Eddie Antar: The Criminal Antics of Crazy Eddie
4/27/202655 min
Eddie Antar was the king of the deal, the man whose ads screamed at you from your TV set promising prices so low they were practically insane. He turned Crazy Eddie into a retail phenomenon, making himself and his family incredibly wealthy by hawking stereos, TVs and electronics at seemingly unbeatable prices. The brand's wildly memorable commercials became some of the most iconic ads in TV history. But behind the blaring deals and larger-than-life persona was a tangled web of fraud – including tax evasion, insurance scams, and bitter family betrayals. Even though his empire eventually came crashing down, somehow Ed...
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First 90 secondsSarah Haggerty· Host0:00
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Sachee Cole· Host0:08
[upbeat music] Sarah, are there any ads from your childhood that are, like, still indelible in the hippocampus for you even now at your extremely old age?
Sarah Haggerty· Host0:23
Yes, of course. I mean, anyone who grew up in Canada in the '90s and early 2000s will remember the PSAs from Concerned Children's Advertisers. They warned against everything from playing around train tracks, to eating random berries that you find, to acne, to drug addiction. Those raised me. Okay?
Sachee Cole· Host0:49
Yeah. Uh, formative memories, just watching ads as children.
Sarah Haggerty· Host0:54
Yes.
Sachee Cole· Host0:54
Who would've thought?
Sarah Haggerty· Host0:55
Yes.
Sachee Cole· Host0:55
Who would've thought?
Sarah Haggerty· Host0:56
Yes.
Sachee Cole· Host0:56
Well, Sarah, today's story might remind you of some of those ads that you may have caught on television in the early '90s, a relic of the '80s, and of a kind of retail culture and scam culture that we will just never have again. It's April of 1992, and inside a police station in Bern, Switzerland, officers are trying to reason with a very agitated man. He's stocky, sweaty, and shaky, with a dark beard and a receding hairline. He looks like someone who's been under a lot