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"HE'S CRRRRRAAAZY!!"

"Come on down to Crazy Al's! Where you'll find our prices average, but I'm F*** ing NUTS! You'll come for the free refreshments, but you'll stay or I'll CUT YA'!"
Unknown stand-up comic, Just for Laughs

A weird mutant kind of ad that tends to turn up in lesser time slots, wherein the proprietor of a discount retail outlet yells about how he's gone completely mad, and that his insanity is manifesting itself as his selling his wares at prices so unprofitably low that only a lunatic would set them. No doubt because of the owner's deranged price-slashing, many of these stores seem to be perpetually on the verge of going out of business, holding innumerable closing down sales where "everything must go!!!". They also often refer to the owner's mental state right in the name of the store, e.g. Crazy Larry's Carpet Emporium.

In a variant, the "boss" is out of town and the underlings are the ones indulging in this madness — but buy quick before he realizes what's going on and comes back!

Arguably originated by the Crazy Eddie consumer electronics chain that existed in the Northeastern United States from 1971 to 1989. It was famous for the fast-talking, near-frothing announcer Jerry Carroll (contrary to popular belief, not Crazy Eddie himself) who, clad in turtleneck and sports jacket, would stick his face into the camera and spread his arms wide to give the company's trademark slogan, "Hey-heh-heh-heh hey, it's Ca-raaazy Eddie! His prices are IN-SA-A-A-A-A-ANE!" Of course ol' Eddie himself might have been inspired by Madman Muntz.

A relatively well-known variant of the Put a Face on the Company principle. Often seen in the kind of Kitschy Local Commercial that Honest John's Dealership uses. May be the explanation why We Buy Anything and We Sell Everything.


Examples:

