Acme Corporation

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This article is about the fictional Looney Tunes company. For other uses, see Companies named Acme.

The Acme Corporation is a fictional corporation that exists in the Looney Tunes universe. It appeared most prominently in the Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoons, which made Acme infamous for outlandish and downright dangerous products that failed catastrophically at the worst possible times.

The first appearance of the Acme Corporation was in a Buddy cartoon (Buddy's Bug Hunt). It also appeared in the Egghead cartoon Count Me Out in which Egghead purchases a "Learn How To Box" kit from Acme.

The company is never clearly defined, but appears to be a conglomerate which produces everything and anything imaginable (leading to the backronym "American Company Making Everything"), no matter how elaborate or extravagant. An example is the Acme Giant Rubber Band, subtitled "(For Tripping Road Runners)", which would appear to be produced specifically for Wile E. Coyote. Considering how often the Coyote uses new Acme products (despite the failure of all the previous ones), he is perhaps one of Acme's best customers.

The company name is ironic since the word acme actually means the best or pinnacle. Generally, products from the fictional Acme Corporation are very generic and tend to fail -- often in a way that gets the user smashed into, or smashed by, hard unyielding rock.

Acme delivery service, on the other hand, is second to none. The Coyote can literally drop an order into a mailbox (or enter an order on a Web site in the "Looney Tunes: Back In Action" movie), and have the defective and/or dangerous product in his hands within seconds.

Look up ACME in
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The Acme products are typically mail-ordered, and it is likely that the famous Sears mail-order catalogs were a strong inspiration for the fictional company. Early Sears catalogs contained a number of products with the "Acme" trademark, including anvils, which are frequently-used props in Warner Bros. cartoons.[1]

Another influence could be the long-established practice of real companies using Acme (or anything starting with one or more A's) as their name, to create name recognition, and so that they will appear near the front of the phone book.

[edit] Appearance in cartoons

In the cartoon series, Wile E. Coyote frequently purchased Acme products -- ordering weapons, rockets, springs, giant magnets, iron-laced bird seed, and other devices for his inventive and endless attempts to catch the Road Runner. Acme products usually tended to backfire (often literally) in a comedic fashion; the National Lampoon magazine ran a feature in which a fictitious "lawsuit" against Acme catalogued the repeated failure of Acme products and Coyote's frequent resulting physical injuries (an online version is listed in the external links below). In fairness it must be said that some Acme products do work quite well, specifically the Rocket Sled, the Jet Powered Roller Skates, the Instant Tornado Pills, and the Triple-Strength Leg Muscle Vitamins. Typically, Acme products failed for hapless characters such as the Coyote or Sylvester the Cat while working properly for the more heroic Bugs Bunny.

The Tiny Toons Adventures series expanded on Acme's influence, with the entire setting of the show taking place in a city called "Acme Acres". The show's young protagonists attended "Acme Looniversity." Calamity Coyote often bought products from the fictional Acme company in his quest to catch the road-runner Little Beeper. In one episode, the company revealed its slogan, "For fifty years, the leader in creative mayhem."

In the cartoon Pinky and the Brain, the duo lived in "Acme Labs."

The 1988 movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit attempted to explain Acme's inner workings in greater detail. The movie's plot is centered on the murder of Marvin K. Acme, the multi-millionaire founder and CEO of Acme Incorporated. His motto was, "If it's Acme, it's a gasser!" Many of the film's scenes involve Acme products, and the climactic scene of the film is set in the Acme factory.

In an episode of Animaniacs, Albert Einstein was having trouble coming up with his E=mc² equation, and Yakko, Wakko and Dot came in and wrote the word "ACME" backwards (Wakko wrote the "A" in "ACME" as a "hook a", which looked like a "2") and Einstein proceeded to include an "=" between the "M" and the "E", ending up with "E=mc²".

The 2003 movie Looney Tunes: Back in Action showed the head offices of Acme, revealed to be a multinational corporation whose executive officers were led by a Bond-esque supervillain called "Mr. Chairman" who is the main antagonist in the movie.

Acme was also mentioned twice in the show Class of 3000:

In "Westley Side Story", Eddie gives a coyote $100, anticipating its purchase of Acme Rocket Skates.
The Acme Corporation supplies the school with tomatoes, as seen in "Am I Blue?".

The cartoon series, Loonatics Unleashed, is set in Acmetropolis.

Acme was also used extensively by Gary Larson in his comic The Far Side as a generic trademark attached to all kinds of companies and products

Also in an episode of Family Guy Wile E. Coyote returns an Acme slingshot for store credit at an Acme store supposidly run by the main character Peter Griffin.

Acme logo has also appeared on The Good the Bad and the Ugly movie, stamped on the black powder boxes.