4 ms·

The life and sketchy business practices of Crazy Eddie

59 points by samclemens 4y ago

wyldfire 4y ago
These ads were bonkers. > the actor Jerry Carroll, often mistaken for the mysterious Eddie, would rattle off a sales pitch ending with the vibrating, bug-eyed assurance: “His prices are INSANE!” I always assumed that individual was Eddie himself.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  I think most everyone did back in those days.
- taneq 4y ago
  Is this what the multidimensional cable advertising guy with ants in his eyes in Rick and Morty was satirising? I always felt I was missing a cultural reference.
  - boomboomsubban 4y ago
    Yes-ish. That part was improvised, and Justin Roiland is from California so is unlikely to have seen the actual commercials. They were widely parodied and imitated though, so the segment likely was inspired be Crazy Eddie.
thedailymail 4y ago
I've never seen a confirmation of this, but I always suspected the Tim and Eric "Prices" sketch to be a homage to Crazy Eddie's ads. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ9yBgTp9UQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ9yBgTp9UQ
- zxcvbn4038 4y ago
  Don’t forget “Malfunctioning Eddie” from Futurama. https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Malfunctioning_Eddie https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Malfunctioning_Eddie
thematrixturtle 4y ago
This much more detailed story was posted on HN a few months back: https://thehustle.co/the-popular-electronics-chain-that-scammed-america/ https://thehustle.co/the-popular-electronics-chain-that-scam... Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30829593 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30829593
- pgayed 4y ago
  > And when there was no more room under the radiator, he started bringing the money to Antar’s father’s house, where he hid as much as $3.5m — ~$11m today — in a false ceiling. Wouldn’t that make it a true ceiling? (Technically, they would be hiding the money above a false ceiling.)
de6u99er 4y ago
https://archive.ph/ltjjF https://archive.ph/ltjjF
rikthevik 4y ago
After going to jail as the CFO of Crazy Eddie, his brother Sam became a forensic accountant. His blog was pretty wild. https://whitecollarfraud.blogspot.com/ https://whitecollarfraud.blogspot.com/
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  Interesting but I only see 3 posts?
  - ddulaney 4y ago
    On mobile, hit the arrow at the bottom of the page for more posts.
- smelendez 4y ago
  It sounds like Sam was a major source for this new book
- ahazred8ta 4y ago
  Dozens of writeups of unhealthy companies, mainly from ten years ago. https://whitecollarfraud.blogspot.com/p/blog-post-index.html https://whitecollarfraud.blogspot.com/p/blog-post-index.html
crazy-as 4y ago
'Wild' yes, but was it .... Crazy?!?
wcarss 4y ago
I sincerely thought there might be something here related to The Mote in God's Eye [0], a pretty good book by Niven and Pournelle about far off future alien contact. I was dead wrong, but I'll still take the time to link it for the heck of the coincident names. 0 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mote_in_God's_Eye#Crazy_Eddie https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mote_in_God's_Eye#Crazy_...
- badcppdev 4y ago
  I thought exactly the same thing before I remembered the article from a few month previous. Mentions of that book still makes me laugh because my local library had purchased two copies of the sequel. "The Gripping Hand" was also released as "The Moat around Murcheson's Eye" in the UK. The library purchased one of each not realising they were the same book. And I still wonder 30 years later about why there were two names and which one was the authors' first choice.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Apparently there are/were divisions of publishing houses that justified their existence by changing titles in the US vs the UK. Famous one being the Philosopher’s Stone.
  - phaedrus 4y ago
    I'm currently reading The Gripping Hand years after having first read The Moat in God's Eye. There's further exposition on the concept of "Crazy Eddie." Nothing to do with computer-business Crazy Eddie. The Motie Crazy Eddie is an apocryphal figure who embodies the misguided notion all problems have solutions. Some quotes, from the 2nd book: "We will call him Crazy Eddie, if you like. He is a ... he is like me, sometimes, and he a Brown, an idiot savant tinker, sometimes. Always he does the wrong things for excellent reasons. He does the same things over and over, and they always bring disaster, and he never learns." ... "So why did you say that Crazy Eddie is supposed to fail? Don't the Moties admire Crazy Eddie? (...)" "(...) But yes, I think they all admire anyone mad enough to think that all problems have solutions. Which doesn't mean that they expect the universe to cooperate." I like the concept of Motie "Crazy Eddie" because it's fun to in turn imagine if humans ever had the need and opportunity to explain our concept of "Murphy's Law" to aliens who have a different default outlook. It's interesting to compare and contrast the two. They're similar in that they both express a tongue-in-cheek pessimism, but the Motie parable is a defeatist justification of not trying. The human version is defeatist acceptance of the suffering that comes from trying. Crazy Eddie is someone else to watch and learn what not to do. Murphy is you, and you never learn. From the perspective of the Moties, all humans are Crazy Eddie. Edit: another compare/and contrast is Motie Crazy Eddie causes his problems due to his own choices being self-defeating attempts at solutions to problems. An example given is melting down all of your stock of screws to cast a screwdriver. In contrast Murphy's problems are caused by events (at least partially) outside his control, with the implication that all choices lead to (the potential of) ruin.
yarpnird 4y ago
Kill everything first, eat the rot later
mfgs 4y ago
Heist Poscast did a great episode on Crazy Eddie: https://facebook.com/heistpodcast/posts/the-story-of-cray-eddie-eps-147-is-out-now-and-its-a-wellcrazy-story-hear-all-ab/707264406660230/ https://facebook.com/heistpodcast/posts/the-story-of-cray-ed...
brisance 4y ago
Sam has a pretty active Twitter account. Apparently a movie is also supposedly in the works. https://twitter.com/samantar https://twitter.com/samantar
Maursault 4y ago
As referenced in the 2016 film, The Accountant.[1][2][3] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oghd8vgfAL8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oghd8vgfAL8 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxFq5_zjY4Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxFq5_zjY4Q [3] idky yt poster split this short scene into two shorter yt posts ><
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

