Barcalounger

A vintage Barcalounger

A Barcalounger is a type of recliner made in the United States of America. It was introduced by the Barcalo Manufacturing Company of Buffalo, New York, which eventually became the Barcalounger Company. The chairs are currently produced in Morristown, Tennessee,[1] after the company filed for bankruptcy and shuttered its facilities in Rocky Mount, North Carolina and Martinsville, Virginia.

Barcalo Manufacturing also made beds in Welland, Ontario under the Quality Beds name in the first decade of the 20th century, and is also reputed to be the first American company to allow its employees coffee breaks, in 1902.

In popular culture

In Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965), Barcaloungers make an appearance in a reference to Kilgore Trout's novel "2 B R 0 2 B", where they provide luxury seating for wannabe suicides, with Government encouragement; 2 B R 0 2 B is actually a 1962 Vonnegut short story in which Barcaloungers do not figure. In the same author's Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Billy Pilgrim is strapped to a yellow Barcalounger in the alien's flying saucer as he is abducted and taken to their planet.

In John Updike's Rabbit is Rich (1981), a Barcalounger originally belonging to Grandpa Fred Stringer looms large in the tensions between Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom and his son Nelson.

Joey and Chandler from the hit NBC sitcom Friends owned a set of Barcalounger recliners.

In the "Call Me Irresponsible" episode of another hit NBC sitcom, Frasier (Season 1 Episode 7), the eponymous star brings a new girlfriend Catherine (played by Amanda Donohoe) home. They are about to have sex on the chair belonging to Marty Crane (Frasier's father). Frasier exclaims "I won't be out-performed by a Barcalounger" before moving to the couch.

It is mentioned in the US version of the TV show Shameless, in the Season 5 premiere, as part of a conversation Mickey has with a potential furniture customer.

A 7 inch single by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes was called "In your Barcalounger".

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Thomas, Larry (11 October 2011). "Barcalounger Unveiling U.S.-Made Line". Furniture Today. Sandow Media LLC. Retrieved 8 January 2012.

External links


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