Crazy Eddie RIP

I lived in New York City well after the Crazy Eddie chain of appliance/stereo stores imploded.  But I still knew of the company from its brief appearance in the 1984 film "Splash" (check the monitors in Bloomingdale's while Daryl Hannah exercises), and from the various SNL parodies of their commercials.  A whole bunch of the original commercials are on YouTube immortalizing DJ Jerry Carroll shouting his way through 30 seconds of sales pitch.  Prior to Carroll's frenzied take, they actually produced two very lavish 60-second spots: one of a doo-wop band (likely playing on the success of "Happy Days" and 50s nostalgia) and one parodying "Saturday Night Fever."  The tagline in that second spot, by the way, is straight from that film's actual promo.

The tale of Crazy Eddie's ridiculous fraud scheme is legendary, and well summed-up by this episode of a Canadian(?) true-crime show, Masterminds.