James Cramer through his “Mad Money” show on CNBC has become a market guru who can move stocks with merely a mention. One of his colleagues views this with some trepidation.

Doug Kass in TheStreet.com compares Cramer with an earlier market guru, Joe Granville. Kass provides a brief history of Granville’s time as “the” market guru. While Kass has a great deal of respect for Cramer he views with some nervousness the transformation of Cramer into this media figure. He fears that this is an indication of signficant froth in the overall stock market. Kass’ conclusions in his own words:

First, Jim is delivering a hard-hitting, informative real-time market/company analysis and is laying his opinions on the line. Unlike Granville’s “Sell Everything” mantra, Jim’s information reveals substance that is rarely available in the business media today.

Second, participants’ response (again not Jimmy’s fault) is a strong indication that a section of the investment population is getting goofy and is ready for a fall.

Cramer is unapologetic about himself and his show. In this column he defends himself against these historical analogies. The historical analogies would predict that things end badly, howevever this takes us only so far.  Only time will tell whether Cramer’s role as a “televangelist for money” will be for the better than his “guru” predecessors.