59 points by samclemens 4y ago

These ads were bonkers. > the actor Jerry Carroll, often mistaken for the mysterious Eddie, would rattle off a sales pitch ending with the vibrating, bug-eyed assurance: “His prices are INSANE!” I always assumed that individual was Eddie himself.

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
I think most everyone did back in those days.
taneq 4y ago
Is this what the multidimensional cable advertising guy with ants in his eyes in Rick and Morty was satirising? I always felt I was missing a cultural reference.
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  Yes-ish. That part was improvised, and Justin Roiland is from California so is unlikely to have seen the actual commercials. They were widely parodied and imitated though, so the segment likely was inspired be Crazy Eddie.

thedailymail 4y ago

I've never seen a confirmation of this, but I always suspected the Tim and Eric "Prices" sketch to be a homage to Crazy Eddie's ads. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ9yBgTp9UQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ9yBgTp9UQ

zxcvbn4038 4y ago
Don’t forget “Malfunctioning Eddie” from Futurama. https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Malfunctioning_Eddie https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Malfunctioning_Eddie

thematrixturtle 4y ago

This much more detailed story was posted on HN a few months back: https://thehustle.co/the-popular-electronics-chain-that-scammed-america/ https://thehustle.co/the-popular-electronics-chain-that-scam... Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30829593 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30829593

pgayed 4y ago
> And when there was no more room under the radiator, he started bringing the money to Antar’s father’s house, where he hid as much as $3.5m — ~$11m today — in a false ceiling. Wouldn’t that make it a true ceiling? (Technically, they would be hiding the money above a false ceiling.)

de6u99er 4y ago

https://archive.ph/ltjjF https://archive.ph/ltjjF

rikthevik 4y ago

After going to jail as the CFO of Crazy Eddie, his brother Sam became a forensic accountant. His blog was pretty wild. https://whitecollarfraud.blogspot.com/ https://whitecollarfraud.blogspot.com/

