JC: I have done so much commercial work....for Sony, Showtime, St. John's University, and many others. I once did the weather on Eyewitness News. I'm a commercial announcer. But that high-energy, manic delivery was something I only did for Eddie.
DS: Your performances embodied a brand. Do you have a sense of how powerful that brand still is today?
JC: I have a sense of how powerful that brand still is to a degree, absolutely. I can go out anytime and someone will still say, "Aren't you...?" I just say, "That's my brother." It happens to me all the time.
DS: What do you think of relaunching a Crazie Eddie electronics retail operation twenty years later?
JC: It's hard to say. The brand name is worth something that's hard to quantify. They [the Gemal family] seem to have a good idea of what they want to do, so I'd say it might work.
DS: We hear you may be involved in the Gemal family's new Crazy Eddie and www.pricesareinsane.com ventures.
JC: We've talked. I've met Jack [Gemal] and he seems like a decent, honest human being with all good thoughts about life.
DS: Any opinions about the electronics retail experience as it's evolved over the years?
JC: Today with the intenet, things are so different, it's hard to get a handle on it. I think if you have a big internet exposure and a small brick-and-mortar footprint, that may make it work. I live in Manhattan and one of the things I really like is to walk into places and still meet the people I'm buying something from. There is still value in that.
DS: Last question...do you ever do the Crazy Eddie voice today, you know, just for friends or after a couple drinks?
JC: No, absolutely not. I've even been offered $5,000 to do the voice at a Bar Mitzvah but I won't do it. That's not what that character was for.
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