While riding my bike this morning, I passed a construction site where a new house is being built. At the entrance to the project was a line of orange barricades marked “Acme Barricades.”
And I thought, “Acme Barricades? Wile E. Coyote must be building this house.” Because if you’re a kid like me who grew up in the 1950s and 60s, Acme could mean only one thing: the Acme Catalog from which Coyote ordered every gadget imaginable to outwit Roadrunner — gadgets that failed spectacularly every time.
(Photo provided)
During the latter part of the 19th Century and early 20th Century, many corporations used the name Acme. It was a good name because “acme” is the Greek word for “high point, peak or summit,” implying that your company is tip-top, or better than any of the others. And it didn’t hurt that alphabetically it would show up right at the front of the list in the phone book.
And yet, I thought, other than this morning’s orange barricade, when was the last time I ever saw any product with the name Acme on it? Do any companies call themselves Acme anymore?
As my mind spun through circles of ill-conceived logic, I resolved to do some Acme research as soon as I got home. Because, after all, that’s the main point of my morning bike rides—to prod my brain into following some absurd, meaningless train of thought that isn’t worth your time to follow. You probably have better things to do with your time, so I’ll dive down that rabbit-hole of ridiculousness and then report back to you.
You’re welcome.
And so when I got home I dug through that rarely-opened bottom kitchen cabinet where I stored paper phone books (remember them?) back in the days when I had an actual land-line telephone (remember them?)
And sure enough, there was an old 2018 Yellow-Pages phone book, surely the last one ever sent to me. I was a bit surprised that I even had it, because I’m certain I had not opened a phone book for at least a decade before that one arrived.
So I went to work, scanning the Yellow Pages, from air conditioning and appliances, through floor materials and heating contractors, all the way past pest control, plumbers, and beyond.
And I found not a single company called Acme in the entire book.
But why? How did one of the most common company names of a century ago—with products as diverse as whistles, anvils, and traffic lights—slide virtually to the edge of brand-name extinction?
The answer must surely be Wile E. Coyote, who ordered exclusively from the Acme Catalog whenever he sent away for some device to outwit the Roadrunner. Those film shorts began at the end of 1949 and grew in popularity over the ensuing decades.
The list of Acme products that Coyote ordered was virtually endless —
Acme dynamite.
Acme axle grease.
Acme giant rubber bands.
All were total failures in Coyote’s war against Roadrunner, serving only to bring harm to Coyote. And yet, undeterred, he dug deeper still into the Acme Catalog —
Acme rocket-powered roller skates.
Acme dehydrated boulders.
Acme jet-propelled pogo stick.
Failures all.
And bit by bit, year by year, as Coyote failed time after time with Acme product after product, the list of actual Acme corporations in the yellow pages grew smaller and smaller.
And today, according to my extensive research in scanning the Yellow Pages of a phone book from 2018, the Acme corporate name is virtually out of business—at least in the geographical area covered by that neighborhood phone book.
But why stop there? To go the extra mile for you, I turned to Mama Google to see if Acme existed anywhere in the non-paper Twittersphere.
You’re welcome.
I found ACME Foods, founded in 1891 in Philadelphia and becoming a full-service Supermarket in 1937, decades before Coyote’s Acme Catalog appeared. It still clung to the name through most of the 20th Century — at least until it was bought out by Albertson’s, which was later bought out by Kroger. Acme Food stores? Mostly gone now.
And there was Acme Tools, founded in 1948 in Grand Forks, North Dakota, the year before the first Roadrunner film was made — but with a hard-hatted mascot in its logo that looks suspiciously like a scruffy coyote wearing sunglasses.
And one other entry: Acme Barricades, a company founded 22 years ago in Jacksonville, Florida, a half-century after Coyote’s Acme products earned the reputation of items that never worked — a 21st Century company founded by people maybe too young to have grown up watching Coyote fail disastrously with Acme products time after time.
And so, this morning as I biked past that house being built behind those Acme Barricades, I thought: “A construction site using products from the Acme Catalog? What could possibly go wrong?”
I’ll find out in time, I guess, because I take that bike route every morning. I’ll keep my eyes open for you.
And if I ever see a worker walk off of a high roofbeam into thin air, hover for a few seconds until his eyes widen with the realization that his feet are no long on anything solid, and then plummet to the ground in a puff of dust, I’ll let you know.
You’re welcome.
TR Kerth is the author of the book “Revenge of the Sardines.” Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com.
