Happy Veteran’s Day, everyone! To observe this holiday and honor our brave fighting and organizing and cooking and repairing and logisticating veterans, we’re giving everyone a half-day, which I’m sure is what veterans would want. But before we do that, I want to talk about something I noticed on a wonderful Muntz Jet I happened to encounter recently, something barely veteran-related, but enough for me to use that as the thinnest possible justification for this morning’s Cold Start.
There’s a lot to say about the Muntz Jet, and we’ll likely be doing more content about this remarkable car in the nearish future, but for now I just want to focus on one detail, one that relates to the incredible personality behind the car, Earl “Madman” Muntz.
First, though, let’s talk a bit about the car, because it’s a deeply interesting car.
The Muntz Jet actually started life as a Kurtis Sport Car, an aluminum two-seater designed and developed by Frank Kurtis, of race car-building Kurtis Kraft fame. These cars didn’t sell (only about 17 were built), and so Kraft sold the rights and tooling to the car for a pretty dirt-cheap price.
Muntz stretched the car to include a rear seat, making it more of a fast touring car than an outright sports car, and the cars started out as aluminum with a Cadillac V8, but later versions switched to steel construction with a Lincoln V8.
Muntz built and sold the jet between 1949 and 1954, building some in Glendale, California, and Evanston and Chicago, Illinois. Living up to his “madman” persona, each Jet sold for about $5,500 (around $67,000 today), but cost around $6,500 to build, which is not really great for business. About 198 Jets were built, losing Muntz a good bit of money.
But let’s stick with this “Madman” idea, because that’s what I want to talk about; the “madman” persona was one that Muntz cultivated in his roles as a seller of low-priced televisions, where he started that trend of retailers being “crazy” for selling top-notch goods at prices so low they’d have to be nuts! And he really did sell things cheap: Muntz developed the first television under $100, and actually popularized the term “TV” for “television,” allegedly getting the idea because skywriters took to long to spell out “television.”
Oh, and he named his daughter “Tee Vee.” For realsies.
Back to the bit I want to talk about: it’s there in the center of the steering wheel, the little cartoon icon Madman Muntz used for his businesses. Take a look at how he’s dressed:
He’s wearing a bicorn hat, better known as a “Napoleon hat.” He’s wearing one because for the better part of a century, being “crazy” was associated with someone thinking they were Napoleon.
I remember this trope very well from my childhood, as it often showed up in cartoons; if someone was crazy, they’d shove their hand in their shirt and wear a hat that looked like one of those hats, and go around claiming to be Napoleon.
Hell, look at this old ad for Goofy Grape, part of Pilsbury’s “Funny Face” series of powdered-crap drinks designed to compete with Kool-Aid:
Look at that: the crazy grape is wearing a Napoleon hat because, duh, he’s a crazy grape!
So, where did this all come from? Napoleon wasn’t exactly relevant in the mid-20th century, so why were we still suggesting mentally disturbed people thought they were the French emperor?
Well, there’s some pretty good theories and explanations about that. Essentially, it comes down to this: grandiose delusions (GD) are a known thing among people with certain conditions, where people believe themselves to be incredibly important and powerful. Often this manifests itself as a person believing they are some well-know historical figure, like Jesus or some king, or, yes Napoleon.
Napoleon-based GDs were most popular when Napoleon himself was popular, in the early-to-mid 1800s, which was also the same time that the nascent science of psychiatry, so it became pretty well-documented.
Napoleon had a well-known popular cultural personality, haughty and loud and quick to anger and forceful, all things one could easily emulate should you believe you were Napoleon.
For whatever reason, this association of GD and Napoleon persisted throughout the 1800s and into the 1900s, where it started to be portrayed in early movies and then cartoons and comics. By the 1930s to 1940s, it was a well-establish trope, and it lumbered on well into the 1970s, just because of iconic momentum, even though Napoleon was hardly an influential figure anymore, having been exiled to St.Helena in 1815 after his defeat at Waterloo, and then, in an even worse blow to his ability to influence people, he made the poor PR decision to become dead in 1821.
So, in the 1940s and 1950s, you could still stick a guy in a Napoleon hat and everyone would know that meant that dude was off his rocker. Hence the Madman Muntz’ choice of headgear!
I think this has largely died off today, but there’s still echoes of it, occasionally. Personally, I think there’s something oddly charming about it, but that’s probably nostalgia talking. And the booze.
Oh, and since Napoleon was technically a veteran himself, that’s my tenuous connection to Veterans’ Day, which I still hope you have a great one.
Muntzing is a form of de-contenting in electronics design:
“He carried a pair of wire clippers, and when he felt that one of his builders was overengineering a circuit, he would begin snipping out some of the electronics components. When the TV stopped functioning, he would have the technician reinsert the last removed part. He would repeat the snipping in other portions of the circuit until he was satisfied in his simplification efforts, and then leave the TV as it was without further testing in more adverse conditions for signal reception.”
Very similar to the Colin Chapman/Lotus/Simplify, then add lightness legend:
“Keep taking things off the car until it breaks, then put the last thing you took off back”
I had forgotten about the “crazy people think they’re Napoleon” thing but for sure, it was true. I never related to the Cap’n though.
I wonder if they ever build a Muntz out of Muntz Metal. Maybe that yellow four seater?