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    Advertising 
  • In central and northeastern Wisconsin, there's Scott from 199ride.com. He's a used car salesman with No Indoor Voice whose whole gimmick is a series of annoying commercials that advertise how much he either needs to move his inventory or replace it with new vehicles, claiming to buy any vehicle regardless of working condition, type, make, model, or year, will pay off any payments you still owe on your current vehicle, and will guarantee an enticing amount of cash off for whatever vehicle you exchange for it (the kicker being that the vehicle would be listed for that same amount more than normal price anyway, and then you would get charged at least a 30% APR when it came time to actually pay it off.) He's Scott from ONE NINETY-NINE RIDE DOT COM! THAT'S ONE NINETY-NINE RIIIIIIIIDE DOT COM!!! For his 2017 series of ads he began to suggest that doctors have told him to stop discounting his used car inventory at $199/month and that it will drive him to an early death, but he's ignoring their orders and taking his sales pitches up a notch because "I'm a dealer...FOR THE PEOPLE!" In 2020, he played up the "doctor's orders" advertisements again, only this time saying that he really did need to stop, ultimately announcing that he was moving out of the Wausau area in order to rest. In truth, he was being shut down for running a fraudulent business model, and said fraud investigations followed after him to his relocated dealerships in the Green Bay area in 2021.
  • Michigan's ABC Warehouse has Gordy, who is portrayed more as scatter-brained than raving.
  • Similarly, anyone living in Central Florida will be familiar with Appliance Direct owner Sam Pak and his intense love of appliances. He's doesn't come across as crazy, though, so much as just really enthusiastic obnoxious. The screaming and slamming, particularly, grates.
  • De Bijenkorf ("The Beehive"), a Dutch chain of department stores, has a yearly sales period called Drie Dwaze Dagen ("Three Crazy Days"). Whether it's the proprietor or their customers who are insane is up for debate.
  • Big Bill Hell's (a Parody Commercial made in Maryland during The '90s, now made famous by YouTube) is a Cluster F-Bomb of insanity mixed with Brutal Honesty:
    Bring your trade, bring your title, bring your wife! We'll fuck her! That's right, we'll fuck your wife! Because at Big Bill Hell's, you're fucked six ways from Sunday!
  • Pretty much anyone in the northeastern United States who watches much TV will be familiar with Bob's Discount Furniture and its proprietor's wacky sales pitches with cheesy special effects. To be fair, they do offer some pretty nice free cookies, candy, and coffee. Come on dowwwwwwwn!
  • The Canadian furniture chain "The Brick" used this type of advertising when it first expanded into Western Canada. The company president, Michael Dell (no, not that one), would jump through a paper banner and yell "IT'S THE BRICK!" The store's weekly flyer for the week before Halloween 1987 featured a full-size photo of Michael Dell's head printed on cardboard, suitable for cutting out and using as a mask.
  • Burger King has an ad where they claim that their low prices are a result of their disturbing mascot "The King" going insane.
  • Crazy Eddie, of course. In actuality, "Crazy" Eddie Antar was less crazy and more a straight-up crook, who ultimately attempted to flee to Israel to avoid being arrested for decades of swindling and tax dodging.
  • An electronics store called "Crazy Gideon's" in the Los Angeles area had some interesting ads, usually featuring policemen and/or doctors trying to take him away. His catch phrase was "He may be crazy but he's not stupid!".
  • In Rotterdam, The Netherlands there was a (now defunct) popular computer store called "Crazy Hans". Most probably inspired by Crazy Eddie.
  • When driving from Illinois or Michigan (states in which fireworks are illegal) to Indiana (where they are legal), one encounters nearly a dozen billboards for Krazy Kaplan's Firework Warehouse.
    • "Buy one, get six free!"
    • Many out-of-state customers fail to realize the biggest irony of all in this: these fireworks aren't actually legal in Indiana to use, only to buy/sell (though the prohibition on firing them is largely unenforced). This is less frequently misunderstood since a new law several years ago started requiring buyers to sign a card agreeing to leave the state before firing them off. Before the cards were instituted, most buyers who came into the state from Illinois and Michigan believed that they were completely unregulated in Indiana, despite the signs referring to them as "out-of-state" fireworks.
    • Firework stands tend to use mental instability as a selling point. There was a billboard for Joker Joe's, Burma-Shave style—"Hurry, hurry/This is it/Watch the Joker/Throw a fit"
      • If you're going to buy explosives, lunatics seem a natural starting point.
  • A local Dell chain in Utah had an unfortunate run in with a Crazy Proprietor who actually was as insane as his commercials implied; his business eventually ended up tanking because of it.
  • There used to be a car salesman in Washington State named Dick Balch who would smash in the windshields of cars in his ads.
  • The Other Wiki suggests that Earl "Madman" Muntz might have originated the schtick before Crazy Eddie.
    • Received a dubious Shout-Out in Barton Fink, where John Goodman's salesman character Charlie Meadows turns out to be psychopathic serial killer Karl "Madman" Mundt.
  • Cal Worthington was another pioneer of the "crazy proprietor" routine. Ads for his car dealerships, featuring Worthington and "his dog Spot" (who was never an actual dog but instead some exotic tamed animal, including a seal, a tiger, and a hippo) played all over the Los Angeles area in the sixties and seventies, encouraging TV viewers to "go see Cal" for a good deal on a used car.
