Back in the 1920s Esso petrol didn’t go down too well in Japan as the word sounded too much like a Japanese word meaning “gangrene” or “putrefaction” - as in “Put some putrefaction in your tank!” They soon changed the name to Exxon.
I’m not sure which is a worse product name – Nasalcrom or Flonase. Either one = yuck.
Anusol and Vagisil.
I’ve seen those! My S.O. is offended every time he visits Minnesota and has to fill up at the Pump ‘n’ Munch.
There’s always Bimbo. Love their conchitas.
A colleague of mine brought a pack of jelly sweets back from a trip abroad; the (prominent) brand name on the pack was ‘Sperm’.
As seen in the ads in the back of my wife’s US Weekly: Grobust. Always cracks me up.
Then there’s Chi Chi’s restaurants.
I mean eating at breasts is fine for a baby, but as an adult…
I’ve got a box of instant pudding here.
The brand name is Pud n Fun.
There once was a restaurant in Denver called the Pup ‘N’ Taco.
Now upon reflection you realize that this is a place that likely sold hot dogs AND tacos. Not . . . tacos made out of pups. And in fact you would have been correct.
But I never could get past the name.
This restaurant lasted years longer than I would ever have expected, but it’s gone now. (Replaced by a Wahoo Fish Taco place.)
Don’t forget the more recent “Outhouse Springs” bottled water.
I saw one of those once! Man the whole van was laughing their asses off.
Several years ago I was at ECTS, the European video game trade show. From across the show floor I saw a box title that caught my eye. It was a kid’s software game where forest animals competed in track and field events. It was from a non-English speaking country (France, I think), but they’d translated the box hoping that they could get someone interested in distributing it in America. Unfortunately, they hadn’t run it past a native English speaker. The title was, I shit you not:
Stinky & Beaver’s Wood Olympics
By the end of the show the box was gone. Someone must have told them … .
We have a Smeg stove/oven. It’s actually not bad. I still giggle though, occasionally (my immature side speaking).
Come to think of it, Burnt Sugar sounds like a … product name! Yeah, a product name!
Oh, God. I have a headache from laughing at this one.
We have those in Tulsa now! I’ve seen the billboards.
Oh, I can top you all.
I win this one, easy.
Granted, it’s sort of a service, not a product. But here it is; in Mississauga, Ontario, there is a day care service. It’s called…
Lolita Gardens Day Care.
I swear to God.
http://www.cdrcp.com/cgi-bin/ccws.pl?type=lc&cmd=rec&op=LC-CD-31
A while back I started a thread about a line of pharmaceutical products I’d encountered. The names (all from the same company) that really stuck out among them included Reptilase, Healthan Guts, Cytokarma, Lovetoppy and Peon Tablets.
Now the same client is back, and they’ve got some new ones. They had a medicine for upset stomach called Stomacool. A bit awkward, but you could see what they were thinking. When they released their new medicine for diarrhea, they apparently decided to continue in the same vein and named it Asacool.
This same company has been putting up posters in the trains for their new laxative, Withone. Now, the name’s not so bad (a bit odd, though), but the horrible part is the graphic: A little cartoon nurse with purple hair holding a roll of toilet paper, under the caption “detemasu ka?” (“Is it coming out?”) Ugh.
Soon? Wasn’t that in the 70s or 80s?
In 1967, Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt disappeared, presumably drowned, while swimming at a dangerous beach.
So they built a memorial to him. Fair enough, right? But it was the type of memorial that was a little odd.
I present - The Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Pool.