Madman Muntz
Encyclopedia
Earl William "Madman" Muntz (January 3, 1914 – June 21, 1987) was an American businessman and engineer
who sold and promoted cars and consumer electronics
in the United States from the 1930s until his death in 1987. He was a pioneer in television commercials with his oddball "Madman" persona
– an alter ego
who generated publicity with his unusual costumes, stunts, and outrageous claims. Muntz also pioneered car stereos by creating the Muntz Stereo-Pak, better known as the 4-track cartridge, a predecessor to the 8-track cartridge developed by Lear Industries
.
He invented the practice that came to be known as Muntzing
, which involved simplifying otherwise complicated electronic devices. Muntz produced and marketed the first black-and-white television receivers to sell for less than $100, and created one of the earliest functional widescreen
projection TVs. He was credited with coining the abbreviation "TV" for television, although the term had earlier been in use in call letters for stations such as WCBS-TV
. A high school dropout
,
Muntz made fortunes by selling automobiles, TV receivers, and car stereos and tapes. A 1968 Los Angeles Times article noted that in one year he sold $72 million worth of cars, that five years later he sold $55 million worth of TV receivers, and that in 1967 he sold $30 million worth of car stereos and tapes.
After his success as a used car salesman and with Kaiser-Frazer
dealerships in Los Angeles
and New York City
, Muntz founded the Muntz Car Company
, which made the "Muntz Jet", a sports car
with jet-like contours. The car was manufactured between 1951 and 1953, although fewer than 400 were produced.
Muntz married seven times. His wives included actress Joan Barton (who appeared in Angel and the Badman
with John Wayne
) and Patricia Stevens of the Patricia Stevens Finishing Schools
. Phyllis Diller
was among his many girlfriends. He was friends with celebrities such as singer Rudy Vallee
, comedian Jerry Colonna, actor Bert Lahr
, television presenter Dick Clark, and actor Gene Autry
.
, at age 15, he dropped out of Elgin High School to work in his parents' hardware store in Elgin, Illinois.
In 1934, Muntz opened his first used car lot, in Elgin, with a $500 ($ in ) line of credit. He was only 20 years old, and his mother had to sign the car-sale papers because legally he was too young to close his own deals. During a vacation in California
, Muntz discovered that used cars sold there for far higher prices; so he moved to California at age 26 to open a used car lot in Glendale
. On a hunch, he purchased 13 brand-new right-hand-drive vehicles to resell. These vehicles had been built for customers in Asia, but could not be delivered due to World War II
. One vehicle was a custom-made Lincoln
built for Chiang Kai-shek
. Local newspapers ran stories about the unusual cars, and Muntz sold them all within two weeks, still in their original shipping crates. Muntz soon opened a second lot in Los Angeles
and closed his lot in Elgin.
Muntz rejected the then common opinion that used car salesmen should project a staid image. He realized the possibilities of generating publicity with odd stunts, and developed a "Madman" persona as a result. His flamboyant billboards and oddball television and radio commercials soon made him famous. In his used auto commercials, he marketed one model as the "daily special"; Muntz claimed that if the car did not sell that day, he would smash it to pieces on camera with a sledgehammer
. Another infamous Muntz used-car TV pitch was "I buy 'em retail and sell 'em wholesale ... it's more fun that way!" His commercials generated so much publicity that comedians such as Bob Hope
, Jack Benny
, and Steve Allen
often tried to outdo each other during television appearances by telling "Madman" Muntz jokes. University of Southern California
fans would spell out Muntz's name during halftime as a prank.
Muntz's car lots became tourist attractions due to the widespread publicity from his television commercial appearances. A 1946 survey by Panner Motor Tours revealed that they ranked seventh among tourist attractions in Southern California. Muntz was willing to take large risks in his attempts to generate publicity. During the era of McCarthyism
, he asked one of his advisers, "Do you think I'd make the front pages if I joined the Communist Party?"
In 1948, race car designer and Kurtis-Kraft founder Frank Kurtis
attempted to market a new sports car
, the two-seater Kurtis Kraft Sport. Only 36 units had been sold by 1950. In 1951, for just $200,000 ($ in ) Kurtis sold the cars' manufacturing license to Muntz, who quickly rebadged
them as the "Muntz Jet". Initial production of the Jet took place in Glendale, where Muntz extended the two-seater Kurtis Kraft Sport's body by 13 inches (33 cm), making it a four-seater, and exchanged the Ford V8
engine for a larger Cadillac
V8
. Later, after making just 28 Jets in California, Muntz moved production to a new factory in Evanston
, Illinois
, extended the body further by 3 inches (8 cm), and replaced the Cadillac V8 with a less expensive Lincoln sidevalve
V8.
The Jet was featured on the cover of the September 1951 issue of Popular Science
along with a Jaguar and an MG. It featured its own design, with aluminum body panels and a removable fiberglass
top. Paint schemes were extravagant, with names like "Mars Red", "Stratosphere Blue", and "Lime Mist", and interior options included alligator or Spanish leatherette. The backseat armrests contained a full cocktail bar.
The Jet was capable of a top speed of 125 miles per hour (201.2 km/h) and acceleration of 0–50 mph (0–80 km/h) in 6 seconds, a significant achievement for a road car at the time. The fastest production car in 1953 was the Pegaso Z-102 Supercharged
sports car at 155 miles per hour (249.4 km/h). Famous Jet owners included then-CEO of CBS
Frank Stanton
, and actors Mickey Rooney
and Lash La Rue
.
The labor and materials required to produce the Jet resulted in a higher price for the end product, and in 1954, after selling about 400 cars and losing about $1,000 ($ in ) on each, Muntz closed the company. Today, Muntz Jets are highly prized collector cars and are recognized as predecessors to the Chevrolet Corvette
and Ford Thunderbird
.
, RCA
, and DuMont
televisions, he figured out how to reduce the devices' electrical components to their minimum functional number. This practice became known as "Muntzing
".
In the 1940s and 1950s, most brands of television receivers were complicated pieces of equipment, commonly containing about 30 vacuum tube
s, as well as rheostats, transformer
s, and other heavy components. As a result, they were usually very expensive: the cheapest U.S.-manufactured receiver made before World War II used a 3 inches (8 cm) screen and cost $125, the equivalent of $1,863 in 2007; the cheapest model with a 12 inches (30 cm) screen cost $445, equivalent to $6,633 in 2007. By 1954, although television had existed in various forms for more than 40 years, only 55 percent of U.S. households owned a receiver. By contrast, eight years later, 90 percent of U.S. households had one.
