What Happened to
'Crazy' Ads?

By Arianne Cohen

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There’s the commercial where Crazy Eddie swings a huge inflatable light bulb while hollering at the viewer to “light up your life.” There’s the one where Crazy Eddie, about to be crushed by three dozen TVs and stereos, hits himself in the head with a giant hammer. And there’s the one in which Crazy Eddie, wearing a Santa Claus suit, throws snowballs at the viewer.

If you were living in the New York-New England area during the 1970s or 1980s, you almost certainly saw these ads on your TV screen. They featured—in the loudest, most obnoxious way possible—Crazy Eddie (actually a local DJ and actor) speed-talking at the top of his lungs, pulling off various stunts, and always ending with the tagline: “Crazy Eddie! Our prices are insane!” And for a time, the ads produced insane results, fueling the growth of the Crazy Eddie company to 43 locations and $350 million in annual sales, not to mention spawning parodies on Saturday Night Live.

Crazy Eddie commercials in the 1980s.

The retailer owed its advertising antics to Earl “Madman” Muntz, who sold cars and TVs on television screens from the 1930s to 1950s. Muntz pioneered a style of low-production-value, high-annoyance ads that regional entrepreneurs adopted to seize viewers’ attention. Imitators followed suit: In the Midwest, for example, Crazy Lenny blew up a washing machine to spur appliance sales. The goal was brand awareness. “Crazy Eddie developed higher name recognition than President Reagan,” says Gary Weiss, author of Retail Gangster: The Insane, Real-Life Story of Crazy Eddie.

To be sure, there’s still plenty of loud advertising around, but this particular, hollering version died out for reasons that had little to do with its style. During the 1980s, federal investigators uncovered a series of insurance, tax, and securities frauds at Crazy Eddie, and eventually prosecuted the family owners. After being sold to another firm, the retailer permanently closed its doors at the end of the decade. (While some of the convictions in the case were overturned, one founder, Eddie Antar, served prison time; he died in 2016.)

The intense media coverage led the public to associate frenzied, chaotic ads with dishonest retailers. Over time as well, the cost of many television ads, loud or not, become harder to justify. A 2021 study at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management found that just 30 percent of brands that invested in commercials did so profitably—whether they were “madman” ads or not.

Photo Credits: Jeff Zelevansky/Associated Press