  • Not the owner, but the aptly-named Fred Rated (played by radio and television personality Shadoe Stevens) took the insanity of Madman Muntz and turned it up a notch, offering hundreds of off-beat and often downright surreal commercials for The Federated Group, a chain of electronics superstores in the western United States in the late 70s and early 80s.
  • Deconstructed in a 2014 ad for Grande Communications. A salesman offering great deals on cable and internet is forcibly restrained and subjected to unnecessary and dangerous medical intervention in order to "cure" his apparent "illness".
  • Mattress Mack of Gallery Furniture in Houston, Texas fit this trope with his long-running TV commercials where he ended every commercial with the slogan, "Gallery Furniture really will saaaaave you money!" Mattress Mack himself played the part of the crazed owner. Thankfully in real life Mack is more Mean Character, Nice Actor and in 2017, he became a hero after he let evacuees of Hurricane Harvey sleep on his display beds in-store while they got their lives back together, and made good on a promise of free bedding for customers if the Astros won the World Series.
  • Among the permanent slogans for Honest Ed's in Toronto: "Honest Ed's a nut, but look at the cashew save!"
  • There was a bygone advertising campaign in Australia, in which an electrical goods purveyor sat on a rocking chair with a deranged look, as the announcer said, "Ken Bruce has gone mad, Ken Bruce has gone mad — [shouting] Ken Bruce has gone completely MAD!"
    • And don't get us started on Mr Bankrupt, who seems to have finally genuinely closed down. Thank ye gods.
      • On the other hand, Designer Direct has been closing down for as long as anybody can remember.
  • In the late '70s and early '80s, Knoxville, TN television was graced by commercials for "Mad" Jack Fielden's Furniture Warehouse Outlet. His first commercial was relatively straightforward, just stating they have low prices, and then Mad Jack added, "sometimes we have damaged furniture." His sidekick replied "but Mad Jack we don't have any damaged furniture." He then pulled out a baseball bat, smashed a mirror, and said "we do now!" He also got in legal hot water for hiring a "human fly" to climb the tallest building it town as a publicity stunt.
  • In Madison, Wisconsin, there are the Mad City Mitsubishi Mad Men. Highlights include turkey costumes around Thanksgiving and disembodied floating heads wearing sailor hats for Memorial Day, and the 'Nickel Pickle Sale', which naturally involves gherkin outfits, inflatable props, and a chainsaw. And they never, ever, stop shouting. They also advertise on practically every TV station and most radio stations in the area. Including the Spanish-language AM station, where they sometimes (but oddly, not always) give their spiel en Español. There is no escape.
  • Hawaii has a car dealer who calls himself Madman Dan. Amusingly, he both invokes and subverts the trope: he's in full lunatic mode when hawking used heaps off his own lot, but has also been known to suddenly become both calm and eloquent when acting as the representative for upper-class vehicles... like the one he himself drives.
  • The US ads for Mario Kart Wii featured a hyper-stereotypical southern used-kart salesman, Cowboy Jed.
  • Who's more insane than Mel Lastman's Bad Boy? NOOOOOOOOOBODY!
  • In the Portland area, we Oregonians have the Outrageous Audio guy, who advertises various pieces of audio equipment "UNTIL THEY'RE GONE!"
    • There was also the famous Tom Peterson, who was in fact a subversion. He didn't position himself as insane, but rather became well known for not only constantly appearing on the floor of his stores (that sold appliances, furniture and electronics) and interacting with customers, but also unusual gimmicks and commercials — ranging from alarm clocks to cutout masks of himself to even haircuts. At one point, his flagship store was so popular he had a trolley running between the store and its' parking lots. Sadly, when he acquired a competing chain of electronic stores, it proved to be too big for him to swallow and he ended up declaring bankruptcy, closing most of his stores in the process. He and his wife Gloria attempted a comeback with a new store, but this closed in 2009 and the man himself died in 2016.
  • The UK has Safestyle Windows: "You buy one, you get one free! I said, you buy one, you get one free!!"
  • Though it's not intentional and mentions nothing about prices, Sammy Stephens certainly fits the bill.
  • According to Sarah Silverman, her dad was a businessman who ran commercials like this.
  • The ads for mattress chain Sit 'n Sleep have a variation of this, with the owner promising huge discounts as his accountant scolds him for losing his mind. They even managed to work in a non-slogan catchphrase: "You're killing me, Larry!"
    Larry, the insane owner: Sit 'n' Sleep will beat ANYBODY'S advertised price, or your mattress is FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
  • Steve Ballmer. Hell, I'm feeling like buying Windows 1.0 right now! And he did it again for Windows XP! Sweet merciful Jesus, please let that be a self-deprecating parody.
  • The New Orleans area had "Wild Bill Watson" who sold cars in cowboy costume screaming "I'm WIIIIILD" until hit with a Calming Pie.
  • A company that shall go unmentioned referenced and rejected this while selling memory-enhancement pills over the radio: they were giving away a free bottle to anyone who signed up to get one, but rather than "CRAZY," they were "CONFIDENT that once you TRY IT you'll BUY IT!" (Actually, they were confident that once you tried it, and were automatically put on a second list that charged your credit card every month for a different pill than the one mentioned in the commercial, you wouldn't remember why you were being charged for it and wouldn't bother to jump through the hoops necessary to unsubscribe.)

