Acme

Acme deliveryman in Episode 0260

Gonzo's "Acme Magic Book"

Acme watches in Sing, Hoot & Howl with the Sesame Street Animals

Sweetums' Acme Crowd Control Rubber Bricks

Acme Ferocious Cat Co.

Acme Porthole Co.

ACNE on Dog City

"Ozme" on Farscape

Acme is a brand name most commonly identified as the ubiquitous corporate presence in Looney Tunes cartoons and related media. Purveyor of a wide range of merchandise, they particularly specialize in gadgets and gimmickry intended to help the frustrated predator (coyote, cat, wolf) nab its prey. Their distribution extends to Mars, as Marvin the Martian is a client. Products do not come with money back guarantees and often backfire.

The word "acme" is defined as "the highest point or stage." Between the definition and the fact that it would be one of the first results in phone books, real world businesses have used the name periodically, and by the 1920s it was appearing as a generic brand in Harold Lloyd silent comedies and elsewhere. The first Warner Bros. cartoon usage was the 1935 short Buddy's Bug Hunt, and increased reliance on the company eclipsed its generic brand usage in other works. By the end of the 1960s, most uses were references to the world's leading supplier of roadrunner-capturing devices, and an Acme warehouse was the crime scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Though Sesame Street has its own recurring brand counterparts (Nologo or, in the soft drink field only, Figgy Fizz), Acme has supplied products and services there as well. Inevitably, the enterprising Grover has sold their merchandise on more than one occasion.

Acme Archives, a real-world dealer in reproduction prints and other collectibles based on pop culture franchises, has released Muppet prints and giclees.

References

• Mr. Ice Cream Cone Man serves Ernie a cone from Acme Ice Cream in a 1970 Sesame Street sketch. His truck advertises that Acme offers Slurpys for 25¢ and Wahoos for 15¢... as well as a healthy supply of diverse ice cream flavors.

• An Acme Delivery employee drops off Susan's dry cleaning in Sesame Street Episode 0260. The Acme patches from the uniform were later reused on a delivery man seen in "The Elephant Elevator Operator."

• Super Grover, in his guise as Grover Kent, sells doorknobs for Acme Inc. (First: Episode 0647)

• When Grover attempts to sell earmuffs to Kermit, he represents the Acme Merchandise Co. (First: Episode 0800)

• When Bert attempts to plan a trip with Ernie in the 1977 book What Ernie and Bert Did on Their Summer Vacation, he expresses that his idea of a fun-filled vacation would be attending a pigeon lecture at Rhonda's Rest Resort in Lockjaw, NJ, which is just down the road from the Acme Bottlecap Manufacturing Company.

• One of Bert's prized paper clips in Christmas Eve on Sesame Street is a 1957 Acme.

• The title page of the 1981 edition of What Do You Do? features a poster advertising Acme Plumbing Supplies.

• Gonzo consults the "Acme Magic Book" when he poses as a magician in The Muppets comic strip as seen in the March 1st and 3rd, 1984 entries.

• Parts of the S.S. Microship in Welcome Aboard are manufactured by the Acme Porthole Company.

• Maria's prize playing "Sightword" in Episode 2428 is a chrome napkin holder (actually David's) from Acme.

• Two monsters work for the Pacme Moving Co. in Sesame Street Episode 2478.

• A watch dog in the home video release Sing, Hoot & Howl with the Sesame Street Animals sells Acme Watches.

• Biff struggles to assemble an H from the Acme Letter Company in Episode 2984.

• The first season Dog City episode "Cats 'N Dogs" features a flea bomb with an ACNE standard bomb casing.

• As one of several cartoonish antics used to cut a droning speaker short in the Muppet Meeting Film "How to End a Meeting," Denise releases an unseen rabid feline from a crate provided by the Acme Ferocious Cat Co.

• Carlo's sweater in Episode 3270 is a 100% wool blend from the Acme Sweater Company, Dubois, Wyoming.

• Kermit and Robin the Frog bake bread in an ACME-branded oven in Ask Kermit: All About Food.

• In The Animal Show episode "Marine Iguana & Roadrunner," Rudy the Roadrunner addresses several items misperceived about his species because of the Looney Tunes shorts. During his song, he states that he's "never heard of Acme."

• The Farscape episode "Revenging Angel" features extensive scenes spoofing Looney Tunes and taking place in Crichton's mind. Thus safes, rockets, rays, and other devices are branded as Ozme (Acme mixed with the fact that the series was made in Australia). While most of these occur in animated scenes, an imagined D'Argo straps on an Ozme rocket before shifting to cartoon form.

• In a particularly Looney Tunes-inspired usage, Sweetums uses ACME Rubber Crowd Control Bricks in the Muppet comics by Roger Langridge for Disney Adventures. (The reference to Acme was added for the 2009 collection only).