CORPORATIONS: Dig That Crazy Man

In Chicago, a center of the U.S. television industry, old hands catalogued brash, upstart young Earl W. (for William) Muntz as merely another California screwball when he invaded their city and their business four years ago. They knew that “Madman” Muntz’s zany advertising, depicting himself as a lunatic in a Napoleon hat (“I buy ’em retail, sell ’em wholesale. More fun that way!”) had made him the used-car king of Los Angeles. But they assumed that the tough TV business would soon drive him really crazy.

The industry is not yet willing to grant that the Madman, or his Muntz TV Inc., is here to stay, but it has long since concluded that he is just as mad a success in TV as he was in used cars. Last year his TV company grossed $49.9 million and last week Muntz, now 39, announced that he is ready to invade a new business, air conditioning. Two years ago he bought the tools, dies and inventory of Tropicair Air Conditioner, plans to turn out a half-ton conditioner listing at $239 and a three-quarter ton unit at $269, about 30% less than existing models. Muntz’s design has a new wrinkle: a glass-fiber cabinet which is much lighter than metal, needs no paint, forestalls unsightly rust stains dripping down the outside of buildings from metal-cased window units.

Native’s Return. Muntz, born in Elgin, Ill., was 20 when he started his used-car business there. Seven years later he opened a lot in Los Angeles. As a speculation, he bought 13 new, war-stranded, right-hand-drive cars which had been built for the Orient, including a custom-built Lincoln intended for Chiang Kaishek. When Los Angeles papers ran stories about the cars, Muntz sold the entire lot in two weeks without even unpacking all the crates, made a tidy profit.

He decided to stake his whole profit on promotion, turned himself into the Madman. His billboards, with their mad legends (“I wanna give them away, but Mrs. Muntz won’t let me. She’s crazy.”) and his singing commercials made his name a California gag. Red Skelton, Bing Crosby and others kidded his commercials, the University of Southern California rooting section spelled out his name at halftime, and soldiers at Santa Ana Camp marched into chow singing “MUNTZ, that’s Muntz.” And his gross jumped from $150,000 to $1,000,000 a month. Dissatisfied with car design, he put out his own custom-built sports car, still makes 100 a year.

Back to Sanity. In TV, he has kept the bicorne-hatted Napoleonic figure as a symbol, but toned down the goofiness of his ads. Says he: “We have to deal with bankers now, and bankers are very stuffy people.” But he has used the same drumfire method (including skywriting) to sell his sets. Furthermore, his markup is so low (only about 20% above cost) that his is one of the few sets whose “list” price discount houses can seldom shade. He built volume on a slim profit; last year’s $49.9 million sales yielded only $691,657 net, after taxes. Nobody knows whether Muntz will survive when competition gets tougher, but everybody knows that he will at least make it interesting. Confidently, Muntz himself predicts that air conditioning will double his present gross in two or three years.