    Comic Strips 
  • Michael Leunig did a comic showing a page of small newspaper ads all in this form, starting normal and getting weirder. The last one was for a politician.
  • During a Sunday strip of Piranha Club, a money-grubbing doctor tried a "Crazy Eddy" style of adverts to get people to come to his clinic. Naturally what works for a car dealership isn't going to work for a Doctor.
  • Parodied with Tom the Dancing Bug's "Crazy Morty", where Crazy Morty's ad copy was nothing but a disjointed stream of nonsensical rambling, such as the price of a cellphone being set to "an acorn", followed by a note from his psychiatrist confirming that Morty suffered from advanced schizophrenia and was therefore incapable of setting prices to conform to market value. This is later followed up with "Medicated Morty", in which the ad copy is lucid and also informs the reader that there is no planet-wide underground machinery, and the new motto is "Our prices are so rational, we'll make a modest profit on each transaction!"

    Films — Animation 
  • Aladdin has a brief scene with Crazy Hakim's Discount Fertilizer.
  • The TV in The Brave Little Toaster imitates this spiel to get Rob to go down to the junkyard to find his old appliances, turning "Ernie's Disposal" into "Crazy Ernie's Amazing Emporium of TOTAL BARGAIN MADNESS!"
  • Al McWhiggin's Chicken Man commercials in Toy Story 2 border on this.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Beetlejuice: Betelgeuse does the insane proprietor shtick on a TV ad sent exclusively to the Maitlands, where he promises "I'll eat anything you want me to eat, I'll swaller anything you want me to swaller!"
  • Referenced in the John Sayles movie City Of Hope: one minor character is the owner/advertiser of "Mad Anthony's" chain of discount electronics stores. Another, a schizophrenic homeless man, wanders the streets muttering bits of the commercials interspersed with whatever comes out of his brain: "Help, help. We need help clearing our warehouse. Of these fantastic bargains. All your electronics needs under one roof. Under one roof. Psychoses, neuroses. Dementia, amnesia. Schizoid, paranoid, psychotropic seizure. Why settle for less when you can have it all?"
  • Hot Fuzz has Simon Skinner, who adopts a similar persona when meeting new cop in town Nick Angel as part of a Gaslighting scheme to make him think he's going Javert and imagining a serial killer out of a series of accidental deaths.
    Skinner: Lock me up.
    Angel: I'm sorry?
    Skinner: I'm a slasher! I must be stopped!
    Angel: You're a what?
    Skinner: A slasher... of prices! I'm Simon Skinner, and I run the local Supermarché. Stop in and see me some time. My discounts are criminal! Catch me later!
  • The Muppet Movie has Milton Berle playing "Mad Man Mooney" the owner of Mad Man Mooney's Hubcap Heaven used car lot.
  • In Peggy Sue Got Married Peggy Sue's husband Charlie Bodell is known by all their friends as "Crazy Charlie" from doing these kinds of ads.
  • In Short Circuit 2, there is Manic Mike, clearly a spoof of Crazy Eddie.
  • In Splash, Madison is momentarily frightened by an actual Crazy Eddie ad that pops up on the TV she's watching with her face mere inches from the screen.
  • Spoofed in UHF, where "Crazy Ernie" tells the audience "If nobody comes down here and buys a car in the next hour, I'm gonna club this baby seal. That's right! I'm gonna club this seal to make a better deal. You know I'll do it, too, cause I'm crazy!" Sadly, when the movie was shown on Comedy Central, the "club a seal" part got cut, probably due to concern that groups like PETA would throw a fit. So instead of looking crazy, he just looks like a guy who yells a lot.

    Literature 
  • Parodied in a Sven Hassel novel when Porta relates how a butcher, finding himself with too many sausages, tried to give away free samples, only for the police to haul him off to the loony bin and confiscate the sausages in the belief that he was a madman trying to depopulate Berlin with poisoned food. No Berlin butcher just gives anything away.

