The name Acme comes from the Ancient Greek ἀκμή (akmē) meaning 'summit', 'highest point', 'extremity', or 'peak'.[1] It has been falsely claimed to be an acronym, either for 'A Company Making Everything', 'American Companies Make Everything', or 'American Company that Manufactures Everything'.[2][3] During the 1920s, the word was commonly used in the names of businesses in order to be listed toward the beginning of alphabetized telephone directories like the Yellow Pages, and implied being the best. It is used in an ironic sense in cartoons, because the products are often failure-prone or explosive.[4]
Home
The name Acme began being depicted in film starting in the silent era, such as the 1920 Neighbors with Buster Keaton and the 1922 Grandma's Boy with Harold Lloyd, continuing with TV series, such as in early episodes of I Love Lucy and The Andy Griffith Show, comic strips and cartoons, especially those made by Warner Bros.,[5] and commercials. It briefly appeared in the Walt Disney Donald Duck episodes Cured Duck released in 1945 and Three for Breakfast released in 1948. It also appears as the ACME Mining company owned by the villain Rod Lacy in the 1952 Western The Duel at Silver Creek and in a 1938 short Violent Is the Word for Curly where The Three Stooges appear as gas station attendants at an Acme Service Station. It was also used in The Pink Panther Show, where the name Acme was used on several episodes of the show's first installment in 1969, one of them being "Pink Pest Control".Warner Brothers animator Chuck Jones described the reason 'Acme' was used in cartoons at the time:Since we had to search out our own entertainment, we devised our own fairy stories. If you wanted a bow and arrow you got a stick. If you wanted to conduct an orchestra you got a stick. If you wanted a duel you used a stick. You couldn't go and buy one; that's where the terms Acme came from. Whenever we played a game where we had a grocery store or something we called it the ACME corporation. Why? Because in the yellow pages if you looked, say, under drugstores, you'd find the first one would be Acme Drugs. Why? Because "AC" was about as high as you could go; it means the best; the superlative.
