a brief insight into ACME corporation

The Acme Corporation is a mysterious conglomerate that appears to make every product imaginable — from rocket-powered roller skates to dehydrated boulders — across several fictional universes. It’s a ubiquitous go-to name for cartoons (thanks largely to its repeated use in the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote segments on Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies), but also the name of plenty of reputable, real-world businesses. [1] Common characteristic for ACME products is that they fail catastrophically at the worst possible times. The name has been also used as a generic title in many cartoons, films and TV series.

The company name in the Road Runner cartoons is ironic, since the word acme is derived from Greek (αιχμή / ακμή ; English transliteration: acmē) meaning the peak, zenith or prime, and products from the fictional Acme Corporation are both generic and failure-prone. The name Acme became popular for businesses by the 1920s, when alphabetized business telephone directories such as the Yellow Pages began to be widespread. There were a flood of businesses named Acme (some of these still survive). For example, early Sears catalogues contained a number of products with the "Acme" trademark, including anvils, which are frequently used in Warner Bros. cartoons. [2] Aside: Amazon.com did this same type of thing when rebranding from “Cadabra” to “amazon”, attempting to be put closer to the top of alphabetical online browsing indexes, something that was very common at the time. [3]

So although the fictional company may boast an interesting line of products – including the ACME Building Disintegrator and ACME Ultimatum Dispatcher – the origin of its name isn’t quite as exciting. It was simply a commonly used name at the time, inferring a company was the best, which the guys at Looney Tunes adopted and used with their tongues firmly planted in their cheeks, when in fact the products offered by the corporation in the show are invariably prone to disaster, something which ACME even acknowledges through its slogan – “Quality is our #1 dream”. [3]

ACME is a worldwide leader of many manufactured goods. From its humble beginnings providing corks and flypaper to bug collectors ("Buddy's Bug Hunt/1935") to its heyday in the American Southwest supplying a certain coyote, from Ultimatum Dispatchers to Batman outfits, ACME has set the standard for excellence. For the first time ever, information and pictures of all ACME products, specialty divisions, and services featured in Warner Bros. cartoons (made by the original studio from 1935 to 1964) are gathered in a dedicated website, in one convenient illustrated catalog. For more information about any ACME product, simply click on the provided thumbnail picture. About a year ago, there was a Kickstarter project, offering a giant poster of every ACME product featured in episodes. Check out the project page here. “The ACME Corporation” illustration was created after Rob Loukotka rewatched every Coyote vs. Roadrunner cartoon and illustrated each ACME invention that made an appearance.

[1] Ref. http://mentalfloss.com/article/32268/where-did-looney-tunes-%E2%80%9Cacme-corporation%E2%80%9D-come

[2] Ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acme_Corporation

[3] Ref. http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/03/the-origin-of-the-looney-tunes-acme-name/

[Ref.] http://home.roadrunner.com/~tuco/looney/acme.html