Muntz developed a television chassis that produced an acceptable monochrome
picture with 17 tubes. He often carried a pair of wire clippers, and when he thought that one of his employees was "over-engineering" a circuit, he would begin snipping components out until the picture or sound stopped working. At that point, he would tell the engineer "Well, I guess you have to put that last part back in" and walk away.
Marketed under the name "Muntz" by his company Muntz TV, Inc., the simplified units were the first black and white TV receivers to retail in the U.S. for less than $100. Muntz was also the first retailer to measure his screens from corner to corner rather than by width. The receivers sold well and were reliable partly because fewer tubes created less heat. The sets worked well in metropolitan areas that were close to television transmission towers where signals were strong. They worked poorly with weaker signals, as most of the components that Muntz had removed were intended to boost performance in fringe areas. This was a calculated decision: Muntz preferred to leave the low-volume, high-performance television receiver market to firms such as RCA and Zenith Electronics
, as his intended customers were primarily urban dwellers with limited funds. Additionally, many urban apartment buildings had rules prohibiting external television aerials, and installation of an aerial, even if allowed, cost as much as $150. Muntz solved this problem by adding a built-in aerial to his receivers. In 1952, Muntz TV Inc. grossed $49.9 million.
Muntz continued with his "Madman" persona in many of his advertisements. In one TV commercial that normally aired after the Ed Sullivan Show, Muntz, dressed in red long johns
and a Napoleon hat, promoted his new 14 inches (36 cm) televisions by saying, "I wanna give 'em away, but Mrs. Muntz won't let me. She's crazy!" Another TV commercial presented a marching-band song with lyrics about Muntz TVs and incorporated animations by Oskar Fischinger
. His radio commercials, which Muntz ran up to 170 times a day, initially followed a classical music theme built around the spelling of Muntz's name. However, he soon convinced radio stations to run ads more in line with his persona. In one advert, Muntz screamed "Stop staring at your radio!" He followed up his radio ads with a direct mail campaign, collecting thousands of TV knobs and mailing them to prospective customers with a note saying, "Call us and we'll show up with the rest of the set!"
Some sources credit Muntz with inventing the abbreviation "TV." Muntz used skywriting
as one of his marketing tactics, but, after watching one of his ads being created, he noted that the letters began to blur and dissipate before the pilot could finish spelling out "Muntz Televisions". So Muntz came up with the abbreviation "TV". However, "TV" had earlier been used in the call letters of television stations, such as WCBS-TV
, which adopted those call letters in 1946. Muntz also named his daughter "Tee Vee", although she normally went by "Teena" and, later, "Tee".
tape cartridge. 4-track was the direct predecessor of the Stereo 8 cartridge, also known as the "8-track", later developed by American inventor Bill Lear
. The Stereo-Pak cartridge was based on the endless-loop Fidelipac
cartridge, which was being used by radio stations, designed by inventor George Eash. Muntz chose stereo recording as a standard feature because of its wide availability. Before Muntz developed the Stereo-Pak, the only in-car units capable of recorded playback were gramophone-based players, such as the Highway Hi-Fi
invented by Peter Goldmark
. These units played special 16 2/3 rpm records or 45 rpm
records, however they tended to skip whenever the vehicle hit a bump in the road, and attempts to alleviate this by increasing the pressure on the arm caused discs to wear out prematurely.
Muntz designed a stereo tape player called the Autostereo for cars and had it inexpensively manufactured in Japan. The Autostereo could play a complete album without changing tracks or turning the tape over, did not suffer from skipping or premature wear as the gramophone-based players did, and its number of knobs and controls were minimized to allow the driver to concentrate on the road. The tape player gave customers greater control over their listening experiences, because the tapes never ran advertisements or public service announcements, unlike radio broadcasts. Muntz sold the players and cartridges from his own stores and through franchise
s in Florida and Texas.
Muntz audio products were so profitable by 1962 that he cancelled his agreements with tape-duplicating companies and founded his own company to manufacture prerecorded Stereo-Pak cartridges. Most record companies did not manufacture Stereo-Pak cartridges themselves; however, the Muntz Electronics Corporation licensed music from all the major record labels and issued hundreds of different tapes in the mid to late 1960s. Muntz exhibited his Autostereo players and Stereo-Pak cartridges under the trade name Stereo-Pak at the 1967 Consumer Electronics Show
.
The Autostereo player, which retailed from $129 in 1963 ($ in ) was a popular aftermarket
addition to cars among the Beverly Hills rich and famous. Frank Sinatra
used one in his Buick Riviera
, Dean Martin
in his Corvette, and Peter Lawford
in his Ghia
. James Garner
, Red Skelton
, and Lawrence Welk
also used Autostereo players in their cars. Barry Goldwater
purchased one for his son, and Jerry Lewis
recorded his scripts onto Stereo-Pak cartridges to learn his lines while driving.
Muntz attempted to establish a modern, trendy image for his players and cartridges. His print advertisements often showed the player installed in an appealing sports car and usually incorporated a young, attractive model with a suggestive tagline. Most of his employees in his California shops were attractive young women dressed in overbright clothing.
Bill Lear distributed the Stereo-Pak in 1963, intending to install units in his Learjet aircraft. However, he soon decided to re-engineer and customize the units to suit his own wishes, the result of which became the Stereo 8 system. The market for Muntz's 4-track system had faded by 1970 due to competition from Stereo 8, which reduced costs by using less magnetic tape and a less-complex cartridge mechanism. Although the 4-track system had higher fidelity since the tape speed was double the speed of the Stereo 8 system (and the 4-track had wider heads for better bandwidth), the Stereo 8 quickly became the dominant format for car stereo systems during the late 1960s. Ford Motor Company
began featuring Stereo 8 players in their 1965 automobiles, and it became a standard option by 1966.