    Live-Action TV 
  • A particularly ill-advised example from 30 Rock:
    Jack: Do you know what pays for your show, Lemon?
    Liz: Our product placement deal with Sullivan Psychiatric Clinic. "Sullivan Psychiatric! You'll drool over our crazy prices!"
  • Almost Live! had a few of them, but "Roscoe's Oriental Rug Emporium" takes the cake as the proprietor starts out reasonably sane, and quickly unravels like, well, a cheap rug.
  • Australia again, but from the 1980's, The Dodgy Brothers from sketch show Australia You're Standing In It. Every "ad" they made, for every product they sold, emphasized that they had BOTH "gone crazy."
  • Parodied, once again, by the Crazy Warehouse Guy in The Chaser's War On Everything. He usually advertises Persian rugs, as those are the most common things "crazy" people sell in Australia (for whatever reason).
    • He's a very specific parody of a series of ads for warehouse sales in which the (unseen) narrator would scream every single word at the top of his lungs. "PERSIAN RUGS FIVE BUCKS, JUST FIVE BUCKS!" were a common fixture, but they also advertised used CDs or slightly damaged clothing, among other things.
      • The Crazy Warehouse Guy also went out and about, buying lunch at McDonald's (yelling out the entire price menu in the process) and asking a passerby for directions.
      • He even does this in church: "OUR FATHER WHO ART IN HEAVEN MASSIVELY HALLOWED BY THY NAME! OUR KINGDOM COME BEFORE CLOSE OF BUSINESS TODAY! ON EARTH DIRECT IMPORT FROM HEAVEN! GIVE US OUR DAILY BREAD AT NEVER TO BE REPEATED PRICES! FREE HOME DELIVER US FROM EVIL. FOR THINE IS THE POWER AND GLORY FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY AMEN!"
    • The Chaser parodied it again with more Persian Rug warehouses. Julian went around saying he was from the Rug Proprietors Guild, telling people to have a Closing Down sale... it didn't matter if they weren't actually closing down. And he made the manager roll himself up in a carpet. Ah, memories...
  • The Mattress King's advert in Friends: "I'm so upset, I'm going to slash my... PRICES!!! Check it out!"
  • On Head of the Class Charlie got an acting gig as "the King of low prices," a crazy late night commercial pitchman for an appliance store.
  • In Living Color!! has: the Crazy Tom's Electronics" sketch. A business owner of sorts who trades a brand new top of the line VCR for an empty glass liquor bottle. After introducing the staff, he then recalls a regular dialogue he shares with customers:
    Crazy Tom: People come up to me, they say 'Crazy Tom?', I say what?
    Tom quoting the Customer: Just how can you give away high quality electronics like these and still make a profit?!
    Crazy Tom: ...I DON'T!! (breaks the bottle against his head) I'M CRAZY!!!!!
  • Dee plays an Insane Proprietor character when she and Charlie in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia decide to make a viral video to advertise the bar. Charlie doesn't think it's complete without beaning her directly in the face with a ball.
  • On Kenan & Kel, there's Crazy Betty's Electronics. Unfortunately, Betty wasn't crazy enough not to charge Kenan for a video camera Kel broke.
  • The Late Show (1992) had a regular segment where they showed low-budget local ads from around Australia and mocked the hell out them. Naturally this included a fair number of 'insane proprietor' ads. Some of these were so popular that the show made multiple returns to check out what the latest installment in the ads were.
  • Mystery Science Theater 3000, "Attack of the The Eye Creatures", in a police station:
    Susan: [distressed] Oh, Daddy, these people are crazy!
    Crow: Their prices are so low!
  • In Newhart, when Dick is roped into co-hosting a home shopping program, he hams it up by billing himself as "Strange Dick Loudon" and, after saying he must be "all wet" to offer such bargains, spraying himself with seltzer.
  • When a car is being given away on The Price Is Right, Drew Carey often refers to Rachel, the model who usually stands next to the car, as "Crazy Rachel".
  • The dad in Roundhouse did this for a garage sale. Until led away for apparent insanity.
  • Rules of Engagement: Jeff only buys electronics from stores like owned by Insane Proprietors, because crazy store owners offer the best deals.
  • Saturday Night Live parodied Crazy Eddie with 1977's "Crazy Ernie," where the spokesman advertises prices that aren't just "crazy prices" crazy but "not playing with a full deck" crazy — amps valued at over $500 on sale for $50, $900 turntables for $12, and $699 TVs for 52¢. It turns out the spokesman is actually Crazy Ernie's cousin, Crazy Frank, who's deliberately ruining Ernie's business in revenge for Ernie stealing Frank's girlfriend.
  • Eugene Levy and Rick Moranis made a couple of fake ads on SCTV for "Crazy Hy's", selling video equipment, except they acted and dressed as straight-laced orthodox Jews, and couldn't quite muster the required manic enthusiasm. Inspired by a series of real-life ads for "Crazy Joe's" drapery stores around Toronto, which did have the enthusiasm.
  • Seinfeld: "Nobody beats me, because I'm the Wiz!"
  • A fake commercial on This Hour Has 22 Minutes portrays the minister of finance as Crazy Jim Flaherty having a two-for-one sale on CBC shows.
  • Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! absolutely loves this trope. You can expect at least one Show Within a Show television ad featuring this trope per episode, often more.
    "I touched a clown; now I'm going out of business!!!"
  • X-Play features "Crazy Adam's Import Imporium", which contained several rip-offs of real games and imports (such as Fast Driv3r, which was set in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin). The owner is just straight criminally insane, with antics that include his ranting that he's going to make a woman suit, and preparing to take a sledgehammer to the head of a tied up employee (by the end he had moved to Mexico because he had violated every consumer law in the California Commercial Codes). His theme song was "Crazy, crazy, crazy, Adam; crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy Adam!"
    "God speaks to me and tells me to DO things... HORRIBLE THINGS!"

    Print Media 
  • In Dave Barry's column "Garbage Scan," one of the obnoxious voices heard over the radio is a Shouting Car-Dealership Jerk promoting increasingly extravagant giveaways for absolutely no sane reason:
    "...GIVE YOU SEVENTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS IN TRADE FOR ANYTHING!!! IT DOESN'T EVEN HAVE TO BE A CAR!!! BRING US A ROAD KILL!!! WE DON'T CARE!!! BRING US A CANTALOUPE-SIZED GOB OF EAR WAX!!! BRING US..."

    Radio 
  • Parodied in Get This.
    Salesman: See this lovely Mitsubishi?
    Customer: Er, that's a pony.
    Salesman: You knew what you were getting into when you saw the ad.
  • Parodied on the Martin/Molloy radio show where Tony Martin posited that many of these proprietors might not really be insane at all, and then showed what an ad made by a truly insane proprietor might be like. It ended with the proprietor holed up in the attic taking potshots at the police and the announcer screaming about bats coming out of the walls.
  • Completely reversed by the comedy group The Vestibules in their sketch, "Crazy Sammy's Discount Store":
    Sammy: Hi, you might remember me. I used to be known as "Crazy Sammy". I owned Crazy's Sammy's Discount Store and my prices were so low, you'd have thought I was crazy. And I was. I was bonkers! I was losing money on every transaction, my store eventually went bankrupt, my friends deserted me, and I married a chair. Well, I finally got some help. I went to a therapist for two years, and now I'm better. And happy to announce the grand opening of my new store, Well-Adjusted Sammy's, where you'll find amazingly normal prices. Microwave ovens used to be two bucks! Now a sensible $199. ... And good news! The baboons are gone. So don't run — walk on over to Well-Adjusted Sammy's, where the prices are... (dramatic echo) Appropriate!

