I’ve always thought those signs were a little odd. OK, the BBQ joint has a cartoon pig on its sign. But why is the pig smiling and happily beckoning me to come in? Doesn’t he know what kind of meat is served there? It’s like some kind of treasonous Tokyo Rose pig.
Down the highway from my office is a giant storefront:
“Casket Superstore” (yes, really … )
Two doors down is a smaller storefront:
“Boxes To Go”
I guess if the former is too expensive for your tastes they send you down the hall?
When I was much younger - Right after a double-mint gum commercial on TV where the jingle is a sing-song voice going “double your pleasure double your fun” -
The local newscaster comes on right after the commercial to do a 5 second news promo and says, “Double Homicide. Details tonight at ten.”
When my kids were younger, we had some of those godawful Richard Scary books for beginning readers. One has the Pig family going on a picnic. They stop first at the butcher shop, run by another pig character, and buy …ham sandwiches!
I always referred to them as the Cannibal Pigs after that. And wondered if Scary did that on purpose.
And a County, and a memorial highway, and a state park…
For a while my town had a spay & neuter clinic sharing a small building with a restaurant.
Did the restaurant serve Rocky Mountain Oysters?
Why would there be chains? Addy was never on a slave ship; she was born on a plantation in North Carolina. Her parents were likely born in America too.
And most of the items are from her life as a free person in Philadelphia. Even her signature dress was a symbol of her new free life (though some items, like her doll, did carry over from her days as a slave.)
Humor-It is a difficult concept.
-Lt. Savik
There’s a funeral home that used to bear the sign Butcher Mortuary. That one always made me laugh, especially because it was in a small town.
Now, it goes by the boring: Todd Funeral Home (Butcher Chapel).
There is also the infamous Tom Raper RV, which has had all kinds of funny slogans, such as:
“The Right People!”
“The Right Parts!”
“Where Fun Begins!”
“We Make It Too Easy!”
And the contest:
“End the Staycation”
Not morbid but was always good for a giggle - the center of town hotel in Willimantic CT for decades was named Hotel Hooker … original building [rather pretty for that era hotel building] about 10 years ago, when inhabited by druggies and prostitutes [how trite] and more recently after being taken over by the college as dorm space.
That’d be an interesting setting if they ever make another “If These Walls Could Talk” movie.
Not so much evil as ominous and morbid:
A monument company (that is, tombstone manufacturers) in Concord, NH, had the following public service announcement on their sign:
“Drive carefully. We can wait.”
There was a Dr. C R Butz practicing in the town where I grew up.
I don’t think your steak will be anything but well-done.
This reminds me of one time I was watching TV and there was some sort of technical difficulty. The sound from a laundry detergent commercial was playing during the movie that was on.
The movie was a Western, and the scene was of a runaway horse and wagon, with a young boy trapped on the wagon as the womenfolk screamed and the men yelled at one another. Most of the voiceover from the commercial was drowned out by the screaming and yelling.
But then the boy was tossed from the wagon and dragged through the dirt for several yards before he broke loose and rolled to a stop. A couple of men rode up on horses and asked if he was okay.
At which point the boy sits up and says quite cheerfully, “An extra action kid needs extra action Tide!”
In Carefree, Arizona there’s a street called Bloody Basin Road. As you travel east it becomes Tranquil Trail. To the west is *almost *intersects with Long Rifle road.
This weird collection of names (in a town called Carefree, no less) has always struck me as morbidly funny.
The rest of the road names are comical too. Moving south we have Nonchalant road, and just north of it is the Primrose Path. At least the developer had a sense of humor.
But it was nice to be able to eat in the dark.
My town’s police department is on Lazy Lane.
My TV journalism teacher emphasized to us the need to look for potential situations like this. His anecdote for the lesson was a newscaster giving a stern report of a house fire that killed a family. He then brightened up, turned to the weather man and said, “So, how hot will it be for the rest of us this weekend?”
My city has a chiropractor named Dr. Rencher. However, his first initial is not “W”. :rolleyes: