218 Quiz Answer

Last week's "Cleopatra" question was a tough one; only three correct answers.  This week's, "Acme," just about everyone got right.  My thanks to those who took part.

This is a Roadrunner, a bird of the genus Geococcyx, a member of the cuckoo family.  (He’s called a member of the cuckoo family because the whole family is a little odd.)

In recent years, there have been attempts on the part of some to suggest that the renowned Roadrunner of cinema fame was never anything more than a cartoon character, but the facts belie such accusations.     

The motion picture series that was popular for so many years, featuring the Roadrunner and his adventures with a Coyote, were an early form of reality programming.  It can now be stated that it was no cartoon; the Roadrunner existed and the Coyote, of brownish hue, also was real.  The important point about the film series is that the Coyote was quick but the Roadrunner was quicker.

Doctor Nestor Vogelsang, who holds advanced degrees in chronic ornithology and bird psychology at the eastern campus of the University of Northwestern South Dakota, has studied the bird – specifically the Roadrunner who stars in the Roadrunner-Coyote film series – for several decades.

“No question the creature is real,” Dr. Vogelsang reports.  “As is easily verified, it has feathers, and to the scientific community feathers often indicate a bird.”

In addition, the Coyote on the screen was always hungry; coyotes usually are.  (The latin name for coyote, according to the movie series, is “Appetitius Giganticus.”)  And the Roadrunner would have provided a decent meal, along with a suitable white wine, if it could ever be caught.

But that, of course, was the problem.

The Roadrunner, whose name originally was Runroader, always managed to burn up the roads to evade the oncoming Coyote, even though the latter employed various hi-tech devices to effect a capture.  All of these hi-tech instruments were developed and marketed by a certain corporation of Tipover Junction, California.

There are other malcontents who loudly proclaim, without the slightest shred of evidence, that this corporation also didn’t exist, that it too was just part of the cartoon presentation.

That is manifestly absurd.

The highly moral company is known throughout the barely civilized world as the firm that markets such highly successful products as Earthquake Pills, Portable Holes and Jet-Propelled Roller Skates.

Which brings us to our weekly quiz question: What was the name of that corporation?  [No googling, now. J]