In a 1979 interview in The Videophile newsletter, Muntz revealed the biggest problem for the Stereo-Pak business was returned merchandise. He explained that when reproducing the work of major artists like The Beatles
, the Stereo-Pak plant had to make hundreds of thousands of cartridges. But once a popular album became less popular, retailers would return the unsold cartridges, expecting credit towards new titles. Muntz was unprepared for the returns and said the huge cost of unsold merchandise eventually made his Stereo-Pak business unprofitable.
color cathode ray tube
(CRT) television receiver, fitting it with a special lens and reflecting mirror, then projecting the magnified image onto a larger screen. He housed these primitive units in a large wooden console
, making it one of the first successful widescreen projection TV receivers marketed for home use.
The receivers were built in Muntz's headquarters in Van Nuys, California. Sony's U.S. sales division was unaware that Muntz was dealing directly with Sony's Tokyo original equipment manufacturer
(OEM) department, which shipped him the TV chassis directly. Thanks to Muntz's talent for mass-market advertising and self-promotion, by 1977 the projection receivers were a multi-million-dollar business. Muntz was quick to feature Sony
's Betamax
as well as JVC
's and RCA
's VHS
recorders in his store, setting up a showroom to demonstrate the potential for a "theater experience in the home".
In 1979, Muntz decided to sell blank tapes and VCRs as loss leader
s to attract customers to his showroom, where he would then try to sell them his projection TV systems. His success continued through the early 1980s until he invested heavily in the Technicolor
Compact Video Cassette
(CVC), a 1/4 in (0.6 cm) system designed to compete with Betamax, VHS, and the Super 8
film home-movie system. The CVC format failed in the marketplace, sales quickly eroded, and Muntz's store closed soon after.
es, a motorhome
rental company dubbed "Muntz Motor Mansions", and prefabricated aluminum houses. He made headlines in February 1985 as the first retailer to offer a Hitachi
cellular phone for less than $1,000 ($ in ), when just two years earlier most cellular phones had cost about $3,000 ($ in ). At the time of his death, he was the leading retailer of cellular phones in Los Angeles. During his final years, Muntz drove a customized Lincoln Continental
with a television installed in the dashboard: Muntz claimed it helped him "drive better".
After he died, his children, James and Tee, continued to operate two Muntz stores in Van Nuys and Newhall; the remainder of the stores were franchise
d businesses. James employed his father's advertising techniques to create splashy ads featuring prices that annoyed his competitors so much that they referred to them as "cutthroat
".
and New York area electronics chain Crazy Eddie
. In Crazy Eddie TV commercials, radio personality Jerry Carroll leapt at the camera and jumped around while jabbering at high speed, always ending with the line, "Crazy Eddie: Our prices are insaaaaaane!". As a result of his Crazy Eddie commercials, Carroll became a significant 80s icon, even appearing in the film Splash
.
Muntz' cultural impact was such that he was mentioned in novels, including children's book
The Neddiad: How Neddie Took The Train, Went To Hollywood, And Saved Civilization by Daniel Manus Pinkwater, The Lost Get-Back Boogie by James Lee Burke
, and Franklin Mason's Four Roses in Three Acts .
A production called Madman Muntz: American Maverick was screened at film festivals through 2007. Directed by Dan Bunker and Judy ver Mehr, it was produced by Jim Castoro, an owner of an original Muntz Jet. The film was an official 2005 selection at the San Fernando Valley International Film Festival and the Ole Muddy Film Festival. The film documents Muntz's life, paying particular attention to his colorful career, and includes interviews with people who knew him and home movie footage contributed by his children.
The KCET
1997 documentary More Things That Aren't Here Anymore has a segment on Muntz and is broadcast by the station regularly during pledge periods.
In 2001, Madman Muntz was posthumously inducted into the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame
.
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
who sold and promoted cars and consumer electronics
Consumer electronics
Consumer electronics are electronic equipment intended for everyday use, most often in entertainment, communications and office productivity. Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, the broadcast receiver...
in the United States from the 1930s until his death in 1987. He was a pioneer in television commercials with his oddball "Madman" persona
Persona
A persona, in the word's everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. The word is derived from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatrical mask. The Latin word probably derived from the Etruscan word "phersu", with the same meaning, and that from the Greek πρόσωπον...
– an alter ego
Alter ego
An alter ego is a second self, which is believe to be distinct from a person's normal or original personality. The term was coined in the early nineteenth century when dissociative identity disorder was first described by psychologists...
who generated publicity with his unusual costumes, stunts, and outrageous claims. Muntz also pioneered car stereos by creating the Muntz Stereo-Pak, better known as the 4-track cartridge, a predecessor to the 8-track cartridge developed by Lear Industries
Bill Lear
William Powell Lear was an American inventor and businessman. He is best known for founding the Lear Jet Corporation, a manufacturer of business jets...
.
He invented the practice that came to be known as Muntzing
Muntzing
Muntzing is the practice and technique of reducing the components inside an electronic appliance to the minimum required for it to function. The term is named after the man who invented it, Earl "Madman" Muntz, a car and electronics salesman who was also a self-taught electrical engineer.In the...
, which involved simplifying otherwise complicated electronic devices. Muntz produced and marketed the first black-and-white television receivers to sell for less than $100, and created one of the earliest functional widescreen
Widescreen
Widescreen images are a variety of aspect ratios used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than the standard 1.37:1 Academy aspect ratio provided by 35mm film....
projection TVs. He was credited with coining the abbreviation "TV" for television, although the term had earlier been in use in call letters for stations such as WCBS-TV
WCBS-TV
WCBS-TV, channel 2, is the flagship station of the CBS television network, located in New York City. The station's studios are located within the CBS Broadcast Center and its transmitter is atop the Empire State Building, both in Midtown Manhattan....
. A high school dropout
Dropping out
Dropping out means leaving a group for either practical reasons, necessities or disillusionment with the system from which the individual in question leaves....
,
Muntz made fortunes by selling automobiles, TV receivers, and car stereos and tapes. A 1968 Los Angeles Times article noted that in one year he sold $72 million worth of cars, that five years later he sold $55 million worth of TV receivers, and that in 1967 he sold $30 million worth of car stereos and tapes.
After his success as a used car salesman and with Kaiser-Frazer
Kaiser-Frazer
The Kaiser-Frazer Corporation was the result of a partnership between automobile executive Joseph W. Frazer and industrialist Henry J. Kaiser. In 1947, the company acquired the automotive assets of Graham-Paige, of which Frazer had been president before the Second World War...
dealerships in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
and New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Muntz founded the Muntz Car Company
Muntz Car Company
The Muntz Car Company was created in Glendale, California, and was in existence from 1950 to 1954 by Earl "Madman" Muntz, a well known local used car dealer and electronics retailer...
, which made the "Muntz Jet", a sports car
Sports car
A sports car is a small, usually two seat, two door automobile designed for high speed driving and maneuverability....
with jet-like contours. The car was manufactured between 1951 and 1953, although fewer than 400 were produced.
Muntz married seven times. His wives included actress Joan Barton (who appeared in Angel and the Badman
Angel and the Badman
Angel and the Badman is a 1947 black-and-white Western film, starring John Wayne, Gail Russell, Harry Carey and Bruce Cabot which examines the ability of a gunman to renounce violence. This film, which was the first one Wayne produced as well as starred in, was a departure for this genre at the...
with John Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
) and Patricia Stevens of the Patricia Stevens Finishing Schools
Finishing school
A finishing school is "a private school for girls that emphasises training in cultural and social activities." The name reflects that it follows on from ordinary school and is intended to complete the educational experience, with classes primarily on etiquette...
. Phyllis Diller
Phyllis Diller
Phyllis Diller is an American actress and comedian. She created a stage persona of a wild-haired, eccentrically dressed housewife who makes jokes about a husband named "Fang" while pretending to smoke from a long cigarette holder...
was among his many girlfriends. He was friends with celebrities such as singer Rudy Vallee
Rudy Vallée
Rudy Vallée was an American singer, actor, bandleader, and entertainer.-Early life:Born Hubert Prior Vallée in Island Pond, Vermont, the son of Charles Alphonse and Catherine Lynch Vallée...
, comedian Jerry Colonna, actor Bert Lahr
Bert Lahr
Bert Lahr was an American actor and comedian. Lahr is remembered today for his roles as the Cowardly Lion and Kansas farmworker Zeke in The Wizard of Oz, but was also well-known for work in burlesque, vaudeville, and on Broadway.-Early life:Lahr was born in New York City, of German-Jewish heritage...
, television presenter Dick Clark, and actor Gene Autry
Gene Autry
Orvon Grover Autry , better known as Gene Autry, was an American performer who gained fame as The Singing Cowboy on the radio, in movies and on television for more than three decades beginning in the 1930s...
.
Early career: 1922-1953
Muntz was fascinated by electronics from an early age. He built his first radio at age 8 and built another for his parents' car at age 14. During the Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, at age 15, he dropped out of Elgin High School to work in his parents' hardware store in Elgin, Illinois.
Car sales
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, Muntz discovered that used cars sold there for far higher prices; so he moved to California at age 26 to open a used car lot in Glendale
Glendale, California
Glendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city population is 191,719, down from 194,973 at the 2000 census. making it the third largest city in Los Angeles County and the 22nd largest city in the state of California...
. On a hunch, he purchased 13 brand-new right-hand-drive vehicles to resell. These vehicles had been built for customers in Asia, but could not be delivered due to World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. One vehicle was a custom-made Lincoln
Lincoln (automobile)
Lincoln is an American luxury vehicle brand of the Ford Motor Company. Lincoln vehicles are sold mostly in North America.-History:The company was founded in August 1915 by Henry M. Leland, one of the founders of Cadillac . During World War I, he left Cadillac which was sold to General Motors...
built for Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin....
. Local newspapers ran stories about the unusual cars, and Muntz sold them all within two weeks, still in their original shipping crates. Muntz soon opened a second lot in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
and closed his lot in Elgin.
Muntz rejected the then common opinion that used car salesmen should project a staid image. He realized the possibilities of generating publicity with odd stunts, and developed a "Madman" persona as a result. His flamboyant billboards and oddball television and radio commercials soon made him famous. In his used auto commercials, he marketed one model as the "daily special"; Muntz claimed that if the car did not sell that day, he would smash it to pieces on camera with a sledgehammer
Sledgehammer
A sledgehammer is a tool consisting of a large, flat head attached to a lever . The head is typically made of metal. The sledgehammer can apply more impulse than other hammers, due to its large size. Along with the mallet, it shares the ability to distribute force over a wide area...
. Another infamous Muntz used-car TV pitch was "I buy 'em retail and sell 'em wholesale ... it's more fun that way!" His commercials generated so much publicity that comedians such as Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
, Jack Benny
Jack Benny
Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...
, and Steve Allen
Steve Allen
Steve Allen may refer to:*Steve Allen , American musician, comedian, and writer*Steve Allen , presenter on the London-based talk radio station LBC 97.3...
often tried to outdo each other during television appearances by telling "Madman" Muntz jokes. University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
fans would spell out Muntz's name during halftime as a prank.
Muntz's car lots became tourist attractions due to the widespread publicity from his television commercial appearances. A 1946 survey by Panner Motor Tours revealed that they ranked seventh among tourist attractions in Southern California. Muntz was willing to take large risks in his attempts to generate publicity. During the era of McCarthyism
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
, he asked one of his advisers, "Do you think I'd make the front pages if I joined the Communist Party?"
Muntz Jet
Frank Kurtis
Frank Kurtis was an American racing car designer. He designed and built midget cars, quarter-midgets, sports cars, sprint cars, Indy cars, and Formula One cars. He was the founder of Kurtis-Kraft....
attempted to market a new sports car
Sports car
A sports car is a small, usually two seat, two door automobile designed for high speed driving and maneuverability....
, the two-seater Kurtis Kraft Sport. Only 36 units had been sold by 1950. In 1951, for just $200,000 ($ in ) Kurtis sold the cars' manufacturing license to Muntz, who quickly rebadged
Badge engineering
Badge engineering is an ironic term that describes the rebadging of one product as another...
them as the "Muntz Jet". Initial production of the Jet took place in Glendale, where Muntz extended the two-seater Kurtis Kraft Sport's body by 13 inches (33 cm), making it a four-seater, and exchanged the Ford V8
Ford Flathead engine
The Ford flathead V8 was a V8 engine of the flathead type, designed by the Ford Motor Company and built by Ford and various licensees...
engine for a larger Cadillac
Cadillac
Cadillac is an American luxury vehicle marque owned by General Motors . Cadillac vehicles are sold in over 50 countries and territories, but mostly in North America. Cadillac is currently the second oldest American automobile manufacturer behind fellow GM marque Buick and is among the oldest...
V8
V8 engine
A V8 engine is a V engine with eight cylinders mounted on the crankcase in two banks of four cylinders, in most cases set at a right angle to each other but sometimes at a narrower angle, with all eight pistons driving a common crankshaft....
. Later, after making just 28 Jets in California, Muntz moved production to a new factory in Evanston
Evanston, Illinois
Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, extended the body further by 3 inches (8 cm), and replaced the Cadillac V8 with a less expensive Lincoln sidevalve
Flathead engine
A flathead engine is an internal combustion engine with valves placed in the engine block beside the piston, instead of in the cylinder head, as in an overhead valve engine...
V8.
The Jet was featured on the cover of the September 1951 issue of Popular Science
Popular Science
Popular Science is an American monthly magazine founded in 1872 carrying articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. Popular Science has won over 58 awards, including the ASME awards for its journalistic excellence in both 2003 and 2004...
along with a Jaguar and an MG. It featured its own design, with aluminum body panels and a removable fiberglass
Fiberglass
Glass fiber is a material consisting of numerous extremely fine fibers of glass.Glassmakers throughout history have experimented with glass fibers, but mass manufacture of glass fiber was only made possible with the invention of finer machine tooling...
top. Paint schemes were extravagant, with names like "Mars Red", "Stratosphere Blue", and "Lime Mist", and interior options included alligator or Spanish leatherette. The backseat armrests contained a full cocktail bar.
The Jet was capable of a top speed of 125 miles per hour (201.2 km/h) and acceleration of 0–50 mph (0–80 km/h) in 6 seconds, a significant achievement for a road car at the time. The fastest production car in 1953 was the Pegaso Z-102 Supercharged
Pegaso Z-102
The Pegaso Z-102 was a sports car coupé produced in Spain between 1951 and 1958.-Background:Pegaso was an established company noted for its trucks and motor coaches, but also produced sports cars for seven years...
sports car at 155 miles per hour (249.4 km/h). Famous Jet owners included then-CEO of CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
Frank Stanton
Frank Stanton
Frank Nicholas Stanton was an American broadcasting executive who served as the president of CBS between 1946 and 1971 and then vice chairman until 1973. He also served as the chairman of the Rand Corporation from 1961 until 1967.Along with William S. Paley, Stanton is credited with the...
, and actors Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...
and Lash La Rue
Lash La Rue
Alfred "Lash" LaRue was a popular western motion picture star of the 1940s and 1950s. He had exceptional skill with the bull whip, and taught Harrison Ford how to use a bullwhip in the Indiana Jones movies...
.
The labor and materials required to produce the Jet resulted in a higher price for the end product, and in 1954, after selling about 400 cars and losing about $1,000 ($ in ) on each, Muntz closed the company. Today, Muntz Jets are highly prized collector cars and are recognized as predecessors to the Chevrolet Corvette
Chevrolet Corvette
The Chevrolet Corvette is a sports car by the Chevrolet division of General Motors that has been produced in six generations. The first model, a convertible, was designed by Harley Earl and introduced at the GM Motorama in 1953 as a concept show car. Myron Scott is credited for naming the car after...
and Ford Thunderbird
Ford Thunderbird
The Thunderbird , is an automobile manufactured by the Ford Motor Company in the United States over eleven model generations from 1955 through 2005...
.
Muntz TV
Muntz started plans to sell television receivers in 1946, and sales began in 1947. Muntz played the madman in his unorthodox television commercials, but in fact he was a shrewd businessman and a self-taught electrical engineer. By trial and error, taking apart and studying PhilcoPhilco
Philco, the Philadelphia Storage Battery Company , was a pioneer in early battery, radio, and television production as well as former employer of Philo Farnsworth, inventor of cathode ray tube television...
, RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
, and DuMont
DuMont Laboratories
DuMont Laboratories was an American television equipment manufacturer. The company was founded in 1931, by inventor Allen B. DuMont. Among the company's developments were long-lasting cathode ray tubes that would be used for television. Another product out of the lab was a DuMont invention, the...
televisions, he figured out how to reduce the devices' electrical components to their minimum functional number. This practice became known as "Muntzing
Muntzing
Muntzing is the practice and technique of reducing the components inside an electronic appliance to the minimum required for it to function. The term is named after the man who invented it, Earl "Madman" Muntz, a car and electronics salesman who was also a self-taught electrical engineer.In the...
".
In the 1940s and 1950s, most brands of television receivers were complicated pieces of equipment, commonly containing about 30 vacuum tube
Vacuum tube
In electronics, a vacuum tube, electron tube , or thermionic valve , reduced to simply "tube" or "valve" in everyday parlance, is a device that relies on the flow of electric current through a vacuum...
s, as well as rheostats, transformer
Transformer
A transformer is a device that transfers electrical energy from one circuit to another through inductively coupled conductors—the transformer's coils. A varying current in the first or primary winding creates a varying magnetic flux in the transformer's core and thus a varying magnetic field...
s, and other heavy components. As a result, they were usually very expensive: the cheapest U.S.-manufactured receiver made before World War II used a 3 inches (8 cm) screen and cost $125, the equivalent of $1,863 in 2007; the cheapest model with a 12 inches (30 cm) screen cost $445, equivalent to $6,633 in 2007. By 1954, although television had existed in various forms for more than 40 years, only 55 percent of U.S. households owned a receiver. By contrast, eight years later, 90 percent of U.S. households had one.
Monochrome
Monochrome describes paintings, drawings, design, or photographs in one color or shades of one color. A monochromatic object or image has colors in shades of limited colors or hues. Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale or black-and-white...
picture with 17 tubes. He often carried a pair of wire clippers, and when he thought that one of his employees was "over-engineering" a circuit, he would begin snipping components out until the picture or sound stopped working. At that point, he would tell the engineer "Well, I guess you have to put that last part back in" and walk away.
