&H is closed on Saturdays. So, you know, if you were in there the deals would be CRAAAAZY!
Friday night specials are better?
How about Meshugena Dave? I know I spelled Meshugena wrong, but didn't he have a place on Chambers Street? There was also another guy on Canal Street on the north side just west of Greene street.
It's meshuggener for the boys, and meshuggeneh for the girls. It's meshugge to confuse the two, but I admire your meshuggeneh idea about "Meshuggener Dave".
Uncle Steve's!!!
*the "another guy on Canal Street"
He's still there too aparently! aahhh, memories...
"Deals so good we must be breaking the law!"
I'd go for that!
How about, "We really have cheap shit!"
And to NannyState, there really was a discount store named "Meshuggener Dave". I guess he got the idea from Crazy Eddie.
http://pocketcalculatorshow.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/35510774321/m/40910228421/p/4
Crazy Eddie WILL probably do well with some of the young, trendy, noveau New Yorkers. I mean I hate to be such an old crank, but so many of those new transplants are desperate to have glimpses into those so-called great years of NYC into the 80's. So even just in name, Crazy Eddie's will hold an appeal once they hear the backstory. So I'm putting my money on "name brand recognition" for that set. (Or whatever it's called.)Name brands fuel fashion trends alike, and that's what they also follow.