Mariah's no pariah.

In November, as the Christmas season nears, the memes begin of Mariah Carey being unfrozen/reanimated/set loose among the populace to let the world know that "All [She Wants] for Christmas Is Yooooou." They poke fun at her like she never had any other hit songs.

But it is true that her pop music Christmas song is popular and played frequently in public places and at gatherings. One reason for this is that most modern Christmas songs are lousy, so with a few exceptions like this one we play the old favorites. It's really the only time we hear songs older than the Baby Boomers anywhere in public. When else are you going to have Dean Martin, Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, or Andy Williams on the store PA system?

Plenty of people complain about Carey's song. I would hazard a guess that most of them work in retail. For the rest of us, we ought to remember that it really is a pretty good number, and for that I have no less an expert on the American Songbook than Mark Steyn to back me up. 

I miss Steyn's Song of the Week feature from when he could devote more time to his site. About "All I Want for Christmas Is You," he is as always intelligent in his praise. In 2014 he called it "the biggest addition to the seasonal songbook in decades," and that hasn't changed. 

The song, by Carey and Walter Afanasieff, expresses a Christmas wish more directly than other seasonal love songs like "Baby, It's Cold Outside" or "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" or the Carpenters' "Merry Christmas, Darling." It goes right to the heart of the matter: It's Christmas, I want one thing for a present, and that thing is you. Not a lot of beating about the bush. The melody is fun to listen to because it moves all up and down the scale. It starts with a slow, dramatic setup, then bursts into a galloping 150 beats per minute, the heartbeat of someone in the heat of passion. The words bang out on quarter notes in 4/4 as it goes, so you never lose the rhythm from the rhyme. It's no wonder that, as Steyn says, almost everyone who's covered the song has done it the same up-tempo way Carey did. It works.  

So I will defend this song against the doubters, especially snobs who dismiss all pop music as being dumb and artless simply because it's popular. 

My only problem with Carey is that she tried to parlay her fame into trademarking herself as the Queen of Christmas. It seems to have been kind of a jerk move against a relative unknown, but frankly, we all know who the real Christmas Queen is. 

No, Lucy -- Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven, the one who actually went to the trouble of giving birth on Christmas. 

Anyway, while I'm not a fan of Ms. Carey, I can certainly say I respect her, and I enjoy her Christmas song. As I noted, most modern Christmas songs are pretty bad, and that's including County and Western ones -- maybe especially including those. The cheese factor is usually through the roof. 

🎅🤶🎅🤶🎅🤶

Also, there is the topic of Whamageddon. 

Wham!'s "Last Christmas," as I believe Steyn pointed out elsewhere, is a meh song, and barely has anything to do with Christmas; the lyrics could just as easily have been "Last Tuesday, I gave you my heart..." 

I'm a passive player in Whamaggedon, in which one tries to go the 24 days leading up to Christmas without hearing that 1984 song. A guy I know crashes and burns out of Whamageddon early every year, but he goes to the gym a lot, and he's always out with his young kids. That's just asking for it. This year I made it all the way until December 18, when I walked into the post office. I wanted to tell the clerk "You ruined my Whamageddon!" But I'm sure he's had to listen to "Last Christmas" a thousand times since last Halloween, so why bother him about it? 

Choco Dotsties!

I don't want you to think I get all my Many Deep and Varied Thoughts from the New York Post. But it an interesting paper. Sometimes they have the best exposés, of course, and are willing to publish stories that the rest of the media would rather bury. Sometimes, though, they're just dumb. 

As we barrel down the chute to the various candy seasons of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, the paper thought it was time to shock its readers with a bit of information that has always been readily available online and isn't all that interesting. Brace yourself: 

M&M’s fans discover meaning behind the chocolate’s name

And here's the bombshell:

The two ‘M’s in the name actually represent Forrest E. Mars Sr. – the founder of Mars – and Bruce Murrie, the son of Hershey Chocolate’s president William F. R. Murrie.

Now, to be fair, this article was originally published in Australia by another Rupert Murdoch outlet. M&M's is the little candy that started in the United States and spread all over the world, and the story of how it was invented may be less familiar to our friends down under. 

In a nutshell, or in a candy shell as it were, per Wikipedia:

Forrest Mars Sr., son of the Mars Company founder, Frank C. Mars, copied the idea for the candy in the 1930s during the Spanish Civil War when he saw soldiers eating British-made Smarties, chocolate pellets with a colored shell of what confectioners call hard panning (essentially hardened sugar syrup) surrounding the outside, preventing the sweets (candies) from melting. Mars received a patent for his own process on March 3, 1941. Production began in 1941 in a factory located at 285 Badger Avenue in Clinton Hill, Newark, New Jersey. When the company was founded it was M&M Limited. The two 'M's represent the names of Forrest E. Mars Sr., the founder of Newark Company, and Bruce Murrie, son of Hershey Chocolate's president William F. R. Murrie, who had a 20 percent share in the product.