Marketed under the name "Muntz" by his company Muntz TV, Inc., the simplified units were the first black and white TV receivers to retail in the U.S. for less than $100. Muntz was also the first retailer to measure his screens from corner to corner rather than by width. The receivers sold well and were reliable partly because fewer tubes created less heat. The sets worked well in metropolitan areas that were close to television transmission towers where signals were strong. They worked poorly with weaker signals, as most of the components that Muntz had removed were intended to boost performance in fringe areas. This was a calculated decision: Muntz preferred to leave the low-volume, high-performance television receiver market to firms such as RCA and Zenith Electronics
Zenith Electronics
Zenith Electronics Corporation is a brand of the South Korean company LG Electronics. The company was previously an American manufacturer of televisions and other consumer electronics, and was headquartered in Lincolnshire, Illinois. LG Electronics acquired a controlling share of Zenith in 1995...
, as his intended customers were primarily urban dwellers with limited funds. Additionally, many urban apartment buildings had rules prohibiting external television aerials, and installation of an aerial, even if allowed, cost as much as $150. Muntz solved this problem by adding a built-in aerial to his receivers. In 1952, Muntz TV Inc. grossed $49.9 million.
Muntz continued with his "Madman" persona in many of his advertisements. In one TV commercial that normally aired after the Ed Sullivan Show, Muntz, dressed in red long johns
Long underwear
Long underwear, also called long johns, Granny pantys, or thermal underwear, is a style of two-piece underwear with long legs and long sleeves that is normally worn during cold weather. It offers an advantage over the one-piece union suit in that the wearer can choose to wear either the top,...
and a Napoleon hat, promoted his new 14 inches (36 cm) televisions by saying, "I wanna give 'em away, but Mrs. Muntz won't let me. She's crazy!" Another TV commercial presented a marching-band song with lyrics about Muntz TVs and incorporated animations by Oskar Fischinger
Oskar Fischinger
Oskar Fischinger was a German-American abstract animator, filmmaker, and painter. He made over 50 short animated films, and painted c. 800 canvases, many of which are in museums, galleries and collections worldwide. Among his film works is Motion Painting No. 1 , which is now listed on the...
. His radio commercials, which Muntz ran up to 170 times a day, initially followed a classical music theme built around the spelling of Muntz's name. However, he soon convinced radio stations to run ads more in line with his persona. In one advert, Muntz screamed "Stop staring at your radio!" He followed up his radio ads with a direct mail campaign, collecting thousands of TV knobs and mailing them to prospective customers with a note saying, "Call us and we'll show up with the rest of the set!"
Some sources credit Muntz with inventing the abbreviation "TV." Muntz used skywriting
Skywriting
Skywriting is the process of using a small aircraft, able to expel special smoke during flight, to fly in certain patterns to create writing readable by someone on the ground...
as one of his marketing tactics, but, after watching one of his ads being created, he noted that the letters began to blur and dissipate before the pilot could finish spelling out "Muntz Televisions". So Muntz came up with the abbreviation "TV". However, "TV" had earlier been used in the call letters of television stations, such as WCBS-TV
WCBS-TV
WCBS-TV, channel 2, is the flagship station of the CBS television network, located in New York City. The station's studios are located within the CBS Broadcast Center and its transmitter is atop the Empire State Building, both in Midtown Manhattan....
, which adopted those call letters in 1946. Muntz also named his daughter "Tee Vee", although she normally went by "Teena" and, later, "Tee".
Audio and video: 1954-1985
With the advent of color television by the mid-1950s, the market for black-and-white receivers shrank. Muntz's creditors refused to provide further financing in 1954. Muntz admitted his business lost $1,457,000 from April to August 1953, and although he tried to reorganize, Muntz TV filed bankruptcy and went out of business in 1959. However, Muntz's success continued in the sale of cars and general consumer electronics.4-track cartridge
Attempting to combine his two main product lines, cars and stereos, Muntz invented the Muntz Stereo-Pak 4-track4-track cartridge
The Muntz Stereo-Pak, commonly known as the 4-track cartridge, is a magnetic tape sound recording cartridge technology. The in-car tape player that played the Stereo-Pak cartridges was called the Autostereo, but it was generally marketed under the common Stereo-Pak trade name.The Stereo-Pak...
tape cartridge. 4-track was the direct predecessor of the Stereo 8 cartridge, also known as the "8-track", later developed by American inventor Bill Lear
Bill Lear
William Powell Lear was an American inventor and businessman. He is best known for founding the Lear Jet Corporation, a manufacturer of business jets...
. The Stereo-Pak cartridge was based on the endless-loop Fidelipac
Fidelipac
The Fidelipac, commonly known as an NAB cartridge or simply cart, is a magnetic tape sound recording format, used for radio broadcasting for playback of material over the air such as radio commercials, jingles, station identifications, and music. Fidelipac is the official name of this industry...
cartridge, which was being used by radio stations, designed by inventor George Eash. Muntz chose stereo recording as a standard feature because of its wide availability. Before Muntz developed the Stereo-Pak, the only in-car units capable of recorded playback were gramophone-based players, such as the Highway Hi-Fi
Highway Hi-Fi
Highway Hi-Fi was a system of proprietary players and seven-inch phonograph records with standard LP center holes designed for use in automobiles...
invented by Peter Goldmark
Peter Carl Goldmark
Peter Carl Goldmark was a German-Hungarian engineer who, during his time with Columbia Records, was instrumental in developing the long-playing microgroove 33-1/3 rpm vinyl phonograph disc, the standard for incorporating multiple or lengthy recorded works on a single disc for two generations...
. These units played special 16 2/3 rpm records or 45 rpm
Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
records, however they tended to skip whenever the vehicle hit a bump in the road, and attempts to alleviate this by increasing the pressure on the arm caused discs to wear out prematurely.
Muntz designed a stereo tape player called the Autostereo for cars and had it inexpensively manufactured in Japan. The Autostereo could play a complete album without changing tracks or turning the tape over, did not suffer from skipping or premature wear as the gramophone-based players did, and its number of knobs and controls were minimized to allow the driver to concentrate on the road. The tape player gave customers greater control over their listening experiences, because the tapes never ran advertisements or public service announcements, unlike radio broadcasts. Muntz sold the players and cartridges from his own stores and through franchise
Franchising
Franchising is the practice of using another firm's successful business model. The word 'franchise' is of anglo-French derivation - from franc- meaning free, and is used both as a noun and as a verb....
s in Florida and Texas.
