Some of you may remember these Crazy Eddie commercials from the 1980s. They were so outlandish and silly that they became something of a cultural phenomenon, even popping up in movies like "Splash."
Insane!
I vaguely remember going with my family to buy an air conditioner from the Crazy Eddie store on Broadway in the 70's -- I think it's a Ruby Foo's now.
Of course Crazy Eddie (nee Eddie Antar, a Syrian Jew from Brooklyn) turned out to be a crook and huckster of the highest order. Crazy Eddie went bust in 1989 and he ran away to Israel in 1990. He and was finally brought back for trial in 1993. Interestingly enough Crazy Eddie was prosecuted, of all people, by Michael Chertoff, now the secretary of Homeland Security. Chertoff called Eddie "the Darth Vader of capitalism", I guess making Mr. Chertoff the Luke Skywalker of capitalism.
Wikipedia has a good write up of the whole sordid story. Thankfully we can still enjoy his silly commercials ad infinitum.
In -- oh never mind.
Remember all the Crazy Eddie knock-offs?
ReplyDeleteI love the retro commercial series you have here. You should label all of them for easy reference...