Acme Corporation

Whistles and traffic lights

A whistle named 'Acme City', made from mid-1870s onwards by J Hudson & Co, followed by the "Acme Thunderer", and "Acme siren" in 1895, were the early brand names bearing the names with the word 'Acme'. At the time the Acme Traffic Signal Company produced the traffic lights in Los Angeles, the city where Warner Bros. was making its cartoons. Instead of today's amber/yellow traffic light, bells rang as the small red and green lights with "Stop" and "Go" semaphore arms changed — a process that took five seconds.^[7]

In film and TV

Examples which specifically reference the Wile E. Coyote cartoon character include:

• Films, shows and cartoons based on Looney Tunes characters often deal with Acme Corporation.
  • The 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit attempted to explain Acme's inner workings in detail. The plot is centered on the murder of the corporation's owner, Marvin Acme (Stubby Kaye). Many of the film's scenes involve Acme products and its final scenes are set in an Acme warehouse.
  • The Tiny Toon Adventures series expanded on Acme's influence, with the entire setting of the show taking place in a city called "Acme Acres". The show's young protagonists attended "Acme Looniversity". In one episode, the coyote sues Acme, accusing it of making products that are unsafe.^[8]
  • The corporation appears as the antagonistic force of Looney Tunes: Back in Action. The head offices of Acme are depicted, revealing it to be a multinational corporation whose executive officers are led by the film's main antagonist, Mr. Chairman, portrayed by Steve Martin.
  • The 2015 direct-to-video animated film Looney Tunes: Rabbits Run portrays Acme as a department store.
  • In August 2018, Warner Bros. announced they were developing a Coyote vs. Acme animated movie, with Chris McKay producing and Jon and Josh Silberman writing the script.^[9] By December 2019, the project was reportedly looking for a writer, though Jon and Josh Silberman remained as producers, while Dave Green signed on to direct.^[10][11] A year later, James Gunn was announced as both producer and writer on the project with a release date of July 21, 2023.^[12][13] In February 2022, it was announced that John Cena would star as Acme's lawyer.^[14] The film was removed from the release schedule in April 2022, and officially cancelled in November 2023.^[15][16] However, public backlash from fans, filmmakers and other creatives in the entertainment industry forced Warner Bros. to reverse that decision and allow the filmmakers to shop the film to other distributors.^[17] In February 2024 it was announced that Warner would be going through with cancelling the film after all.^[18] On March 10, 2024, Writer of the film, Samy Burch has said that conversations are ongoing to release the film. ^[19]
  • The cartoon series Loonatics Unleashed is set in Acmetropolis.
• The corporation is mentioned in Animaniacs, such as the Acme song from Cookies for Einstein, and Pinky and the Brain's home in Acme Labs. In Wakko's Wish, the Animaniacs feature film, characters live in the village of Acme Falls.
• External World, a short film by David OReilly, features Acme Retirement Castle, a dystopian retirement facility for disabled cartoon characters.
• In the 1998 Spanish film The Miracle of P. Tinto, Acme is referenced along a equally fictional competing spanish business, Mikasa, a pun on E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. When a Mikasa product appears on screen, it is announced in the same tone as Acme products are in the Spanish dubbing of Looney Tunes.
• In the 1978 animated special Raggedy Ann and Andy in The Great Santa Claus Caper (written, directed, and co-produced by Chuck Jones), Acme is credited as making Gloopstick, touted as a clear indestructible compound to perfectly preserve toys. Gloopstick is brought to Santa Claus' workshop by "inefficiency expert" Alexander Graham Wolf, who strongly resembles Wile E. Coyote in appearance & voice.

Music

• Bell X1's song "One Stringed Harp" includes the lyric "Like Wile E. Coyote/As if the fall wasn't enough/Those bastards from Acme/They got more nasty stuff".
• The Brazilian thrash metal band Chakal has a song titled "Acme Dead End Road" from its 1990 album, The Man Is His Own Jackal. The song begins with the Road Runner signature sound "beep, beep".^[20]

Legal humor

• Joey Green wrote "Cliff-hanger Justice", a fictional account of a product liability lawsuit by Wile E. Coyote against Acme, which appeared in three parts in the August, September, and October 1982 issues of National Lampoon magazine.^[21]
• Ian Frazier wrote a fictional legal complaint "Coyote v. Acme", which was published in The New Yorker in 1990^[22] and later became the title piece of a short fiction collection.^[23] The story would have been the inspiration for the film Coyote vs. Acme, but there have been problems that caused the delay and the presumed cancellation of the movie.^{[12][13][15][16]}

Other

• The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network provides an "Acme::" namespace which contains many humorous, useless and abstract modules for the Perl programming language. It was named "in homage to that greatest of all absurd system creators: Wile E. Coyote."^[24]
• ACME Communications was a former U.S. broadcasting company established by former Fox Broadcasting Company executive Jamie Kellner. The stations were affiliated with Warner Bros' broadcast television network The WB, for which he was also a founding executive, and the Acme name was a reference to the cartoon.^[25][26]
• ACME Night is a Cartoon Network block.
• Acme Tools is an online and in store retailer.