    Theme Parks 
  • Parodied in, of all things, the JAWS Ride at Universal Studios Orlando. Like most of the rides there, the waiting line has TV hanging from the ceiling showing fake commercials and programs related to the theme of the ride — in Jaws's case, stuff about Amity. One of the commercials features a Crazy Eddie, who LITERALLY WRECKED THE ELECTRONICS he was peddling ON-CAMERA so he could give you the "discounted" prices. Complete with a miserable complaining accountant.
  • The line for Space Mountain at Disneyland used to have TVs with a similar programming loop, including an Insane Proprietor selling used spaceships. Sadly, it was eliminated when Space Mountain got remodeled.

    Video Games 
  • The Animal Crossing series has one of these guys in Crazy Redd, a fox with a decidedly sketchy store. He claims to be selling things at cutthroat prices, but in actuality peddles his wares for twice what the local general store sells them. The game heavily implies that he's selling stolen goods, and in Wild World, some of the paintings he sells are actually forgeries.note  One of the only reasons to buy from him is that some items are inexplicably exclusive to his store, even ones that are part of a larger set that can otherwise be obtained elsewhere.
  • Parodied by Baldur's Gate, of all things.
    "Hi, I'm Well-Adjusted Al, and my prices are sensible. I used to be called Crazy Al, but therapy has convinced me that selling plate armour for 3 gold pieces and a small duck was no way to get ahead in business."
  • The remake of The Bard's Tale featured a town overrun by undead vikings, but one shopkeeper had stuck around. Crazy Thorvald plays this trope to a T.
  • The Borderlands games have Crazy Earl, proprietor of a scrapyard, and later in charge of the black market. He's so paranoid that we've never seen any of him except his face through a slot in his door, never speaks below a shout, and ate one of Scooters cars. With a fork.
  • Chapter 2 of Deltarune brings us the living embodiment of spam email, Spamtom G. Spamton. He may not actually own a business, running his services out of a garbage dump, but he very much fits. His introduction has him emerge from a dumpster and make a sales pitch to Kris that half way through turns into a rant about his own life and it doesn't let up. Interestingly, his insanity is played for laughs and horror in equal measure.
    Spamton: LOOKS LIKE YOU'RE [[All Alone on a Late Night?]] ALL YOUR FRIENDS, [[Abandoned You For the Slime]] YOU ARE? SALES, GONE DOWN THE [[Drain]] [[Drain]]?? LIVING IN A GODDAMN GARBAGE CAN???
    (Spamton laughs maniacally, then punches the side of a dumpster)
    Spamton: WELL HAVE I GOT A [[Specil Deal]] FOR LONELY [[Hearts]] LIKE YOU!!
  • Fallout:
    • Fallout 3 has Crazy Wolfgang, who is actually completely sane and just has a more involved sales pitch than the rest of the merchants — his prices are exactly the same as everyone else's. Moira Brown, meanwhile, is legitimately crazy, though this is largely incidental to her role as a merchant; she doesn't quite build her sales pitch around it.
    • Fallout: New Vegas has the hidden Wind-Brahmin Salesman. A funnily multi-layered example in that he purposely uses "craziness" in his sales pitch yet is oblivious to the ways he's genuinely crazy. For example, the Wind-Brahmin he's trying to sell are tumbleweeds.
  • The Edutainment Game Math Heads had "Irrational Eddie", a direct parody of Crazy Eddie, during the fake commercial breaks, trying to peddle irrational numbers and other mathematical peculiarities.
    Irrational Eddie: Irrr-ational Eddie here! With Irrr-ational Numbers! At Irrr-ational Prices! We've got roots of negative numbers and decimals that go on infinitely and NEVER repeat themselves! Why?! BECAUSE I'M IRRATIONAL!
  • Monkey Island:
    • The recurring character Stan, a manic salesman who gets locked into a coffin in the second game and released in the third, has been the proprietor of a used-coffin business, a used-crypt business, a used-ship business and a life insurance business, plus others.
    • If you accuse King André of being mad, he replies he's not, but his prices are.
  • Played totally straight in Plants vs. Zombies, where the shop you buy seeds and the like from is run by Crazetopher David Blazing III, commonly known as Crazy Dave, and the shop itself is called Crazy Dave's Twiddydinkies. Dave himself is a blabbering lunatic who wears a pot as a hat and frequently yells "Buy now! I'M CRAAAAAAZY!!!" at the player whilst frothing at the mouth and shaking. Quite bizarre, but a nice calm experience compared to the rest of the game...
  • Invoked in SimCity 3000 with a building called "Crazy Larry's Flea Market".
  • A parody commercial in You Don't Know Jack credits for "Crazy Leo's House of Used Appliances", where Leo himself is a doddering senile man who interjects random nonsense when the regular announcer isn't speaking; it's right next door to Mad Manny's Mattress World (Manny is just angry and curses at you).

