Big Time Wrestling – also known as Portland Wrestling – was a staple of Portland’s late-night TV for four decades. It went off the air in December 1991 despite being the highest-rated, locally produced show in the Portland television market. Its demise was a result of the bankruptcy of its main sponsor, “Tom Peterson’s” furniture and electronics stores. Tom Peterson died last month at age eighty-six.
Tom Peterson first publicized himself as “The short-haired guy who sells more stereos than anyone to long haired folks.” Tom Peterson’s advertisements for “the happy place to buy” were ubiquitous in the late hours on Portland television, wrestling, movies, and talk shows. 
Commercial breaks would begin with Tom Peterson shouting, “Wake up!” and knocking from the inside of the TV screen. His face, live and a drawn caricature, became instantly recognizable in the Northwest. Portland movie audiences cracked up when he appeared in a non-speaking role in Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho.
“Free is a very good price,” was a Tom Peterson slogan, whether a free portable black & white TV with the purchase of a color one, or a free haircut, buzz-cut style like his. 
Alarm clocks in the shape of a television with Tom Peterson’s visage on the clock face were popular promotion items. Kurt Cobain was photographed with a Tom Peterson watch on his wrist. In the 1980s, Oregonian columnist Margie Boulé wrote that Tom Peterson was “arguably, the most recognizable man in Portland.”
His 1989 purchase of the floundering local chain, Stereo Super Stores, started Tom Peterson’s down the road to Chapter 11 bankruptcy two years later. He re-emerged the following year with “Tom Peterson & Gloria’s Too!” stores. Their daughter and son-in-law took over the day-to-day business operations. They purchased Tom 
Peterson clocks and watches back from the bankruptcy trustee at a low price and re-sold them, helping to finance the store’s reopening. Tom and wife Gloria both appeared in commercials for the re-organized business. Tom confessed in the ads, “I should have listened to my wife; Gloria told me not to buy Stereo Super Stores.”
Tom Peterson’s closed for good in 2009. Today, the electronic and appliance business is cutthroat and low margin, dominated by nationwide retailers who go in and out of bankruptcy. Tom Peterson was local and more importantly, human. He is missed.
