Why are so Many Businesses Called Acme?

I was watching The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie the other day and kept seeing Acme brand products everywhere, all of which were silly, such as Acme brand rocket-powered roller skates and Acme brand exploding tennis balls. It had me thinking of how Acme must be the Wal-Mart of the Looney Tunes world, and I wanted to write about the history of the Acme Corporation in Looney Tunes cartoons. So then I went to the Google and typed in Acme and the top results were all for actual legitimate businesses. Not one result for Looney Tunes, Bugs Bunny, Wile E. Coyote, etc., WTF? Looney Tunes was definitely responsible for the ubiquitous nature of the word in the 1950s and 1960s, and even today, so what gives? Well, turns out that Acme is not a made up word or acronym after all, and there is in fact a method to the madness of these business people. Here are the reasons I was able to scare up from my Internet research.

• In the 1920s when phone directories like the yellow pages began to increase in popularity, businesses realized that the key to being found was to have a name that would show up near the front of the book, hence Acme.
• Acme is a Greek word for something that is at the peak of perfection, or is the best in its category.

An Acme Brick (Courtesy of dbkfrog/flickr)

Of course, those are real world reasons. Those of you in the Northeast or in Ohio are probably familiar with the Acme chain of supermarkets, and of course there’s Acme Brick which “is the nation’s largest US owned manufacturer of fired clay brick.” A popular explanation for Looney Tunes fans is that Acme is an acronym which stands for “American Company that Makes Everything,” which would explain why the brand name is on every cartoon product there is. So there you have it, that’s why the first page of Google is full of results for businesses and not cartoons. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go ride my rocket sled.

For more insight into the Looney Tunes Brand of Acme Products check out:

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