Y’know, we could do a “Product/company names that you’re sure are fake until you find out…” thread. One of my earliest TV memories is Johnny Carson telling a story about flying in Minnesota on a puddle-jumper plane from Gopher Airlines.
"You just know that plane wants to be in the ground!"
The Very Big Corporation of America, and it’s upstart subsidiary, Permanent Assurance.
A Benny Hill skit had Benny as a secret agent; when his boss the head of the spy agency was briefing him on a mission he began by saying “an Eastern European nation-” when Benny interrupts him:
“RUSSIA!”
There’s a web comic series called The Birth of Equestria dealing with the author’s explanation of the origins of the world of My Little Pony. The company that tries to acquire the technology that creates Celestia is called Stuf Inc.
Although I believe I invented the fruit indistincterines, I was pleased when Avatar gave us unobtanium.
And before someone else points it out, yes, I know it was “unobtanium” in Avatar, that yes, was based on jocular engineering usage of “unobtainium.”
If you count schools, there’s also Bullwinkle’s alma mater, “Wossamotta U.”
There’s also the ruby yacht of Omar Khayyam.and the demolitions company Edifice Wrecks.
My goodness. The Dacron Republican-Democrat was my Rosetta Stone, my Magna Carta, my lodestar parchment for this mind-bogglingly un-motivated grade-niner in '79. I thought it set the bar for the avalanche of parody-this-and-that’s at the time, and later. I also thought it was better than their (usually) more highly-regarded 1964 High School Yearbook Parody, which came out a couple years earlier.
As I presently bring out one of my two (long story) copies of the rag, I pull out all its wonderful inserts and flyers, including the aforementioned Swill Mart, featuring their Pink Slip Sale, with items like the Armpit Dryer, Perpetual Lunch Meat, Digital Grandfather Clock, and the possible fashion risk Thermom-o-Tie.
Also liked the TV guide section with :“Search For A Hospital”, “Rich Man, Dirty Girl”, “A Negroid Look at the News”, “Let’s Put It In Our Mouth!”, or another installment oif “Mean Kingdom”, where “Animals eat each other and go to the bathroom on plants.”
Always been a huge fan of the fantastic Mr. McCall (who disappointingly denounced his Canadian roots / citizenship - another story) in NatLamp, and then moving on to the New Yorker. There’s something almost meditative in his absurd, 40’s-burnished style, I found.
Just before F2N he played his Barth Gimble character in Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, where he played a dick husband who didn’t carry a whole lot of entertainment value for me, and when he first transitioned to F2N, I was meh about it, until seeing a few episodes, as it very quickly became the second greatest TV show next to Get a Life.
Ah yes, the many times he did that on Johnny’s show.
One time he opened a monologue with “The other day I was having a V8 watching football and realised (head smack) I coulda had a beer!”, in reference to a V8 ad at the time touting “I coulda had a V8!”
How about fake dances?
products…
The Durango 95 and Milk Plus in A Clockwork Orange (and I spose the ole Ludovico Technique) (we going in to film, here?)
Heh, or fake awards?..In an Odd Couple episode, Felix is awarded the Dink, an advertising award he won by dishonestly portraying Oscar in a fat suit to promote some sort of diet pill or something. At the end, at the podium, a remorseful, ashamed Felix announces “I cannot accept your Dink”.
Too late right now to think of all the scads of Monty Python crap but the favourite that always comes first to mind is Heart-Attack-o Margarine.
SNL’s Flucker’s Jam mentioned yet? Had, actually, a few choice products in that one.
The Cornballer could sometimes get a little problematic in Arrested Development.
Fremulon
Not sure if that counts because a) it’s not a product and b) it went from being fake to real
a local radio guy had 2 flags over Fuquay and Fundermontz airlines
At the beginning of Monk he would only drink Sierra Springs water, which is real. Later he changed to Summit Creek, which is not real.
Not widely known, but the Early Web-era site Lilek’s Institute of Official Cheer invented their own line of clothing: The Dorcus Collection. It gets real high marks for apt naming.
Why? They don’t look anything like a genus of beetles in the family Lucanidae.
Not to mention the Kerwood Derby.
VOICE OF JERRY HUBBARD: Makes perfect sense to me!
Lilek’s is a terrific website, but the Mother Of All Rabbitholes. Enter only when you’ve got time to kill.