    Web Animation 

    Web Comics 
  • The Adventures of Dr. McNinja: The "Monster Mart" ads, where Martin turns into a giant purple monster before declaring that Monster Mart offers monstrous bargains, resemble this format, and were probably inspired by it.
    Martin: Here at Monster-Mart, the prices are simply... hrrrk! RRNNNGHHHAAAAH! (hulks out) Monstrous!

    Web Original 

    Web Videos 

    Western Animation 
  • Aaagh! It's the Mr. Hell Show!: One sketch features a proprietor who states that if you can find a better deal, he'll cut his eyelids off with pinking shears. He then proceeds to do it anyway, cackling maniacally all the while, because he is insane. He's later seen in a padded cell with bandages over his eyes.
  • An episode of Arthur featured a Jack's Joke Shop commercial, where the proprietor showcases several of his gag items that he's giving away for free. Buster says that that's just crazy.
    Proprietor: Crazy, you say? You're right, it's crazy! But once you try my gags, I know you'll be back for more!
  • Classic Disney Shorts: In "Susie the Little Blue Coupe", after the eponymous car starts to show her age, she's sold off by her owner and ends up lingering in the lot at "Maniac Martin's".
  • Ed, Edd n Eddy: Eddy's hot bike scam in "Ed, Ed, and Away", in which he refers to himself and the other Eds with "Crazy" in front of their names. The bike he tries to sell Kevin falls apart while he's riding it, injuring him. The Eds spend the rest of the episode chasing after a balloon around the cul-de-sac, which turns out to have been deliberately let loose by Kevin just to mess with them. Kevin then jokingly describes himself as an Insane Proprietor as he lets another one go.
    Kevin: No need to be displeased, I've got all your needs at Crazy Kev's.
  • Family Guy:
    • A joke that is used more than once is the "Wacky Wavy Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man!" Due to a shipping error the Wacky Wavy Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man Emporium and Warehouse is currently overstocked on all Wacky Wavy Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Men and I am passing the savings on to YOOUUUUUUUU!
    • Another episode has Cleveland parodying a slight variant, in his usual deadpan manner:
      Cleveland: "I haven't witnessed pandemonium like this since 'Ridiculous Day' down at the deli: when prices were so low, they were ridiculous."
  • Yet another Crazy Larry, from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. Why are his prices so low? "Because he's loooooocoooooo!!"
  • Futurama: Spoofed through the robot car dealer "Malfunctioning Eddie". When he gets too excited, his head explodes. When he turns up in a robot asylum in a later episode, Fry remarks "I guess his prices really were insane." It turns out he's in the asylum to cure his excitement-triggered exploding. By the last time we see him, it just causes a little pop on his shoulder, which he's told can be handled with medication.
    Malfunctioning Eddie: Hi, I'm Malfunctioning Eddie, and I'm malfunctioning so badly, I'm practically giving these cars away!
  • Garfield and Friends has recurring character Madman Murray. (No relation.) "Madman Meets His Match" brings us Demented Dave. They fight over Jon's business until Garfield suggests they team up. Jon considers it a mild triumph that he got out for under $1000 (though he still doesn't have a t-shirt), but Garfield tells us the two are about to find out what it can be like to have a business partner... He's proven right when Murray and Dave start arguing over who gets to appear in their new ads.
  • Parodied on Grojband with 3-D Dave, a TV dealer who runs "Peaceville's most mentally stable home electronics store, where prices may seem crazy at first but actually result in a modest profit while still offering bargains."
  • In a few Histeria! skits, Loud Kiddington played this role, each time saying his dog Fetch will eat a different animal's feces if the customers aren't satisfied, much to Fetch's protests.
  • Played straight in Inspector Gadget's Last Case, with "Crazy Eddie's Used Car Lot". Here, Crazy Eddie is a used-car salesman who dresses like a superhero in commercials; the gag here is that he sold long-since decommissioned cars that once belonged to superheroes; at one point he gets the Gadgetmobile itself in his lot. It's promptly bought up by Dr. Claw himself, masquerading as "Devon Debonair" in his effort to destroy Inspector Lieutenant Gadget once and for all.
  • Parodied in Invader Zim, with the Krazy Taco food chain and its mascot, a screaming man in a taco suit.
    Krazy Taco Mascot: So take it from me, the Krazy Taco! You won't find a crazier taco then the ones you'll find at the Krazy Taco! Remember, our Drive-Thru's open the whole niiight! Sweet jumpin' chili bean, I'm CRAZY!
    GIR: Must obey the taco man!
