You are now entering Ad Space, a realm of commercials, brought before us so we might examine how they work, and discuss why we both love and hate them so. So it is written …

The Product:
Crazy Gideon’s electronics store

The Promotions:

The Pitch:
Come take advantage of the proprietor’s worsening mental state.

It’s become one of the cliches of small business advertising: saying your prices are so low, they’re insane – as in, no sane person would think selling stuff so cheap was a good business decision, but luckily for you, our owner is a crazy person!

I’m not certain where this tactic originated, but it was definitely popularized by the electronics chain Crazy Eddie’s in the 1970’s and 80’s:

These ads were popular enough to inspire a lot of imitators. But the thing is, with Crazy Eddie and most that followed in its wake, the “crazy” thing was more of an informed quality, related solely to their supposedly low prices. The guy in the commercial might talk in a manic fashion and in engage in some typical commercial goofiness, but didn’t actually try to make themselves look like an insane person.

But Crazy Gideon? That dude committed to the gimmick, creating ads where they legit come off as mentally disturbed. Between the shouting, the destruction of property, randomly biting the merchandise, and needing to be forcibly hauled away by medical personnel … they seem genuinely like someone who, if you encountered them at an electronics store, would immediately make you feel uncomfortable, and quickly prompt you leave before you go from “uncomfortable” to “unsafe”.

Seems like an absolutely ass-backwards approach to promoting a store, but Crazy Gideon’s was apparently quite popular until Best Buy and Circuit City crushed most local electronics stores in the 2000’s, and there are a lot of Los Angelinos who have fond, nostalgic memories of these … distinctive ads.