I got to thinking about this story, about the famous names connected to candy, namely Hershey and Mars. Both became famous because the inventors put their names on their popular chocolate bars. You didn't ask the candy butcher for a slender American-style milk chocolate bar; you asked for a Hershey bar. Back then, companies were named after their founders, men who wanted fame for a successful venture, but also were proud to back their products for quality. If you put your name on something and it sucked, people knew whom to blame. Further, putting your name on a product helped protect it -- someone could steal the formula for the Mars bar, but they wouldn't steal the name of its inventor.

Interestingly, that doesn't happen with a lot of confections now. Now, for ease of soliciting a trademark and for consumer memorization, companies tend to name their products something weird that will indicate in a way what it is. For example, Smash Mallow, which I sampled here in 2018. You know it's going to be a mashup by the name, and that it's going to be marshmallow. And it's a phrase that didn't exist before, so that makes it easier to obtain trademark. If M&M's were invented now, they might be called Choco Dotsties!

The exception to this rule is snacks. Those carry the inventors' names. The Great Lileks mentioned these "boo-teek" snacks the other day on the Bleat, "Amanda's Kettle-Baked Chips or Monica's Pita Fragments, the ones that always have a story about someone who had an idea and a passion".

This seems to have started with Annie Withey, who founded Annie's Homegrown in 1989. Her products became quite popular -- so much so that General Mills bought the company for $820 million in 2014. Now everybody wants to come up with a snack idea that will get popular traction, get the attention of a food conglomerate, and cash out. 

I know I do. If I can just perfect my recipe for Frederick's Chocolate Lima Bean Snack Surprise, I can retire, I just know it! Watch for it in your local supermarket. 

Meanwhile, I wonder if the Mars company is ready for a big takeover. This photo also ran in the Post: 

Sure, Elon may have been talking about the planet Mars. Or maybe he's in the mood to snap up some chocolatey goodness....

Fictional Planet or Brand-Name Prescription Drug--Round Two!

 

Ming the Merciless, Ruler of Planet Mongo, Invites You to Play Another Round of ... 

Fictional Planet or Brand-Name Prescription Drug!

Did you pass the last test? Well, you had best do well this time, or it's the ice mines for you! 

1. Lenvima

2. Felina

3. Aloxi

4. Quadritop

5. ZR-3

6. Durla

7. Skaro

8. Altabax

9. Priplanus 

10. Carillon

11. Wera

12. Felbatol

13. Mometamax

14. Arianus

15. Druidia

16. Thra

17. Altair IV

18. Xudar

19. Brodo Asogi

20. Duetact

💊🚀💊🚀💊🚀

MERCILESS ANSWERS

1. Lenvima: Drug -- kinase inhibitor (lenvatinib)

2. Felina: Planet -- ruled by the villainous Overcat in Underdog

3. Aloxi: Drug -- injectable anti-nausea drug (palonosetron)

4. Quadritop: Drug -- topical antibiotic with four ingredients, for dogs and cats 

5. ZR-3: Planet -- home of the bickering androids (played by Ruth Buzzi and Jim Nabors) in the Krofft show The Lost Saucer

6. Durla: Planet -- home of Chameleon Boy from DC's Legion of Super Heroes

7. Skaro: Planet -- original home of the Daleks from Dr. Who

8. Altabax: Drug -- retapamulin, an ointment for impetigo

9. Priplanus: Planet -- home of the Robinsons in the first season of Lost in Space

10. Carillon: Planet -- in the original Battlestar Gallactica, home of the buglike Ovions

11. Wera: Drug -- oral contraceptive

12. Felbatol: Drug -- a potent antiepileptic (felbamate)

13. Mometamax: Drug -- combination therapy; canine use only, for ear infections

14. Arianus: Planet -- from everyone's favorite Star Trek (original) episode, "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" (or, "Half a Frank Gorshin Is Better Than None")

15. Druidia: Planet -- the nice one from Spaceballs, led by King Roland

16. Thra: Planet -- from The Dark Crystal, the weirdest Muppet movie of them all, including the one with Bowie

17. Altair IV: Planet -- the planet that is forbidden in Forbidden Planet. Kudos if you weren't taken in by thinking IV was intravenous rather than 4.

18. Xudar: Planet -- home of Tomar-Re, a member of the Green Lantern Corps in DC comics

19. Brodo Asogi: Planet -- the home of E.T., not mentioned in the film E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial, but used in a novel based on the movie and elsewhere 

20. Duetact: Drug -- combo drug for type 2 diabetes (pioglitazone and glimepiride)


MING CALCULATES YOUR SNIVELING SCORE:

20 -- You're either a huge drug addict or a huge nerd; either way, get help, minion!