  • Mr. Stereo, of Mr. Stereo's Crazy Stereo Warehouse on Kappa Mikey, is another one whose insanity is not an act. If someone beats his prices, he's promised to eat garbage, jump out of a plane (without a parachute), and/or marry a piano. At the end of his ad, he breaks a window with his face. Don't ask about what he's like in person, it'd take up too much of the page with the antics.
  • Role-played once in Muppet Babies (1984). By Gonzo, naturally.
  • One episode of Rick and Morty features a (clearly ad-libbed) commercial by "Ants-In-My-Eyes Johnson", whose prices are low due to the fact that he can't see anything because of the ants in his eyes. People are seen in the background taking stuff from his store without paying during the entire commercial.
  • Robot Chicken has a sketch about a used car salesman named Crazy Davey, who ends up having his family leave him while he's announcing his prices and attempts to shoot himself in the head, only to find that the gun has no bullets.
  • The Rotten Ralph episode "Anything for a Buck" had Ralph refer to himself as "Crazy Ralph" while selling property that wasn't supposed to be given away at the yard sale Sarah's family started.
  • Also spoofed on Sheep in the Big City, with an advertisement for the Les is More Electronics Warehouse, with a proprietor named Les Wiggles who may have been genuinely insane: selling an elephant for sixteen cents, but a battery for $42,000 and a piece of wire for a million dollars and five cents.
    "How can I charge such wacky, cuckoo prices? Simple! I'm a sil-ly loo-ny bird!"
  • The Simpsons: One episode features "Crazy Vaclav's Place of Automobiles". Oddly enough, the Slavic-accented Vaclav doesn't seem that crazy, although his wares definitely fall into The Alleged Car category, like being three-wheeled, tiny, running on kerosene, made in countries that no longer exist, needing a push to get started, and still having Cyrillic dashboards (hence "put it in H" for "put it in n(eutral)".
  • SpongeBob SquarePants:
    • A variant pops up with Angry Jack's Shell Emporium. "Jack is really angry! Don't bring your kids."
    • Another variant is the guy who's selling vacation homes by screaming "GET OUTTA TOWN!" at people.
  • In the Time Squad episode "Big Al's Big Secret", the Time Squad discovers that Albert Einstein had given up theoretical physics to become a lovably-wacky used-car salesman known as "Big Al": "To sell you a car, I'll eat a bug!"
  • Tiny Toon Adventures:
    • An episode centering around the prom has "Crazy Tazzy's House of Tuxes", where the already-established-as-several-kinds-of-insane Taz applies these tactics to selling formal wear, of all things. The commercial features Taz grunting, spitting, and spinning his way through cutting prices on tuxedos as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck chased him in white coats with butterfly nets.
      Taz: Crazy Tazzy's House of Tuxes! Me prices insane! ME INSANE!
    • There's also Bicycle Bob, who claims he'll eat a bucket of scorpions if you're not satisfied with the trade-in on your old bike. Guess what ends up happening after Buster gets even with him for ripping him off...
  • Some episodes of WordGirl end with fake commercials for "Uncle Larry's Superlative Warehouse", a furniture store for villains. "If it's not the best, it's not Uncle Larry's!" These segments teach viewers about superlatives.

    Real Life 
  • One Polish book note  recalls a typical monologue of a Polish street vendor from the interwar period (1918-1939); eventually, the merchant begins dramatically pleading the passersby to take him away to an asylum, for he's got to be completely insane to offer so many excellent things for such a low price.
  • A few years ago, a major Milwaukee car dealer held a used car event in the Miller Park lots when the Brewers were on the road. Their spokesman was a man who would swear liberally (bleeped of course) in their ads, make jibes at the other dealers in the area and at the end, held a butcher knife and said "CHOP CHOP!" to denote the low prices of the event, but also terrified more than a few children and adult with the unnervingly homicidal glint in his eyes. Within a couple years a more sane advert was put on the air instead.
  • Dollar Bill's Discount World was a discount and liquidation store in Derry, New Hampshire that operated in the late 2000s and early 2010s, and was famous throughout southern New Hampshire and northeastern Massachusetts for the local TV spots featuring its owner "Dollar" Bill Burke, who was renowned for his overly enthusiastic and often oddly sexual inventory exhibitions.

 
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Neil's Deals Limited

One of the companies you can play adverts for is Neil's Deals Limited, starring Crazy Neil. Living up to his name, Neil is crazy to let viewers know about their low prices.

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