Saturday, September 02, 2006

How Were "Reese's Peanut Butter Cups" Named?

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are peanut butter-filled chocolate cups. They were created in approximately 1928 by H. B. Reese, a former dairy farmer and shipping foreman for Milton S. Hershey. Reese established the H. B. Reese Candy Co. in the basement of his house in Hershey, Pennsylvania, which went on to merge with The Hershey Company in 1963 due to the ever-growing popularity of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. (Wikipedia)




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posted by Staff @ 4:11 PM  

Friday, September 01, 2006

How Was "NASCAR" Named?

Nascar
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) is the largest sanctioning body of motorsports in the United States. The three largest racing series sanctioned by NASCAR are the NEXTEL Cup, the Busch Series and the Craftsman Truck Series. It also oversees NASCAR Regional Racing and the Dodge Weekly Series. NASCAR sanctions over 1,500 races at over 100 tracks in 38 states, Canada, and Mexico. In 1996, 1997 and 1998, NASCAR held exhibition races in Japan. NASCAR also held an exhibition race in Australia in 1988.

Beginning as regional entertainment in the Southeastern U.S., NASCAR has grown to become the second most popular professional sport in terms of television ratings inside the U.S., ranking behind only the National Football League.


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posted by Staff @ 9:24 AM  

How Was "IKEA" Named?

IKEA
IKEA is a privately held Swedish international low cost home furnishings retailer. IKEA was founded in Älmhult, Sweden in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, then 17. The company name is a composite of the first letters in his name in addition to the first letters of the names of the property and the village in which he grew up: Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd. This acronym is incidentally similar to the Greek word οικία [oikia] (home) and to the Finnish word oikea (correct, right). IKEA is generally pronounced /iˈke.a/ (IPA but in many English-speaking regions, it is pronounced /aɪˈkiːə/ rhyming with the word "idea". (Wikipedia)




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posted by Staff @ 9:15 AM  

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

How Was "Woodstock" Named?

Woodstock
The Woodstock Music and Art Festival was a rock festival held at Max Yasgur's 600 acre dairy farm in Bethel, New York from August 15–August 18, 1969. It is arguably and very widely viewed as the most famous rock festival ever held. For many, it exemplified the counterculture of the 1960s and the "hippie era". Many of the best-known musicians of the times appeared during the rainy weekend, captured in a successful 1970 movie, Woodstock. Joni Mitchell's song "Woodstock", which memorialized the event, became a major hit for Crosby Stills Nash and Young.

The festival bears the name "Woodstock", because it was originally scheduled to take place in the town of Woodstock, in Ulster County; however, the town offered no appropriate site to host such a large event due to their belief that over a million people would attend. A site was found in the town of Wallkill. When local opposition arose, the event was almost cancelled, but Sam Yasgur persuaded his father Max to allow the concert to be held on the family's alfalfa field, located in Sullivan County, about 40 miles southwest of Woodstock. (Wikipedia)


You can purchase an insider's guide to Woodstock in co-producer Artie Kornfeld's book titled "30 Years of Peace & Music & Other Things" which can be found here.




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posted by Staff @ 10:19 PM  

How Was "Goodyear" Named?

Goodyear
The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company was founded in 1898 by German immigrants Charles and Frank Seiberling. Today it is the third largest tire and rubber company in the world behind Michelin and Bridgestone/Firestone. It manufactures tires for automobiles, airplanes, and heavy machinery. In addition it makes rubber hoses, shoe soles, and parts for electric printers.

Although the company was not connected with him, it was named in honor of Charles Goodyear. Goodyear invented vulcanized rubber in 1839. Goodyear is known throughout the world because of its famous Goodyear Blimps. For many years it maintained an aerospace subsidiary, first named Goodyear Aircraft Company and then after World War II renamed Goodyear Aerospace Corporation. The subsidiary was sold in 1987 to Loral Corp., in the aftermath of Sir James Goldsmith's greenmail attack.




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posted by Staff @ 10:08 PM  

How Was "Sirius Satellite Radio" Named?

Sirius Satellite Radio (pronounced: serious) is one of two satellite radio (DARS) services and is based in New York City that provides 68 streams (channels) of music and 55 streams of sports, news and entertainment to the United States and Canada. (The other satellite radio service is XM Radio) Music streams on Sirius carry a wide variety of music genres, broadcasting 24 hours a day, commercial free. A subset of Sirius’ music channels are included as part of the DISH Network satellite television service. Sirius channels are identified by Arbitron with the label “XS” (e.g. “XS120”, “XS9”, “XS17”). With any Sirius-enabled radio, the user can see the artist and song information on display while listening to the stream. The streams are broadcast from three satellites in an elliptical geosynchronous orbit above North America.

Sirius was previously known as CD Radio. The company changed its name to Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. on November 18, 1999. The dog in the Sirius logo (Sirius is referred to as the "Dog Star") is unofficially named “Mongo,” a name garnered from the debut of Sirius Satellite Radio’s sponsorship on Casey Atwood’s and later Jimmy Spencer’s NASCAR entry, when the announcing cast voted on names. “Mongo” later became NASCAR driver Spencer’s nickname with the NASCAR Broadcasters in the following races.


Reports suggesting Howard Stern returning to regular radio are "untrue" according to this article posted in September, 2006.




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posted by Staff @ 12:27 PM  

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

How Was "Jack FM" Named?

Jack FM"Jack FM" is the moniker and on-air brand of several radio stations in Canada and the United States. Jack stations play a mix of 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s hits with some current hot adult contemporary singles. Jack stations use the slogan "playing what we want", and promote themselves as having a larger and more varied playlist than other commercial radio stations. It is not unusual for a Jack-FM station to have a playlist of over 1000 songs compared to a normal FM station which sometimes have play lists of fewer than 100 songs. The stations are officially classified as the Variety Hits or Adult Hits format by radio research companies.

