You read that right. Danny DeVito will direct a biopic about Eddie Antar, the consumer electronics king whose successful Crazy Eddie’s chain store had expanded to 43 locations before the guy was jailed, charged with fraud, and ordered to pay $150 million in fines in 1999. Remember these commercials? THIS IS GOING TO BE A MOVIE.
NOTE: Just to clarify, that’s not Crazy Eddie himself in the commercials. We’re not implying that the movie will play out like the ads. But it’d be funny if the film had similarly janky production values, huh?
Woah. Apples and oranges.
The Empire Carpet Man was played by an ad man named Lynn Hauldren, not the owner of Empire Carpeting (Seymour Cohen when it was family owned).
To contrast, Crazy Eddie owned his own stores. He was a trendsetter, as several tv and appliance stores followed suit. People from South Central Wisconsin, anyone remember TV Lenny from “American TV”?
Besides, Empire Carpeting already got featured in Wayne’s World!
Sing it with me:
five eight eight two three hundred…empire!
The Crazy Eddie guy was also played by an actor. The real Crazy Eddie was much older when he fled to Isreal and they sent him back here.
Hah–Thanks, EP, I understand the distinction. Was just kidding!
I’m so disappointed to know now that that guy was not really Crazy Eddie. My New York-based childhood is thoroughly besmirched. (Or perhaps I’m just going INSAAAAAAANE…)
If you grew up in NYC, Crazy Eddie was HUGE in the late 70′s and 80′s.
As for movie, if I recall Eddie was taller than DeVito. The person who can close to looking like him is actor Larry Drake, Benny from LA Law. Also, Eddie’s story is more of an HBO film than an actual motion picture. We will see what happens.
Oh, oops. Eddie was not the guy on tv. I made a mistake.
Thanks for identifying Empire Carpet Man.
The pitchman in the Crazy Eddie ads was former WPIX-FM radio personality Jerry Carroll, also known as Dr. Jerry and sometimes mistakenly called Jerry Carolyn or Caroline, especially during his brief career as a talk host at ABC TalkRadio in the 1980s.
I would be REALLY SURPRISED if Jerry were involved in this remake at all; he moved to someplace in New England after the first attempted comeback of C.E., and vowed never to work in TV or radio again.
I grew up with the ads. I can’t really tell if I find him more frightening or funny. He’s still inspiring sales to this day, just saw this one today – http://www.headlineshirts.net/ The guy
is INSANE.