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Silly Product Names

I remember reading in 1990 about some-one marketing the 'Stealth Condom' with a tag like 'no-one will know you're coming'. Northrop Corp, manufacturers of the B2 Stealth Bomber, asked the US Patent and Trademark office to refuse trademark registration of the condoms. The Supplier saw all this as free publicity as he reckoned no-one would rule that the Public could be confused between a condom and a $800 million bomber. However, in a classic case of over-egg the pudding, the condoms were in the red, white and blue colours of Northrop and sold in a black cardboard carton modelled on the B2 Bomber - so I think Northrop won the case.

://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-10-24-fi-3017-story.html
 
What about: `I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!` ?

Back in the day the Mary Whitehouse Experience did a fine skit on this. Baddiel, I think it was, said: `So what's it going to be next then? `Bollocks! This Is Custard - And Anyone Who Says It's Not Gets It!`...?

Since that time - we're talklng the early nineties- this particular desperate form of product targetting doesn't seem to have taken off, however. (Can't think why).
Oh I always think of that when I see I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! Though I remembered it as That's Custard Powder and I'll Deck Anyone Who Says It Isn't. " I now don't know whether to watch the clip Tribble posted and get myself Mandela'd over it..
 
Back in the day the Mary Whitehouse Experience did a fine skit on this. Baddiel, I think it was, said: `So what's it going to be next then? `Bollocks! This Is Custard - And Anyone Who Says It's Not Gets It!`...?
I watched it. Even funnier than I remembered.
You were right about the bollocks, I actually remembered the rest.:D
 
220px-Kum_%26_Go_logo.svg.png


“Kum & Go is a convenience store chain primarily located in the Midwestern United States. The company, based in Des Moines, Iowa, operates over 400 stores in 11 states...”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kum_&_Go

maximus otter
 
I watched it. Even funnier than I remembered.
You were right about the bollocks, I actually remembered the rest.:D

I am glad that somone else is still as amused as me after all these years. Good jokes linger - even seemingly trivial ones.

Unfortunately, Tribbles's video link just doesn't seem to work at my end.! It just says `Secure connection Failed` and always has - no idea why.

And I can't seem to find the clip myself either - so frustrating! So if anyone can find a link that works for sure - or knows the address for it , then that would make an old Nineties refugee quite happy.
 
It certainly is a chain of coffee shops - plenty of opportunities to indulge in Phuc Long around Saigon and, possibly, further afield in Vietnam. Alas, the pronunciation of the second word - as far as I can tell, at any rate, after months of trying to make sense of my learners' names - is closer to "Lam" than any word connoting an extended period of time.
 
Decades ago l remember seeing a photo of two aerosol cans on a shelf, both Oriental (Thai?) products. One was a bug spray called Piss, the second a cleaning product called Off, arranged in exactly the juxtaposition that an English speaker might find amusing.

Search l have; find l have not.

maximus otter
 
So do you think they mean "the juicier juice"? Guessing...

I am now curious as to what it tastes like. Can anyone here translate what's on the can? Edit: It's made from Wood Ear fungus. Apparently 10 years ago, the name caused a bit of a stir.

Company to give Jew's Ear Juice a new name
Source:Global Times Published: 2010-8-31 8:35:00


By Craig Curtis
A Chinese company said it is changing the name of its The Jew's Ear Juice product, days after an Israeli government official publicly praised the name of the drink for fostering a positive stereotype about Jewish people among Chinese customers.
The Xiaxing China Industry Company, which produces the drink made from fungi that began selling at city stores a year ago, however, said Monday that it was unaware that the original name of the drink had such connotations.
Last week, Jackie Eldan, consulate general of the Consulate General of Israel in Shanghai, told Jewish media that Chinese people who refer to themselves as the "Jews of China" do so because they believe that Jewish people are hard-working and creative.
"The term is used to refer to people who have the ambition to excel and think outside the box," Eldan told the Global Times Monday.
According to a spokeswoman surnamed Wang from Xiaxing, the name of the drink will be re-branded as Black Fungus Juice because the original name is too long and complicated, which makes the product difficult to market. She added that the name The Jew's Ear Juice was previously selected randomly, with no intention of linking the product to Jewish people.
"We looked up the English translation of this type of fungi and found it listed as that in English," she told the Global Times Monday. "We never meant to create images of Jewish people to sell our product."
The Jew's Ear Juice is made from a fungus scientifically classified as Auricularia auricula-judae. But to everyday people, the fungus is known as black wood ear, jelly ear, Juda's ear fungus or Jew's Ear.
The latter names were given to the fungus based on a Christian story about the 13th apostle Judas, who hung himself from an elder tree, which was later discovered to grow the fungus. Consequently, "Jew's meat" became a derogatory term used for fungi in Medieval Europe.
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/568669.shtml
 
And it’s a corruption of Judas’ ear. If you’ve ever had a Chinese meal those thin black strips in it are probably this fungus. Quite tasty if not over cooked.
 
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