(Disclosure/reproduction/)
Most likely, ACME is an abbreviation for American Corporation Manufacturing Everything – in good Portuguese, “American Corporation that Manufactures Everything”. At least that’s what Warner Brothers studios claim, who use the name ACME in their cartoons to indicate the company that supplies ten out of ten merchandise that appear in the cartoons. But the story is a little more complicated because “acme” is not just an acronym, but also a real word, which in both English and Portuguese means “peak, climax, the highest point”. Warner takes advantage of this double meaning and, let’s face it, lives up to it: after all, ACME manufactures all kinds of products, from rockets to jet skates, and delivers them with a speed that would make any light motoboy envy. It’s true that efficiency leaves a little to be desired (poor Coyote say so!), but that’s another story… In any case, the name of the Looney Tunes’ favorite company is not Warner’s invention. In fact, ACME is a name used in US courts to refer to a fictitious company – instead of calling a made-up company “company X”, for example, they call it “company ACME”. Warner, then, just piggybacked on the idea.