Call me immature, but it makes me laugh when letters burn out of signs and make them say funny things. Among my favorites:
A pharmacy that lost its P and became a vaguely threatening Harmacy
The slightly ominous warning that Motel May Lower when the Motel Mayflower lost its F
Sears turning into Ears
The nonsensical delight of Hol Ood Vid (Hollywood Video had several problems with their sign)
And my favorite: When Conan’s Pizza turned into Onan’s Pizza :eek:
OK, your turn!
My first thought when I saw this thread was that the Hamburglar was back.
While driving through Worcester, MA on 290, I saw that the R in TARGET had burnt out, which delighted me because everyone knows the Massachusetts alphabet has no R.
And here in NJ, the Target by my office lost it’s first T, making it the ARGET, where pirates go to buy their stuff.
Then there was the Shop Rite who lost the right side of the H, making it the Slop Rite.
While while in the drug induced 1970’s, it was considered cool to steal the “S” from the post office signs, making it the “US PO T OFFICE”. When you’re on weed, it’s hysterically funny.
I live near Canal street. Somebody’s painted out the C.
We used to have a video rental place here called Video Tyme. The letters in the sign were very rarely all illuminated, and I’m told it once read " ideo T me", leading to some people calling it Idiot Me.
Publix Grocery stores minus the L leads us to “Pubix”
You can’t grape the willling
In Sarasota there was a hotel in the (formerly) seedier section of town that, literally, for years didn’t replace a sign that offered
LOW RAT S
And in Melbourne, the Waffle Houses sign has half burnt out letters spelling
WA FL
HO SE
I assum that when they lose the “E”, they will repair the sign, but from the previous example I can’t be too sure.
I once browsed through a book which had photos of strange signs, can’t remember the name of it. My favorite was a large neon sign with a picture of Col. Sanders and the text:
UCKY
FRIED
ICK
A nearby WAFFLE HOUSE lost their “W” making it the AFFLE HOUSE.
About the worst I’ve seen was a Waffle House which ended up “AFFLE HO” I’m thinking someone sabotaged that one.
Enjoy,
Steven
Speaking of sabotage, my brother wanted to remove a letter from an Arby’s sign advertising the availability of late-night positions so it would read:
NOW HIRING _LOSERS.
One night, on a trip to Target, we noticed that the tagline sign below the big “TARGET” was partially out. Instead of reading “Expect More, Pay Less!,” it said, “Expect Less!” I found my camera in the car and took a picture. (No, I don’t know where it is now. 
) And I did tell the Customer Service desk that they might want to get their sign looked at.
While driving to Boston, I saw a SEARS sign that lost it’s E, reading S ARS
A carful of Asian students and I had great fun with that one.
For two years my Brother lived opposite “Hot Dogs”
Bad neighborhood huh?
Jim
There used to be a theater here called the Janus. It took years of waiting for that J to burn out, but one day it did.
I have pictures.
Are you familiar with the Sebadoh album of that title?
Considering how new that store is, it almost makes me wonder if someone did it on purpose.
Another Worcester sign which gave me endless joy was the public library. For a very large part of my childhood, the very large lettering on the side of the building was missing 4 key letters. So, the sign read:
Public bra
On the way to my high school, there was a sign outside a building that said “Virginia Crop Association”. More than once I saw some creative use of spray paint turning it into “Virginia Crap Ass”. You gotta love vandalism in rural Virginia.
-Mosquito
Well, there was the time when the Colonial Diner lost the “ial” and became the Colon Diner.