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
Interesting but I only see 3 posts?
- ddulaney 4y ago
  On mobile, hit the arrow at the bottom of the page for more posts.
smelendez 4y ago
It sounds like Sam was a major source for this new book
ahazred8ta 4y ago
Dozens of writeups of unhealthy companies, mainly from ten years ago. https://whitecollarfraud.blogspot.com/p/blog-post-index.html https://whitecollarfraud.blogspot.com/p/blog-post-index.html

crazy-as 4y ago

'Wild' yes, but was it .... Crazy?!?

wcarss 4y ago

I sincerely thought there might be something here related to The Mote in God's Eye [0], a pretty good book by Niven and Pournelle about far off future alien contact. I was dead wrong, but I'll still take the time to link it for the heck of the coincident names. 0 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mote_in_God's_Eye#Crazy_Eddie https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mote_in_God's_Eye#Crazy_...

badcppdev 4y ago
I thought exactly the same thing before I remembered the article from a few month previous. Mentions of that book still makes me laugh because my local library had purchased two copies of the sequel. "The Gripping Hand" was also released as "The Moat around Murcheson's Eye" in the UK. The library purchased one of each not realising they were the same book. And I still wonder 30 years later about why there were two names and which one was the authors' first choice.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Apparently there are/were divisions of publishing houses that justified their existence by changing titles in the US vs the UK. Famous one being the Philosopher’s Stone.
- phaedrus 4y ago
  I'm currently reading The Gripping Hand years after having first read The Moat in God's Eye. There's further exposition on the concept of "Crazy Eddie." Nothing to do with computer-business Crazy Eddie. The Motie Crazy Eddie is an apocryphal figure who embodies the misguided notion all problems have solutions. Some quotes, from the 2nd book: "We will call him Crazy Eddie, if you like. He is a ... he is like me, sometimes, and he a Brown, an idiot savant tinker, sometimes. Always he does the wrong things for excellent reasons. He does the same things over and over, and they always bring disaster, and he never learns." ... "So why did you say that Crazy Eddie is supposed to fail? Don't the Moties admire Crazy Eddie? (...)" "(...) But yes, I think they all admire anyone mad enough to think that all problems have solutions. Which doesn't mean that they expect the universe to cooperate." I like the concept of Motie "Crazy Eddie" because it's fun to in turn imagine if humans ever had the need and opportunity to explain our concept of "Murphy's Law" to aliens who have a different default outlook. It's interesting to compare and contrast the two. They're similar in that they both express a tongue-in-cheek pessimism, but the Motie parable is a defeatist justification of not trying. The human version is defeatist acceptance of the suffering that comes from trying. Crazy Eddie is someone else to watch and learn what not to do. Murphy is you, and you never learn. From the perspective of the Moties, all humans are Crazy Eddie. Edit: another compare/and contrast is Motie Crazy Eddie causes his problems due to his own choices being self-defeating attempts at solutions to problems. An example given is melting down all of your stock of screws to cast a screwdriver. In contrast Murphy's problems are caused by events (at least partially) outside his control, with the implication that all choices lead to (the potential of) ruin.

yarpnird 4y ago

Kill everything first, eat the rot later

mfgs 4y ago

Heist Poscast did a great episode on Crazy Eddie: https://facebook.com/heistpodcast/posts/the-story-of-cray-eddie-eps-147-is-out-now-and-its-a-wellcrazy-story-hear-all-ab/707264406660230/ https://facebook.com/heistpodcast/posts/the-story-of-cray-ed...

brisance 4y ago

Sam has a pretty active Twitter account. Apparently a movie is also supposedly in the works. https://twitter.com/samantar https://twitter.com/samantar

Maursault 4y ago

As referenced in the 2016 film, The Accountant.[1][2][3] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oghd8vgfAL8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oghd8vgfAL8 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxFq5_zjY4Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxFq5_zjY4Q [3] idky yt poster split this short scene into two shorter yt posts ><

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]