Muntz audio products were so profitable by 1962 that he cancelled his agreements with tape-duplicating companies and founded his own company to manufacture prerecorded Stereo-Pak cartridges. Most record companies did not manufacture Stereo-Pak cartridges themselves; however, the Muntz Electronics Corporation licensed music from all the major record labels and issued hundreds of different tapes in the mid to late 1960s. Muntz exhibited his Autostereo players and Stereo-Pak cartridges under the trade name Stereo-Pak at the 1967 Consumer Electronics Show
Consumer Electronics Show
The International Consumer Electronics Show is a major technology-related trade show held each January in the Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. Not open to the public, the Consumer Electronics Association-sponsored show typically hosts previews of products and new...
.
Aftermarket (automotive)
The automotive aftermarket is the secondary market of the automotive industry, concerned with the manufacturing, remanufacturing, distribution, retailing, and installation of all vehicle parts, chemicals, tools, equipment and accessories for light and heavy vehicles, after the sale of the...
addition to cars among the Beverly Hills rich and famous. Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
used one in his Buick Riviera
Buick Riviera
The Riviera by Buick is an automobile produced by Buick in the United States from the 1963 to 1999 model years, with 1,127,261 produced.A full-size coupé or personal luxury car, the early models of the Riviera in particular have been highly praised by automotive journalists and writers.A common...
, Dean Martin
Dean Martin
Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...
in his Corvette, and Peter Lawford
Peter Lawford
Peter Sydney Ernest Aylen , better known as Peter Lawford, was an English-American actor.He was a member of the "Rat Pack", and brother-in-law to US President John F. Kennedy, perhaps more noted in later years for his off-screen activities as a celebrity than for his acting...
in his Ghia
Carrozzeria Ghia
Carrozzeria Ghia SpA is one of the most famous Italian automobile design and coachbuilding firms, established by Giacinto Ghia and Gariglio as Carrozzeria Ghia & Gariglio, located at 4 Corso Valentino in Turin....
. James Garner
James Garner
James Garner is an American film and television actor, one of the first Hollywood actors to excel in both media. He has starred in several television series spanning a career of more than five decades...
, Red Skelton
Red Skelton
Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton was an American comedian who is best known as a top radio and television star from 1937 to 1971. Skelton's show business career began in his teens as a circus clown and went on to vaudeville, Broadway, films, radio, TV, night clubs and casinos, all while pursuing...
, and Lawrence Welk
Lawrence Welk
Lawrence Welk was an American musician, accordionist, bandleader, and television impresario, who hosted The Lawrence Welk Show from 1955 to 1982...
also used Autostereo players in their cars. Barry Goldwater
Barry Goldwater
Barry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr...
purchased one for his son, and Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis is an American comedian, actor, singer, film producer, screenwriter and film director. He is best known for his slapstick humor in film, television, stage and radio. He was originally paired up with Dean Martin in 1946, forming the famed comedy team of Martin and Lewis...
recorded his scripts onto Stereo-Pak cartridges to learn his lines while driving.
Muntz attempted to establish a modern, trendy image for his players and cartridges. His print advertisements often showed the player installed in an appealing sports car and usually incorporated a young, attractive model with a suggestive tagline. Most of his employees in his California shops were attractive young women dressed in overbright clothing.
Bill Lear distributed the Stereo-Pak in 1963, intending to install units in his Learjet aircraft. However, he soon decided to re-engineer and customize the units to suit his own wishes, the result of which became the Stereo 8 system. The market for Muntz's 4-track system had faded by 1970 due to competition from Stereo 8, which reduced costs by using less magnetic tape and a less-complex cartridge mechanism. Although the 4-track system had higher fidelity since the tape speed was double the speed of the Stereo 8 system (and the 4-track had wider heads for better bandwidth), the Stereo 8 quickly became the dominant format for car stereo systems during the late 1960s. Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...
began featuring Stereo 8 players in their 1965 automobiles, and it became a standard option by 1966.
In a 1979 interview in The Videophile newsletter, Muntz revealed the biggest problem for the Stereo-Pak business was returned merchandise. He explained that when reproducing the work of major artists like The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, the Stereo-Pak plant had to make hundreds of thousands of cartridges. But once a popular album became less popular, retailers would return the unsold cartridges, expecting credit towards new titles. Muntz was unprepared for the returns and said the huge cost of unsold merchandise eventually made his Stereo-Pak business unprofitable.
Home video
In late 1970, Muntz closed his Stereo-Pak audio business after a fire severely damaged his main offices. He then entered the growing home-video market. During the mid-1970s, Muntz thought of taking a 15 inches (38 cm) SonySony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
color cathode ray tube
Cathode ray tube
The cathode ray tube is a vacuum tube containing an electron gun and a fluorescent screen used to view images. It has a means to accelerate and deflect the electron beam onto the fluorescent screen to create the images. The image may represent electrical waveforms , pictures , radar targets and...
(CRT) television receiver, fitting it with a special lens and reflecting mirror, then projecting the magnified image onto a larger screen. He housed these primitive units in a large wooden console
Entertainment center
A home entertainment center is a piece of furniture seen in many homes in North America, which houses major electronic items, such as a television set, a VCR and/or DVD player, stereo components , and cable or satellite television receivers...
, making it one of the first successful widescreen projection TV receivers marketed for home use.
The receivers were built in Muntz's headquarters in Van Nuys, California. Sony's U.S. sales division was unaware that Muntz was dealing directly with Sony's Tokyo original equipment manufacturer
Original Equipment Manufacturer
An original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, manufactures products or components that are purchased by a company and retailed under that purchasing company's brand name. OEM refers to the company that originally manufactured the product. When referring to automotive parts, OEM designates a...
(OEM) department, which shipped him the TV chassis directly. Thanks to Muntz's talent for mass-market advertising and self-promotion, by 1977 the projection receivers were a multi-million-dollar business. Muntz was quick to feature Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
's Betamax
Betamax
Betamax was a consumer-level analog videocassette magnetic tape recording format developed by Sony, released on May 10, 1975. The cassettes contain -wide videotape in a design similar to the earlier, professional wide, U-matic format...
as well as JVC
JVC
, usually referred to as JVC, is a Japanese international consumer and professional electronics corporation based in Yokohama, Japan which was founded in 1927...
