Talk:Acme Corporation

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"According to Wikipedia.com, "The Acme Corporation is a fictional corporation that exists in Looney Tunes' universe. The company is never clearly defined, but apparently exists as some degree of monopoly, which produces everything and anything imaginable, no matter how elaborate or extravagant (making the acronymic explanation 'A Company that Makes Everything' a good guess)." As Mr. Major noted, in Warner Bros. cartoons, Acme products were most commonly purchased (mail order) by Wile E. Coyote who ordered many weapons in his failed attempts to catch the Road Runner." — Montreal Gazette, October 1, 2005

Who is Daniel Latson? Google comes up with squat. Are we sure this isn't a case of someone creeping in to mention their own (unknown) stuff? The paragraph on it here doesn't mention that this Acme is ever in any published works. -- Tarquin 20:17 Oct 5, 2002 (UTC)

It was added by a regular contributor (Fonzy), and it seems an unlikely thing to add if it was unknown (even if it is virtually unknown you would expect some mention of it to be on the web even if it was just the guy's homepage). So as a result I suspect that there is a typo in the name and that is why you can't find him. --Imran
Well, Fonzy seems to make a lot of typos. (I don't mind, it means there's someone who makes more than me!) -- so that's plausible. I guess I'm in a suspicious mood because we've had quite a few people add things they've made up lately. I'll ask Fonzy to clarify -- Tarquin


I'm confused myself. I never wrote that. :-s. All i can think of is that one my freidns must have doen it when they were at my house, dot kow why. - fonzy


In that case I'll move it here until someone can confirm.
* the fictitious country of Acme is a fictitious country invented by Daniel Latson in 1950. He came up with a whole fictitious history of the country. It is still continued by his descendants.

I remember Acme commercials done by Nick@Nite. They were pretty good. Unfortunately I don't have any more information on how many they made or exactly when they aired altough I found this USENET article which mentions them. - Mike Lippert


Moving stuff on the cartoon acme back to Road Runner cartoon. Having a page for every single concept is not necessary, nor desirable. It is better to have one fair-sized page on the RR cartoons as a whole than force a reader to skip around different pages -- Tarquin 15:47 Oct 9, 2002 (UTC)


Can't find anything useful about Ajax and Disney with Google and http://home.nc.rr.com/tuco/looney/acme/airdrop.html suggests it's some WB company?


The idea of an Acme monopoly seems wrong. The various Acme products in the Looney Tunes cartoons are meant to have come from different companies, otherwise there's no joke. The joke is based on the widespread use (at the time) of the name Acme for companies of all sorts.

On what basis would someone assume that it was a single company? I wonder, is insertion of the the monopoly interpretation here a bit of a troll?

The wording should be changed... monopoly seems wrong even if it IS one company with many seemingly-random divisions. I am changing the word to conglomerate, which would be more appropriate. Jafafa Hots 17:14, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] ACME - Where does it come from ...

I met Chuck Jones at the University of Dayton when he was invited as distinguished speaker. I am not sure if the year was 1980 or 1981, but we had a two hour lecture about his career and cartoon character´s character.

I remember that on the first question someone asked "why ACME, where does the name comes from?".

Mr. Jones replied that back at "Termite Terrace" in Bourbank California in the mid 30s there was this phone-book that on the outside back cover advertised a company called "ACME". So back then people simply referred to that catalog or directory as "The ACME" ... and contained all companies and products advertised. I assume that "The ACME" was similar to what we now know as the YellowPages.

Regards,

Federico Iglesias University of Dayton, Class ´83. Sirve 18:46, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Acme name free to register?

Long ago, I was explained that one reason for companies to use the Acme name was that the Acme name was the only name one could register with the authorities for free. I have no idea whether there is any value in that explanation, but maybe someone can do a search in an electronic version of old regulations and see if that explanation can be substantiated. Wurdnurd 10:52, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

  • That sounds like a (Greek) myth. You could look in Google for the various urban legends sites and see if any of them have anything to say about it. Wahkeenah 11:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ACME used in Duke Nukem

Hello, what's about telling that in Duke Nukem 1 and 2 all the falling iron-bars and stuff (I think cameras and telescreens as well) were made by ACME?

[edit] ACME owned by road runners / ACME Home Shopping Channel

Didn't some of the Looney Tunes cartoons imply that ACME was owned by road runners -- thus perhaps explaining why the company's products worked so poorly for the Coyote?

On another note, Berkeley Systems (makers of After Dark) once published a Looney Tunes screensaver for Mac OS (System 8) and Windows (pre-XP). One of the modules was an "ACME home shopping channel" that advertised anything from "dehydrated boulders" to "coyotatomic rockets" to asprin. Operators (Granny) are standing by!!!

Should the content page make reference to this screensaver, or to the printed "ACME catalog" (I forget the exact title) that appeared in bookstores within the last year or so?

  • The name of the book is "The ACME Catalog" (Chronicle Books, 2006). The authors are Charles Carrey (text) and Scott Gross (illustrations); the ISBN-13 code is 978-0-8118-5115-2. The covers proclaim that "Quality Is Our #1 Dream". -- Thomas Newton (172.145.92.99 04:25, 4 March 2007 (UTC))

Thomas Newton (172.164.31.177 06:09, 25 February 2007 (UTC))