We had a store in KC called "Silo" that was a weird conglomeration of house-wares and consumer electronics, they always (without fail) had the highest prices in the area on an item, their only saving grace was that occasionally they would carry items that you couldn't get anywhere else w/out mail-ordering them. I was never sure if they were a national chain or not...

Speaking of which does anyone remember "Service Merchandise"? They were sort of a precursor to CC in so far as they had a warehouse on site and nearly anything you wanted to buy there had to be ordered from the ware house via tickets that you grabbed from the displays and then turned in at check out, then you had to go wait by an unmanned conveyor belt for your stuff to come out through a hole in the wall. I always thought service merchandise was a national chain but again I was never sure...

bpapa9013

i'm the wiz!

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funkyou52

@G_Money21: The Wiz at least was mainly a Tri-State shop. I live Upstate and Rochester cable used to carry SportsChannel NY where they advertised non-stop. I was always pissed that I couldn't shop there (or Modell's.) The first trip I took to NYC I demanded that make parents take me there.

The Wiz still has an online shop.
[www.thewiz.com]

twoeightnine

Anyone remember "Best"

[en.wikipedia.org]

G_Money21

Were the Wiz and Crazy Eddie National retailers? I know we had them both in Jersey, didnt know if they were national or not.

Before CompUSA there was "Computer City". That's where my folks purchased my first computer back in 1995 (this was in jersey). A packard Bell lol.

G_Money21

Nobody beats the Wiz!

pdditty

AHHH The Wiz ...a Walkman from the Wiz and a Fudgie the Whale cake from Carvel. So warm, so fuzzy.
Good times...Good Times..

Yetibelle

I'm going to Consumer's Distributing to buy a JIL/Candle brand AM/FM cassette player.

General Halfshaftery

@Cordfucious v 2.0.1: We had a Silo in Philly too

pdditty

@twoeightnine: We had a Silo in New Orleans too.. we brought our first VCR there....

Cordfucious v 2.0.1

$217 for a VCR, haha, and that was a while back that price would be even higher nowadays... And those stupid things are only taking up space in my attic now along with those plastic bricks you put into them.

Avizzv92

Apparently they still exist. Nobody Beats The Wiz!

latterman

@bpapa9013: Yeah, we had one of those in Rochester. A Gold Circle too.

twoeightnine

The Wiz's branding and marketing always made me suspicious that all the merchandise was hot (hot as in stolen, not sexy).

BlushResponse

What about Service Merchandise.....

Cordfucious v 2.0.1

@S-Mies: Thats what I want to know. I guess when you only got 3-4 channels OTA, ir possibly wasnt a big deal that it selected a random channel.. but wtf? Technology!

Scazza

WTF does "Random access remote" mean?
Does it work randomly?

S-Mies

@bpapa9013:
Yeah, we had Silo here in Colorado as well... I miss Fred Schmid, I bought many of my early electronics from them. Oh and LaBelles which became BEST.

qphayes

@G_Money21:

God yes..my parents used to make the trek to the Delaware store (Newark, I think) for any big electronics. I think they have the dual tape deck they bought there.

Any Marylanders remember Luskin's?

Posthaus

I used to work at the Wiz back when they were expanding rapidly. Store 46 for life!

dmbfan3333

@bpapa9013:

No Silo but when I was a kid in the SF Bay Area we had Service Merchandise, I used to go in there to play on computers lol. That fricken' conveyor belt thing was weird.

Valicore

DAK

whootowl

@VakeroRokero: Commercial's from 1986, After Effects came out in 1993.

twoeightnine

Anyone know how that "The Wiz" logo animation in the end was done? could it be done using Adobe After Effects?

VakeroRokero

I feel embarrassingly old remembering "Nobody Beats the Wiz" (which was truncated later to "The Wiz") and "Service Merchandise"

I do remember the wiz having sneaky sales Unfortunately, I can't remember exactly what they were, but I know it did involve cablevision so that's enough of that

discounteggroll

@Yetibelle: And Cookie Puss. And around St. Patricks Day, Cookie O'Puss.

Git Em SteveDave loves this guy-->

Given enough time, do any consumer electronics stores not go out of business?

frigg

The wiz is what happens when your local cablecompany (in this case cablevision) tries to run an electronics store.

majortom1029

I remember buying my first TV at the Silo! It even came with a remote!!! it was missing the numbers so there was the power, channel and volume up/down buttons and mute!

That's it!!! Still have the TV but not the remote.

Samets

@frigg: We all go "out of business" eventually.

Comrade GadgetPlay, Fellow Traveler

@whootowl: Drew Kaplan! I loved his catalogs, and got a variety of audio stuff from them.

Comrade GadgetPlay, Fellow Traveler

wasn't the wiz owned by cablevision?

the company that somehow is less douchebag-ish than comcast, eventhough the supreme douchebag dolan family owns it?

rimplestultskin needs an aluminum macbook

@Kuato: Wow, not that I watch this, it was way funnier in the '80s.

Kuato

Federated (Fred Rated)

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Kuato

@S-Mies: My first TV was a sequential access TV that my grandfather got from the hospital he worked at (they were replacing them). It had one big button on the (wired) remote that changed the channel to the next one. "Off" was a channel, so you had to go through all 15 or so to get back to off. It was quite a contraption.

And it could only change channels in one direction.

I'm sure Random Access was the term they used when punching in the number of the channel you wanted was first added. Now it's so standard, it's not even mentioned. Kind of like how Color Picture isn't usually mentioned on Plasma TVs.

Luke

@latterman: It is a PC Richard's front. PC Richards, for those that do not know, may be the current sleaze leader as far as chains go (Brooklyn shops excluded). Most of the stuff is open box even though it is not advertised as such. My one in-law, an insane NYC cop, was ripped off by them. He showed up at the 14th St. store near Union Square with a megaphone and spent two hours telling anyone who would get close to the door that the store rips people off. I stopped by and it was hilarious; all the NYU kiddies who were walking by were terrified!

getz76

@he who still uses a sony clie, and once called himself rimp...: Wrong. Cablevision is by far more douchebag-ish. I have experience with both. I will take Comcast's conniving over Cablevision's gross incompetence any day; at least you have a chance getting service with Comcast. Throw the Dolan's in the mix and it is lights out!

getz76

you know what I think alot of people forgot... that the wiz was one of the only places I knew that you can actually buy a Mac

Delmarc

I remember working there during the holidays. Management sent a soundtrack to be played in the store. The lyrics are ground into my head.

"Giving beats everything. Nothing makes you feel so good. Giving beats everything. Nobody beats the Wiz".

Man I hated that song.

sartoman

The Wiz really was the first major source of my Gadget addiction. I could not drive to Milford CT without stopping in and sitting in the theater and listening to the wonder Dolby Pro Logic of Top Gun. Later in college there was a huge Wiz in the Syracuse mall as well, later replaced by (crappy) Lechmere.

How is Best Buy successful when all the others failed? They all seem to be pretty much the same.

jwardell

Federated baby! I loved their old commercials, you can find them on youtube.

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bitgod

Now that Circuit City's closing up shop...

They're not closing up shop (at least, not yet). They're trying to reorganize. It's the difference between Chapter 11 and Chapter 7. (I forget which is which.)

Hyman Decent

@Comrade GadgetPlay, Fellow Traveler: I wish I still had my Thunder Lizards.

whootowl

If you grew up in the SF Bay Area in the 80's, you've certainly seen these commercials: Get a BIKE! -

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tech-tard

@G_Money21:
I remember it. Strangely enough, the location that "Best" used to occupy nearby is now home to a "Best Buy"

bookishboy