Philosophy’s Same, but Pitch for Car Phones in Some Ways ‘More Sedate’ : Madman Muntz’ Heirs Keep the Volume Up

During the last few years of his life, Earl (Madman) Muntz would say Muntz Electronics, his Van Nuys consumer electronics business, was “The Oldest Living Name in Video.”

His proof was simple. There wasn’t a living person in the business named RCA or Zenith. But there was a guy named Muntz.

It has been a little more than a year since the flamboyant pitchman died of cancer at age 73. But the Muntz name lives on through his son, James, 48, who oversees the two Muntz stores in Van Nuys and Newhall as president, and Earl Muntz’ daughter, Tee Vee, 36, who is the company’s vice president. She was given her name by her father--who was married seven times--as a promotional stunt when he was selling black-and-white television sets in the early 1950s.

Earl Muntz was arguably the nation’s first advertising pitchman-celebrity, first as a used car salesman in the 1940s and later as the seller of such things as televisions, four-track car stereos, the first generation of big screen television sets and home satellite dishes.

Using a cartoon drawing of Napoleon in long johns as his mascot, Madman Muntz invented something of a “that-guy-belongs-in-a-straitjacket” style of advertising. A generation before “Crazy Eddie” screamed at New York viewers about how insane his stereo prices were and before “Fred Rated” went berserk on camera in Southern California selling stereos for Federated Group, Earl Muntz was proclaiming that he was a madman for slashing prices.

It’s a more sedate company today that, James Muntz says, “soft-pedals” the Muntz name, in part because most young people don’t know it. About half of the company’s $15 million in annual sales are car phones, with the rest primarily from televisions, video cameras and video recorders.

James had worked for his father most of his life in various businesses, including a stint running a motorcycle park for him in Simi Valley. He says there is little difference between his basic business philosophy and his father’s approach: It’s not so much what you sell, just sell lots of it to keep the cash flowing through the business.

“The first words I learned growing up,” James Muntz said, “were ‘Mama,’ ‘Papa’ and ‘volume.’ ”

Indeed, Muntz now claims to be the biggest retailer of cellular phones in Southern California. Competitors dispute it but acknowledge that Muntz is among the largest.

Just as his father did, James Muntz is irking competitors with splashy ads that emphasize low prices, some at what competitors say are cutthroat levels. Some of his rivals say some of the low prices Muntz features in his ads, such as one car phone advertised at $399 recently, are gimmicks to get attention.

“There’s no phone around town I know of that would cost them less than $450. You can’t sell the product for $399. It doesn’t make sense,” said Mitch Mohr, president of giant Celluphone in the City of Commerce.

Muntz’s marketing doesn’t go over well with some people in the car phone business, who believe that the largely upscale buyers should be sold by emphasizing service rather than price.

“Muntz is not looked upon with a lot of esteem because of the advertising techniques they use. They’re like a mass merchandiser,” said Robert Hutchinson, president of the National Assn. of Cellular Agents in Houston, a trade organization for cellular phone sellers.

James Muntz says he markets the way he does because the business is highly competitive. He adds that he can buy for $299 the phones he sells for $399 and make a profit of about $25 on each after other overhead costs are added.

In addition, he notes, companies that sell cellular phones also receive money from operators of the cellular networks. In Los Angeles, there are two companies: Pacific Telesis’ PacTel Cellular and Los Angeles Cellular, a joint venture of BellSouth Corp. in Atlanta and Lin Broadcasting Corp. of New York that Muntz represents as an agent. Industry executives said the amounts that sellers of cellular phones can receive range from $150 to $250 per customer they sign up.

For all their efforts, James and Tee Vee know their father is not an easy act to follow.

Earl Muntz first built his madman image when he sold used cars in the 1940s with radio ads that at one point aired 176 times a day on various Los Angeles stations. “I buy them retail and sell them wholesale,” he would say. “It’s more fun that way.”

In another commercial, he said his wife thought he was crazy for selling cars at such low prices.

He also relished publicity stunts. Muntz once said he considered joining the Communist Party in 1948, not for ideological reasons, but because he thought the controversy could get him on the front page. When he sold car stereos in the 1960s, he paid employees $50 a month to drive around in cars equipped with car stereos with the Muntz name and the words “Honk for a Demonstration” painted in bold letters on the sides of their vehicles.

Not that he had to work at getting publicity. Comedians such as Jack Benny and Bob Hope joked regularly about him. His car lot on Figueroa Street at one time was a regular stop on a Hollywood tour-bus route.

Today, the Muntz children run the business out of a warehouse-like building in Van Nuys that resembles a Muntz museum, which is what Earl Muntz was planning to build when he died.

On the walls are dozens of pictures of famous people who knew him. One picture is of the giant Spruce Goose plane that the late billionaire and aviator Howard Hughes barely managed to get off the water near Long Beach in 1947. Muntz’s picture includes an inscription from Hughes that reads: “I hope that some day Long Beach will regard this plane with a certain amount of pride.”

In the back, they store a cream-colored Muntz Jet sports car their father designed in 1951. Throughout the building are black-and-white, Muntz-brand television sets. In a glass case are Muntz four-track cartridge stereo machines, later made obsolete by more versatile cassette players.

James Muntz doesn’t want the company to just be a monument to the past. Among his most recent changes are selling facsimile machines. He’s also planning to market a Muntz-brand cellular phone.

James Muntz acknowledges that the company’s discounting makes it tough to make a big profit. He estimates that the net profit margin at Muntz is less than 2% of sales, which is why, like his father, he is constantly working to build up sales volume.

“My dad was always a volume dealer. He bought stuff in as much quantity as possible and gouged at the prices,” he said.