's and RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
's VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
recorders in his store, setting up a showroom to demonstrate the potential for a "theater experience in the home".
In 1979, Muntz decided to sell blank tapes and VCRs as loss leader
Loss leader
A loss leader or leader is a product sold at a low price to stimulate other profitable sales. It is a kind of sales promotion, in other words marketing concentrating on a pricing strategy. A loss leader is often a popular article...
s to attract customers to his showroom, where he would then try to sell them his projection TV systems. His success continued through the early 1980s until he invested heavily in the Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
Compact Video Cassette
Compact Video Cassette
Compact Video Cassette was one of the first analog recording videocassette formats to use a tape smaller than its earlier predecessors of VHS and Betamax, and was developed by Funai Electronics of Japan. The first model of VCR for the format was the Model 212, introduced in 1980 by both Funai and...
(CVC), a 1/4 in (0.6 cm) system designed to compete with Betamax, VHS, and the Super 8
Super 8 mm film
Super 8 mm film is a motion picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement of the older "Double" or "Regular" 8 mm home movie format....
film home-movie system. The CVC format failed in the marketplace, sales quickly eroded, and Muntz's store closed soon after.
Later years
Shortly before dying of lung cancer in 1987, Muntz centered his retail business on cellular phones, satellite dishSatellite dish
A satellite dish is a dish-shaped type of parabolic antenna designed to receive microwaves from communications satellites, which transmit data transmissions or broadcasts, such as satellite television.-Principle of operation:...
es, a motorhome
Motorhome
A motorhome is a type of self-propelled recreational vehicle or RV which offers living accommodation combined with a vehicle engine. The term motorhome is most commonly used in the UK, US, and Canada.-Features:...
rental company dubbed "Muntz Motor Mansions", and prefabricated aluminum houses. He made headlines in February 1985 as the first retailer to offer a Hitachi
Hitachi, Ltd.
is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Marunouchi 1-chome, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The company is the parent of the Hitachi Group as part of the larger DKB Group companies...
cellular phone for less than $1,000 ($ in ), when just two years earlier most cellular phones had cost about $3,000 ($ in ). At the time of his death, he was the leading retailer of cellular phones in Los Angeles. During his final years, Muntz drove a customized Lincoln Continental
Lincoln Continental
The Lincoln Continental is an automobile which was produced by the Lincoln division of Ford Motor Company from 1939 to 1948 and again from 1956 to 2002...
with a television installed in the dashboard: Muntz claimed it helped him "drive better".
After he died, his children, James and Tee, continued to operate two Muntz stores in Van Nuys and Newhall; the remainder of the stores were franchise
Chain store
Chain stores are retail outlets that share a brand and central management, and usually have standardized business methods and practices. These characteristics also apply to chain restaurants and some service-oriented chain businesses. In retail, dining and many service categories, chain businesses...
d businesses. James employed his father's advertising techniques to create splashy ads featuring prices that annoyed his competitors so much that they referred to them as "cutthroat
Cut-throat competition
Cut-throat competition, also known as destructive or ruinous competition, refers to situations when competition results in prices that do not chronically or for extended periods of time cover costs of production, particularly fixed costs...
".
Legacy
The "Madman" method pioneered by Muntz was later copied by other retailers, including California car salesman Cal WorthingtonCal Worthington
Calvin Coolidge "Cal" Worthington is a well-known car dealer throughout the West Coast of the United States. He is best known for his unique radio and television advertisements for the Worthington Dealership Group. He was usually joined by "his dog Spot", except that "Spot" was never a dog...
and New York area electronics chain Crazy Eddie
Crazy Eddie
Crazy Eddie is the name of a consumer electronics retailer conducting business through the internet and by telephone. The venture is the most recent to be doing business under the Crazy Eddie name, with the most well known being a chain of retail stores that operated throughout New York, New...
. In Crazy Eddie TV commercials, radio personality Jerry Carroll leapt at the camera and jumped around while jabbering at high speed, always ending with the line, "Crazy Eddie: Our prices are insaaaaaane!". As a result of his Crazy Eddie commercials, Carroll became a significant 80s icon, even appearing in the film Splash
Splash (film)
Splash is a 1984 American fantasy romantic comedy film directed by Ron Howard and written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The original music score was composed by Lee Holdridge...
.
Muntz' cultural impact was such that he was mentioned in novels, including children's book
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
The Neddiad: How Neddie Took The Train, Went To Hollywood, And Saved Civilization by Daniel Manus Pinkwater, The Lost Get-Back Boogie by James Lee Burke
James Lee Burke
James Lee Burke is an American author of mysteries, best known for his Dave Robicheaux series. He has won an Edgar Award for Black Cherry Blues and Cimarron Rose . The Robicheaux character has been portrayed twice on screen, first by Alec Baldwin and then Tommy Lee Jones...
, and Franklin Mason's Four Roses in Three Acts .
A production called Madman Muntz: American Maverick was screened at film festivals through 2007. Directed by Dan Bunker and Judy ver Mehr, it was produced by Jim Castoro, an owner of an original Muntz Jet. The film was an official 2005 selection at the San Fernando Valley International Film Festival and the Ole Muddy Film Festival. The film documents Muntz's life, paying particular attention to his colorful career, and includes interviews with people who knew him and home movie footage contributed by his children.
The KCET
KCET
KCET, channel 28, is an independent, non-commercial public television station licensed to Los Angeles, California, USA. KCET's studio is located on West Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, and its transmitter is atop Mount Wilson. Al Jerome is the current CEO and President, serving since 1996.KCET was...
1997 documentary More Things That Aren't Here Anymore has a segment on Muntz and is broadcast by the station regularly during pledge periods.
In 2001, Madman Muntz was posthumously inducted into the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame
Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame
The Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame, founded by the Consumer Electronics Association , honors leaders whose creativity, persistence, determination and personal charisma helped to shape the industry and made the consumer electronics marketplace what it is today...
.
External links
- Earl Muntz Biography, a short biography from the Consumer Electronics Association website
- Madman Muntz: American Maverick, a biography from the website of a biopic about him
- History of the Muntz Jet
- Earl Muntz, the 4-Track Madman, from a website maintained by fans of 8-track tapes