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Encyclopedia > List of fictional cigars

A fictional brand is a non-existing brand used in artistic or entertainment productions — paintings, books, comics, movies, TV serials, etc.. The fictional brand may be designed to imitate a real corporate brand, satirize a real corporate brand, or differentiate itself from real corporate brands.

Contents

Why create fictional brands

Works of fiction often mention or show specific brands to give more realism to the plot or scenery. Specific brands provide descriptive details that the author can use to craft a plot: a character may own a factory that manufactures a popular product, or may make a scene by demanding a particular brand; a detective may get clues from the brand of cigarettes smoked by a suspect; a film may include a commercial poster on the background, or show a package of cereal in close-up.


However, unauthorized use of real trademarks for such purposes could trigger legal action by their owners — especially if the brands are referenced in a way that could be seen to have negative marketing impact. In general, the use of a real brand requires prior written consent by the brand's owner, who will typically demand some control on the brand's use. These hassles are probably the main reason for the use of fictitious brands.


Real brands are often used, of course. Sometimes a specific brand is needed because of its prior associations; e.g. the Coca-Cola machine scene in Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove would not work with any other real or fictitious brand (except possibly Pepsi). Sometimes the author will use a common brand only to make the scene more natural or create a specific ambience. More commonly, such uses are instances of product placement — the insertion of "casual" (but actually paid and intentional) positive references to brands in movies, television programming, games, and books. However, this practice is so widespread in the entertainment industry that it gives authors another reason to avoid the use of real brands: any such reference would be suspected by the public of being paid advertising, and could diminish the artistic or intellectual merit of the work.


Another advantage to a fictional brand is that all its specifications can be invented. In this sense, an author can invent a model or brand of car, for which he can make up details. That way, he doesn't have to go look up specifications on a car, which would take time and effort- he could just make them up.


Yet another reason to use a fictional brand is that sometimes a product is itself a major "character" in the plot, and using a real brand would limit creativity as the author would be constrained by the actual attributes of that brand. A subset of this is comedic brands, the most famous being "Acme" for the maker of complicated gadgets that never quite work.


Finally, the use of a real brand may be excluded also when the plot is meant to develop in a time or place (e.g. in a distant future, or in a fictional universe) where the real brand would not have existed anyway.


Fictional brands

The following is a list of fictional brands, organized by product category.


Beverages

Alcoholic beverages

See also: List of fictional mixed drinks


Carbonated Beverages

Other beverages

Food and grocery products

Breakfast Cereals

Confections and candy products

Nutritional supplements

Medicine and drugs

See the Fictional medicine and drugs section of Fictional chemical substance


Clothing lines/brands

Tobacco products

Cigarettes

Cigars

  • Cigars of the Pharaoh - Hergé's Tintin album Les cigares du pharaon (1934)
  • Dutch Butts - Futurama
  • Le Grand Cigar - Futurama
  • Pantweed's Thin Pantellas - Discworld
  • Royal Kooparillo - Futurama
  • Zuban Cigars - Futurama

Other tobacco products

Household products

Hair, hygiene, and beauty products

  • Bronzoluxe Creme - Harvey Birdman, Attorney At Law
  • Command Purpose Condoms - Strangers in Paradise
  • Crelm Toothpaste - Monty Python's Flying Circus
  • Dapper Dan Pomade - O Brother, Where Art Thou?
  • Dead Cat Soap - Firesign Theatre
  • Dibbler's Homeopathic Shampoo - Discworld
  • Fop Pomade - O Brother, Where Art Thou?
  • The French Stuff - Harvey Birdman, Attorney At Law
  • Lover Soap - Stranger in a Strange Land
  • Mere and Stingbat's Herbal Wash (with herbs!) - Discworld
  • Ocean Breeze Soap ("For people who don't want to stink It will make you clean") - The Muppets Take Manhattan
  • Ori-dent electric toothbrushes - Seinfeld
  • Robo Fresh - Futurama
  • Rinse 'n' Run Scalp Tonic (with extra herbs!) - Discworld (parodies Wash & Go shampoo/conditioner)
  • Sonky's Preventatives - Discworld condoms (a genericised brand, as in "a packet of sonkies")
  • Spurt Toothpaste - Looker
  • Super Lip (Ladies's Depilatory) Putney Swope
  • Soul Glow - Coming to America
  • Toothpaste - The Toothpaste Millionaire

Petroleum Products

  • π-in-1 Oil - parody of 3-in-1 Oil, Futurama
  • Lexoil - DC Comics
  • Mom's Old-Fashioned Robot Oil (made with 10% more love than the next leading brand) - Futurama
  • Petro Mundo - Captain Ron
  • Roxxon - Marvel Comics

Stores, retailers, and fast-food outlets

See List of fictional companies#Retailers


Vehicles

  • 6000 SUX - car from film Robocop
  • Beta Romeo - flying car, Futurama
  • The Betsy - Harold Robbins novel (and movie) The Betsy
  • Bormann 6 - car from the US film Putney Swope
  • Canyonero - a parody of typical SUVs, The Simpsons.
  • Durango 95 - sports car, from the film A Clockwork Orange
  • General Products - Spaceship hulls, Known Space
  • Heron sedan car - Nero Wolfe
  • The Homer - car designed by Homer Simpson, The Simpsons
  • IT - codename for a superfast gyroscopic unicycle designed by Mr. Garrison to combat airlines, South Park
  • The Jupiter 8 - a Roman car on an episode of the original Star Trek series
  • Melmoth - Humbert Humbert's car in Lolita
  • Ford Thundercougarfalconbird - flying car, Futurama
  • Plymouth V'ger - flying car, Futurama
  • Scooty-Puff Jr. - short-range single-person spacecraft for children, Futurama
  • Scooty-Puff Sr. - short-range single-person spacecraft for adults, Futurama
  • Trovare - expensive but unreliable sports car from 'Europa', from the 1988 US movie It Takes Two
  • Wagon Queen Family Truckster (in Metallic Pea with optional Rallye Fun-Pack) - National Lampoon's Vacation
  • Wasabi - a badly designed Japanese car driven by Newton Pulsifer in Good Omens

Other products

See also

  Results from FactBites:
 
Cigar (1754 words)
A cigar is a tightly rolled bundle of tobacco leaves that have already been dried and fermented, which is lit for the purpose of inhaling (or merely drawing into the mouth rather than into the lungs) its smoke (see tobacco smoking).
Cigar tobacco is grown in significant quantities in such nations as Brazil, Cameroon, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Indonesia, and the United States of America.
The cigar was smoked throughout the islands of the Caribbean Sea and in Mesoamerica for centuries before the Europeans discovered the Americas in the late 15th century.
  More results at FactBites »


 

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