The Madman Muntz and AMC Gremlin emblems look like they came from the same pen. My parents loved to tell the story about them buying a 21″ Muntz TV (huge for the time) and the company going belly up a few months later.
I had no idea crazy Eddie was stolen valor from madman Muntz.
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure helped keep this troupe going into ’89. Heinous
“Woah”.
You have overlooked that Napoleon succumbed to madness before his death. It is theorized that he got arsenic poisoning from the dyes used in the wallpaper of his room during exile off gassing.
Was he exiled for excessive off-gassing?
( asking for a friend )
I got halfway through the cold start and had to head to wikipedia to see if Torch was making all this up. Earl really was a madman.
Not to mention that it looks like Madman Muntz is wearing a red onesie or, rather, a union suit; it was a common signifier of insanity in cartoons & other media for people to go around in public in long underwear.
Yeah, such stereotypical views of Napoleon still persist to some degree to this day like with the way he’s portrayed in the film Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. That film might have come out some 36 (!!) years ago but it’s still very much part of today’s cultural landscape.
That is a lucid, intelligent, well thought out explanation. Your BAC must be dangerously low.
Napoleon was also famously short, hence “small man syndrome” . He was about 5′ 7″, Nelson was 5’1″ bur Nelson has a bigger colunm.
Big column energy?
Napoleon may have been short for our times – but the average Frenchman at that time was even shorter.
So he, like George Washington, was a man people could look up to.
Literally.
Hell, it crept into the 21st century, Bender pretends to be Napoleon while in an insane asylum. Futurama, Season 3, Episode 11
I think you mean 31st century.
I’ve always been told I should own one of these since my last name is a variation of “Muntz”. Madman, Nelson, and Charles out there wasting Ts.
That is a very interesting automobile thank you for sharing the history with us Jason.
Happy Veterans Day to all of my brothers and sisters that served or continue to serve.
(US Army 1986 – 1990)
Saw a yellow convertible Muntz in person at a car show in Napa CA years ago – been a huge fan ever since.
So the soundtrack is They’re Coming to Take Me Away, right?
https://youtu.be/_xRCbdFrSSc?si=jwiu-74eSISV_B-B
I cannot believe Jason got through this article without linking to this.
True story: In the mid-eighties I shared a large house in West Philadelphia with six other guys and, for a summer, one of the guys went on the road (with his cover band) and his divorced dad lived with us instead. His divorced dad was Jerry Samuels, a.k.a. Napoleon The 14th. He was a cool dude, and back then his main gig was booking musicians into retirement homes to lead sing-alongs. (This led to the phone ringing constantly.) His main gig before that was selling custom roach-clips bent from coat-hangers by way of classifieds in the back of Rolling Stone Magazine. He still made those occasionally.
Whoa. Did not expect something like this when I posted.
I thought it was about the Muntz character resembling Captain Crunch – a well-known naval officer. (No, not John Draper)
Greetings and gratitude to all of my fellow veterans 🙂
For whatever reason, this association of GD and Napoleon persisted throughout the 1800s and into the 1900s
He was an easy character to recognize before he said anything, which helps. Emulating Van Gogh, for example, would be difficult after the second instance.
Horatio Magellan Crunch is his full name.
I was this many days old when I learned that the purveyor of cereal that destroys the roof of your mouth has an actual name. Perhaps useful if I ever end up on some schlocky trivia game show.
I knew him (Horatio) – a man of infinite breakfast, of most excellent fancy hats 🙂
Hey, put down the clown skull!
A warrior and an explorer. Rowwwr.
Captain of the SS Guppy.
That’s Cap’n, sir.
Shout out to another veteran – Captain Kangaroo
Why does the Muntz Jet have an open boot and an open hood?
It takes a good slam on both the hood and trunk to get them to latch. It’s easier (and easier on the car) to just leave them slightly ajar when the car is in the garage rather than fully close each time.
“Madman” Muntz was also an electronics engineer and had his own brand of Televisions. They were cheap and one of the stories floating around out there was he would come to the lab, start clipping components and when the TV stopped working he asked them to put in the last part they cut.
He and Powell Lear of Learjet came up a 4 track tape player for cars. All Muntz cared about was selling more cars and the idea of having a tape player in a car was very novel at the time. That tape player ultimately led to the 8-track we all know and love and hate. He and Lear were absolutely instrumental in the development of modern media devices for vehicles.
Allegedly, he was the one to coin “TV” as an abbreviation for television
So, in the 1940s and 1950s, you could still stick a guy in a Napoleon hat and everyone would know that meant that dude was off his rocker.
So in 50 years’ time, you’ll be able to spot a lunatic because he’s wearing a red tie down to his knees? Nice to see that some things won’t change…
I think I remember that Funny Face drink, in the 70s. Just more sugar-filled goodness for the kiddos.
It was just another version of Kool-Aid, add as much sugar as you want. My grandma was very stingy with the sugar and would give us it in those anodized aluminum cups with ice.
Those anodized cups are great, I’m always on the lookout for for them but apparently very few have survived compared to those radioactive cereal bowls that I have.
Torch, I think you missed a zero! Because this sounds like a GREAT way to do business (for the seller)!
“each Jet sold for about $5,500 (around $67,000 today), but cost around $1,000 to build”
I thought the same thing. I’d kill for an 82% margin