Acme Corporation

The company manufactures outlandish products that fail or backfire catastrophically at the worst possible times.

The name is also used as a generic title in many cartoons, especially those made by Warner Bros., as well as films, TV series, commercials and comic strips.

[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.

[4] 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 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.

Acme explosive tennis balls, an Acme product as seen in the Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner cartoon Soup or Sonic
A real-world advertisement for ACME anvils
A mural of Wile E. Coyote smashed into an ACME Instant Tunnel on the wall of the Rotch Library at MIT