Did you ever wonder what ACME stood for on the Road Runner show? Well, I looked up ACME in the Acronym Geek website to see what I could find. Of the 320 ACME entries, here were a few possibilities:
- Augmented Collaboration in Mixed Environments
- Antique Caterpillar Machinery Enthusiasts
- Awesome Company that Makes Everything
The last is probably the most likely, but on further investigation, it would appear that the words were added later by others. Back in the early 1920’s when business directories were created, people would come up with names which began with A, in order to get themselves further upfront in the alphabetized listing. Chuck Jones, Road Runner cartoonist, explained it below.
‘We were little madcaps along the beach and we did what we enjoyed doing and could get dirty and could eat hot dogs and so on. 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.’