15-19 -- Ming admires your knowledge and offers you a place in his oppressive organization. You will learn to wreck planetary economies with viruses and inflation while you cause chaos by letting violent criminals run in the streets. Ha! Ha ha! HA HA HA HA HA!

10-14 -- Ming tells you to study more and has you flung out into the space dumpster.

6-9 -- Ming scoffs and tells you to go back to school. He also calls you a blockhead and a nincompoop, which makes you cry a little. Then he has you thrown into the space dumpster.

1-5 -- Ming sends you to work in the ice mines. Ming likes his frozen daquiris, and he drinks a lot of them, so you'll be very busy mining ice for him. HA HA HA HA HA!

Fun with trademarks!

In the editing business, one perennial bugaboo is the issue of trademarks. Trademarks, and their kid brothers service marks, are intellectual property and should be capitalized. They include Budweiser, Marlboro, Green Mountain, Apple, Yankee Candle, Walt Disney World, Colt .38 Super, Chantix, and so on and so forth. If they appear in print or online, in nonfiction or fiction, they need to be capped. Unless they are out of context. Or dead.

Apple, of course, when referring to the computer company, is a trademark. But just because they own that trademark doesn't mean that you need to cap apples. Unless the apples HAS a trademarked name! For example, the names Honeycrisp and Gala were at least at one time trademarked for apples, so although their status is not clear at the moment, they are usually capped. The McIntosh is not a trademark, but is the name of the man who discovered the apple, so is also capped.

Elsewhere on the food front, cheeses are often capped because they are named after a place, like Camembert and Brie. But sometimes they are trademarked, like sorta-cheese Velveeta. And sometimes it doesn't matter. There is a place called Cheddar, a British village, but their cheese went out and conquered the world, so it is no longer associated strongly with that place and generally not capped anymore. Although it is sometimes. But that's not a trademark issue. It's house style issue. (Every publisher has long lists of house style peculiarities and preferences for the sake of internal consistency.)

Artificial substances can be very frustrating. Latex? Not a trademark. Nylon? Dead trademark. Spandex? Not a trademark. Neoprene? Not a trademark. Rayon? Not a trademark. Nitrile? Not a trademark.

Aha! No synthetic materials are trademarked!

Tyvek? Trademark. Dacron? Trademark. Tencel? Trademark.

We just have to look up crap like this all the time.

If you're in the field -- like, a communications executive for a cheese company -- you may eventually know the status of every cheese name there is off the top of your head. But then you'll run into something like Kobe beef and you're off to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office site. (For the record, the K in Kobe beef is capped as a place name, but Certified Kobe Beef is a trademark in its entirety, and there are lots of other trademarks connected to the famous meat, but many are dead.)

Companies often fight like hell to make sure their trademarks are identified as such, because if they get used as ordinary nouns, or verbs, guess what? The USPTO kills the trademark. That's what happened to aspirin, corn flakes, linoleum, and yo-yos. So Xerox, Kleenex, and all those other common trademarks are jealously guarded, because the act of guarding them keeps them alive. If the company won't fight for it, it must not matter, right? And this is why humorless letters are sent from company law departments when they see acts of infringement.

Xerox used to have a bigger problem protecting its name before computer files made hard copies less important, and I suspect Kleenex as a trademark is actually made safer by the loss of market share to competitors like Puffs, Northern, and Scotties. People are less likely to just "grab a Kleenex" now than they were forty years ago.

I see a lot of trademarks that people mistakenly forget are trademarks. Some common violations include:

• Munchkin (for doughnut-related products)
• Solo (cups)
• Crock-Pot (say slow cooker)
• Rice Krispies (especially as Rice Krispies Treats)
• Ping-Pong (yes, the game; call it table tennis)
• Popsicle (Unilever owns it so don't listen to people who call it generic)
• Baggies (still owned by Reynolds Wrap, although the actual product line seems to be discontinued)
• Marshmallow Fluff

Hell yeah, they're still making this stuff

On the other hand, some well-known trademarks have lost their status. You may now lowercase dumpster, thermos, and windbreaker in peace.

Google is being stupid about theirs, I think. It comes up constantly as a verb, to the point where most publishers I work with have thrown up their hands and said, "All right, if the people want to say they'll 'google' stuff, leave it lowercase." Google may think that this means free publicity, and that they don't care because they have more money than God, but the Trademark Office is as picky as a copy editor in a bad mood -- if they don't try to protect the name "Google," people will start infringing it with impunity, and they'll be powerless to stop it. Or maybe they've anticipated that, which is why they changed the main company name to Alphabet. I have no idea what they're thinking out there.

The protection of trademarks makes the development of innovative products profitable, which is an economic good for all of us. So that's why we editors do our bit to protect the live trademarks. Also, we hate getting letters from attorneys. Does anybody like getting them?