One of the early originators of this format was radio programmer Bob Perry, on an American Internet radio stream in 2000. However, according to Rogers Communications, the only thing taken for the first JACK-FM radio station in Vancouver was the name and the tagline (both trademarked by Perry). JACK program director Pat Cardinal says that he was unaware of the type of music on the American website and that "JACK" was one of several names that were considered for the format. Perry named the station after a fictitious persona, "Cadillac Jack" Garrett, "a hard-living radio cowboy" whose motto was "playing what we want." Rogers Communications licensed the trademarks from Perry for their use in Canada soon after the launch. (Wikipedia)

An example of a Jack station can be found here.

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posted by Staff @ 11:52 AM  

Monday, August 28, 2006

How Was "Michelob" Named?

Michelob is the trade name of a family of beers produced by the Anheuser-Busch brewery. It takes its name from a specialty beer developed by Adolphus Busch in 1896 as a "draught beer for connoisseurs". When Michelob was introduced, it accounted for less than one percent of the brewery's production, and was only distributed in kegs, unpasteurized. There was a limited, two-barrel bottling in 1908.

Production of Michelob was, as with all beer in the United States, ceased during the Prohibition period. Even after Prohibition however, the production of Michelob by the brewery remained around four percent or less of its total output.

In 1961, a method was devised by the Anheuser-Busch brewmasters to produce a pasteurized version of Michelob which did not diminish flavor beyond acceptable levels. This allowed legal shipment of the beer across state lines. Bottled beer began to be shipped soon after, and the brand was introduced in cans as well in 1966. (WikiPedia)



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posted by Staff @ 12:58 PM  

How Was "Geico" Named?

GeicoGovernment Empployees Insurance Company (GEICO) is an auto insurance company based in the United States. It was founded by Leo and Lillian Goodwin to market auto insurance directly to federal government employees and their families. GEICO was based on the assumption that such persons would constitute a more financially stable and less risky pool of potential insureds than the general public. After real-time access to computerized driving records became available in the 1970s throughout the United States, GEICO gradually began to insure the general public as well.

GEICO's advertising strategy incorporates a saturation-level amount of print (primarily mail circulars) and television parody advertisements, as well as radio advertisements.

The ads sometimes focus on the company's mascot, the GEICO talking gecko, created by The Martin Agency and most recently a CGI creature generated by Rhythm and Hues Studios. The gecko first appeared in 2000 during the Screen Actors Guild strike that ruled out live actors. In the first commercial, where people kept calling the gecko as a wrong number for GEICO, the gecko was given a high-class British accent because it would be unexpected, according to The Martin Agency's Steve Bassett. In current commercials the gecko's accent is more working-class, to further "humanize" him. "As (computer animation) got better and as we got to know the character better, we did a few things," says Steve Bassett, creative director at The Martin Agency. "We wanted to make him a little more guy-next-door. And he looks a lot more real than he's looked before.



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posted by Staff @ 9:52 AM  

Sunday, August 27, 2006

How Was The "Hurricane" Named?

Editor's Note: In the spirit of the oncoming Hurricane Ernesto and the numerous hurricane parties that are about to ensue, we bring you the history of the infamous cocktail (from WikiPedia) known as the "Hurricane"...

The Hurricane
A Hurricane is a drink made from passion fruit syrup and rum. It is one of the most popular drinks among tourists and locals alike in New Orleans.

The creation of this passion-colored relative of a Daiquiri drink is credited to Pat O'Brien. He is reported to have invented the Hurricane in the 1940s in New Orleans. Rumors say he needed to get rid of all the rum that Southern distributors forced him to buy before he could get a few cases of other spirits. He poured the concoction into hurricane-lamp-shaped glasses and gave it away to sailors. The drink caught on, and it's been part of the celebration ever since.




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posted by Staff @ 2:57 PM  

How Was "U-Haul" Named?

From Wikipedia:

U-Haul
U-Haul is a North American equipment rental company, based in Phoenix, Arizona, that has been in operation since 1945. The company was founded by Leonard Shoen (1916-1999) in Ridgefield, Washington, who began it in the garage owned by his wife's family, and expanded through franchising with gas stations.

U-Haul is owned by Amerco, a holding company which also operates Amerco Real Estate, Republic Western Insurance, and Oxford Life Insurance. The Shoen family currently owns about 40% of the publicly-traded stock corporation. The company rents trucks, trailers, and other pieces of equipment, but many franchisees also provide storage, propane refueling, hitch and trailer wiring installation, and carpet cleaners, among other services.




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posted by Staff @ 1:02 PM  

How Was "Nathan's Hot Dogs" Named?

From Wikipedia:

Nathan's Hot Dogs
Nathan's Famous is a chain of U.S.-based fast food restaurants specializing in hot dogs. The original Nathan's stands at the corner of Surf and Stillwell Avenues in the Coney Island neighborhood of the New York City borough of Brooklyn.

Nathan's began as a nickel hot dog stand in Coney Island in 1916 and bears the name of founder Nathan Handwerker. A second branch on Long Beach Road in Oceanside, New York, opened in 1955, and another debuted in Yonkers in 1965. All were sold by the Handwerker family in 1987, at which point Nathan's was franchised and a great number of establishments were opened around New York City and beyond. The company went public in 1993, and Bill Handwerker, the founder's grandson, left the company three years later.



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posted by Staff @ 12:43 PM