Thursday - November 29, 2012

Two From Uncle Stevie

OCM is going to be sooo happy with that last one!

* in the interest of full disclosure, Steve Crowder is no relation of mine, not even an uncle. I got the name “Uncle Stevie” from a old memory that popped up ... once upon a time there was a discount appliance store in the NYC area called JGE. This was way back in the day, long before Crazy Eddie’s ever existed with his memorable “His prices are insane!” tag line, or any of the big box discount stores like Target. JGE was a low margin discount store that was only open to union members. You had to show a union card to get in the door. Their tag line was “Hey Jerry, what’s the story?” and Jerry would come out in worn jeans, work boots, a hardhat, and an old T-shirt and do his spiel for whatever product was on sale that week, ending with a big arms wide open gesture that would raise up his shirt and show off his beer gut as he sang out “… and dat’s da stor-rie!” Shortly thereafter another discount store opened up, which was open to everyone, called Uncle Stevie’s. His prices were “insane” too, but his approach was a little more low key, and Uncle Stevie, fresh off the immigrant boat with a foreign accent you couldn’t cut with a chainsaw would end every ad with “I’m Uncle Stevie and I love ya!” I think they put each other out of business after a few years. THEN along came Crazy Eddie, who focused on small consumer electronics at first, and as far as I know, that one became a franchise chain that is still in business today. This has nothing whatsoever to do with Steve Crowder, but it’s a little bit of New York City marketing history from the mid 70s to early 80s. The commercials were everywhere, all the time. To this day the slogans stick in people’s memories; do a google on “hey jerry” and the first hits are all for JGE, which was out of business long before the internet was even a blip on anyone’s radar.

Posted by Drew458     on 11/29/2012 at 10:09 AM   
Filed Under: • Fun-Stuff •  
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