Are you sure, because it seems like I can’t escape the goddamn things. Adult Swim has (or at least had) a whole block of cartoons, and my library has a whole anime section for the kids and teens that we can barely keep stocked.
Isn’t this just the same shit they tried to sell us with Speed Racer back when I was a kid?
That reminds me of a campaign a few years back with… couscous. I don’t remember the ad verbatim, but it was saying that couscous would replace potatoes, and it had a woman telling a man, “Oh, you’re such a couch couscous!”
Gah. I hate that I even still remember that. :smack:
Also Dairy Queen = DQ.
I have my own nicknames for most of this stuff. Kraft Dinner to me is “Kraffy”. McDonald’s to me is “McDoink’s”. Sunny Delight to me is “You actually expect me to consume this?” So don’t try to make them up for me, okay?
I suppose that the only real way to find out the answer is to try all three!
hh
BTW, I remember the Freddie. Freddie and the Dreamers.
I also remember Michael Landon dancing it on one of those dance shows in the 60s.
Vewy Skawy.
Somehow Michael Landon dancing just doesn’t compute. I do remember him from his pre-Bonanza days playing the albino they used to dowse for treasure on God’s Little Acre with Robert Ryan, Buddy Hackett, Aldo Ray, Jack Lord, Tina Louise, Fay Spain and maybe even some others in one of those Tobacco Road stories from the decadent South. And even though he rolled around in the hay with “Darlin’ Jill” I couldn’t visualize his dancing even The Freddie.
I always though Landon could be the third Everly Brother…
Maybe we need to advise the Jellin’ crowd that the bats would help sell more of those inserts?
I do not call McDonald’s “Mickey D’s” and never have. It’s still three syllables, and coincidentally, it’s the same number of typed characters, so, unlike KFC, it doesn’t benefit me in terms of achieving efficiency. It just sounds asinine to me. I suppose the day will come when McDonald’s decides to do what Fed Ex did a few years back when they officially changed their name from “Federal Express” because it will become so commonplace.
I don’t mind abbreviations or initials if using them is more convenient and readily understood by others (IHOP, KFC, etc.) , but I only use them for convenience, not to sound “hip” or “cool.”
KFC. I hate that. Why must you speak in code? The product has a name. Use it.
Ditto for Mickey D’s.
cough
Robitussin!
Y’know. “The ‘Bless You’ for coughs.” Really, now.
And did they really expect people to walk into a pharmacy and ask for “Riiiiiiiccolaaaaaaaaaa!”? Bring your Alpenhorn.
If I’m remembering right, they tried to do this with the second Bill & Ted movie, having them use “Station!” to mean cool all the time. Or was that a real fad that I just missed? 
FWIW, Washington Mutual has been known as WaMu within the banking industry (where I work) for some time. But that’s not exactly street cred…so no, they don’t get a pass. It’s still lame.
And yes, I remember The Freddie. God only knows what I could be doing with those brain cells; something infinitely better, I’m sure.
When I was in high school in the late 70’s it was Mickey D’s or Mac-D’s. I believe we also said KFC then as well. Heck, I should be seeing a check or something!
So much the better - Westernized anime is just unwatchable.
You know, it seems like there ought to be some way to let the American Cancer Society’s scientists use them. At least while you’re asleep.
astro, the shocker was a real fad. It was way underground in the 80s. I remember the first time I saw a foam hand in that shape at a football game on TV. I was thinking, “that’s not a… aw what the hell!”
Anyone remember when anime was just starting to become known here and the media tried to label it Japanimation? Am I ever glad that that didn’t stick!
Au contraire! I’m so gellin’ my feet are swellin’.
But…it’s just so emotionally satisfying to refer to a bank as “Wham-You”.
My sister keeps trying to tell me that I’m mis-pronouncing it. Silly Sister!
Wamu!!! Oh, FUCK that is irritating. That ad is on the radio where I live.
Cumby’s???
Sounds like a porno for Gumby…
There’s an In-n-Out (western US hamburger chain) ad running on the radio these days that features a guy trying to get “Double-Double” to catch on in his office as an adjective that means something is good.
(The Double-Double is a double cheeseburger, for those who don’t know.)
During my early childhood I got the impression that “tubular” was a genuine, organic fad-word that was just passing out of style. A level on Super Mario Bros. for the SNES features the word in its name.
I vaguely remember some commercials that said “tubular”, but over here it was already a (once-)popular catchphrase IIRC.
It is important to note that they weren’t trying to make it cool. It already was cool, even if it hadn’t hit Australia. Given that the ad was probably produced in Southern California, they might’ve just assumed pogs were cool everywhere.
Not really. Anime isn’t so much a genre as it is a style. A lot of anime that’s very popular with teenagers has heavy/dark themes, a lot is on a similar level with popular American cartoons and TV/comics in general, and some is pretty surreal and very much like nothing else that can be found here.
I don’t watch anime myself unless I fall in to an occasion where it’s being shown (about twice a year, it seems), but I watched the “kiddy anime” shows that became popular on early-morning kids’ TV stations when I was young, and I know a lot of people who watch more serious anime now.
No way! You can pry my dreamscapes from my cold, dead hands.
Arizona State University uses the same hand symbol to represent the pitchfork used by its devil mascot. Completely unrelated.
At Tim Hortons (I don’t know about other coffee places) a double-double is a coffee with two cream and two sugar. I never figured out which double was cream and which was sugar, though. Like if you got a triple-double, would you get more cream or more sugar?
Who can know?
Hehe, I was going to mention that as well.
Oh, hell yeah, pogs. Actually a bit surprised to find out that it wasn’t just my state. Those stupid cardboard circles where freakin’ everywhere, and there was a statewide ad campaign plugging them. Hell, the indie video store stocked them, and IIRC was selling them right up to the point they went out of business.
Cardboard circles. Goddam cardboard circles. I knew this was destined for a disastrous end from day one.
Also, anyone remember that “swing revival” several years back? Swing dancing. Pushed to the moon as a hot new activity for young people. There were music videos (I only remember one, Jump Jive And Wail), for crying out loud. Okay, I understand that there are a lot of dancers who like this, but young folks on a national level? Uh…no.
The Macarena. Uuuuugh. When a totally made-up dance that could’ve been used in a thousand other videos and set to a butchered Americanized song ends up on Sportscenter, we as a nation have gone seriously off the rails.
Oh yeah…at the risk of sounding vitriolic, may I also nominate elevating completely generic boring people into megastar celebrities for no reason whatsoever? Paris Hilton. William Hung. Bloggers. I’m sorry, but doing something about a million other people can do/have done does not make you newsworthy.
Now anime, that wasn’t necessarily a bad idea. I saw a number of classic titles, including the memorabl Star Blazers, as a kid, and they were a blast. I think the big mistake a lot of companies made was underestimating just how much work making an anime title kid-friendly is. Unless it’s something that was originally aimed for a young or family audience (e.g. Hello Kitty), it’s going to have “suggestiveness”. And, er, lots of non-kid friendly subject matter. I saw the Americanized Sailor Moon, and Dic’s chopped-up pastiches were dreadful. I’m glad the initial hype died, so we could take anime seriously and not ham-handedly shove it all into a “cartoons for kids” mold.
And, for gods sake, there ain’t nothing more fucking ugly than Madras.
Blind? Jaded? What are you talking about?!? ** I’m lovin’ it.[sup]TM[/sup]**
Worse yet was when they briefly tried to make us believe that KFC stood for Kitchen Fresh Chicken. I remember the ads, the billboards, even the buckets the chicken came in had the new backronym. Feh. :rolleyes: