12/14/05: Crazy Eddie's Christmas Sale! "Crazy Eddie" was a Tri-State area electronics store chain fronted by Eddie Antar, whose prices were, as the guy in the commercials said, "insane." The ads had that local, shoestring quality to them, but star Jerry Carroll's exuberance and knack for catch-phrasing was enough to achieve him a mild celebrity status that probably didn't grant any free pasta at Mama Leoni's but may have gotten a few little kids to point at him and shout, "Hey it's that guy with the prices that are INSANE!" I loved Crazy Eddie. He intrigued me. I grew up in a generation when families were buying very large, very expensive electronics for the very first time. I guess you could say that for every generation, but I dunno, I think this was a special case. Stereo systems that could not be hocked for ten bucks today went for hundreds or thousands, typically packaged in nearly gaudy wooden cabinets that weighed around sixteen tons each. I just remember everything being really "big." Maybe I was just smaller. Crazy Eddie stores lived up to the name -- the stores were huge and absolutely packed in the most disorganized manner possible. Seriously, you'd go in there and electronics would just be everywhere without rhyme or reason, stacked up high, all over the floors, yadda yadda yadda. The particular store closest to me had two floors, and you literally had to climb over televisions to get upstairs. In a time where every electronics purchase was a huge event -- an era when you'd call the neighbors over every time you got something new to plug in -- Crazy Eddie's was every family's ticket to stardom. And the prices, boy. Insane. According to this Christmasized Crazy Eddie commercial, the insane prices extended to Crazy Eddie's record stores. I didn't know he had record stores. I'm really pissed that I'll never see a Crazy Eddie record store. Click here to download this commercial! (.WMV, 5 MB) ....close this window!