1. Hale Business Systems, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Fuller Brush, and W. R.Grace
Company: New company will be called Hale Mary Fuller Grace.
2. Fairchild Electronics and Honeywell Computers: New company will
be called Fairwell Honeychild.
3. Polygram Records,Warner Brothers and Keebler: New company will be
called Poly-Warner-Cracker.
4. 3M & Goodyear: MMMGood.
5. Honeywell,Imasco, and Home Oil: Honey, I’m Home.
6. Denison Mines, Alliance, and Metal Mining: Mine, All Mine.
7. Zippo Manufacturing, Audi,dofasco, Dakota Mining: Zip Audi Do-Da.
8. Knott’s Berry Farm & National Organization of Women: Knott NOW!
9. Netscape & Yahoo: Net ‘n’ Yahoo.
10. Fed-Ex & UPS: FedUp.
The Best of “Merged” Books
Second Runner-up:
“Machiavelli’s The Little Prince” Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s classic
children’s tale as presented by Machiavelli. The whimsy of human nature
is embodied in many delightful and intriguing characters, all of whom are
executed.
First Runner-up:
“Green Eggs and Hamlet” Would you kill him in his bed? Thrust a dagger
through his head? I would not, could not, kill the King. I could not do
that evil thing. I would not wed this girl, you see. Now get her to a nunnery.
And the Winner Is...
“Fahrenheit 451 of the Vanities” An ‘80s yuppie is denied books. He
does not care, object, or even notice.
Honorable Mentions:
“Where’s Walden?” Alas, the challenge of locating Henry David Thoreau
in each richly-detailed drawing loses its appeal when it quickly becomes
clear that he is always in the woods.
“Catch-22 in the Rye” Holden learns that if you’re insane, you’ll probably
flunk out of prep school, but if you’re flunking out of prep school, you’re
probably not insane.
“2001: A Space Iliad” The Hal 9000 computer wages an insane 10-year
war against the Greeks after falling victim to the Y2K bug.
“Rikki-Kon-Tiki-Tavi” Thor Heyerdahl recounts his attempt to prove
Rudyard Kipling’s theory that the mongoose first came to India on a raft
from Polynesia.
“The Maltese Faulkner” Is the black bird a tortured symbol of Sam’s
struggles with race and family? Does it signify his decay of soul along
with the soul of the Old South? Is it merely a crow, mocking his attempts
to understand? Or is it worth a cool mil?
“Jane Eyre Jordan” Plucky English orphan girl survives hardships to
lead the Chicago Bulls to the NBA championship.
“Looking for Mr. Godot” A young woman waits for Mr. Right to enter
her life. She has a loooooong wait.
“The Scarlet Pimpernel Letter” An 18th-century English nobleman leads
a double life, freeing comely young adulteresses from the prisons of post-Revolution
France.
“Lorna Dune” An English farmer, Paul Atreides, falls for the daughter
of a notorious rival clan, the Harkonnens, and pursues a career as a giant
worm jockey in order to impress her.
“The Remains of the Day of the Jackal” A formal English butler puts
his loyalty to his employer above all else, until he is persuaded to join
a plot to assassinate Charles de Gaulle.
“The Invisible Man of La Mancha” Don Quixote discovers a mysterious
elixir which renders him invisible. He proceeds to go on a mad rampage
of corruption and terror, attacking innocent people in the streets and
all the while singing “To fight the Invisible Man!” until he is finally
stopped by a windmill.
“Singing in the Black Rain” A gang of vicious Japanese druglords beat
the shit out of Gene Kelly.
“Fiddlemarch” Emotionally desiccated medievalist Dr. Casaubon is transformed
when everyone in the town reveals that they are Jewish and start to dance
and sing a lot.
“Of Three Blind Mice and Men” Burgess Meredith has his limbs hacked
off by a psychopathic farmer’s wife. Did you ever see such a sight in your
life?
“Planet of the Grapes of Wrath” Astronaut lands on mysterious planet,
only to discover that it is his very own home planet of Earth, which has
been taken over by the Joads, a race of dirt-poor corn farmers who miraculously
developed rudimentary technology and evolved the ability to speak after
exposure to nuclear radiation.
“Paradise Lost in Space” Satan, Moloch, and Belial are sentenced to
spend eternity in a flying saucer with a goofy robot, an evil scientist,
and 2 annoying children.
“The Exorstentialist” Camus’ psychological thriller about a priest
who casts out a demon by convincing it that there’s really no purpose to
what it’s doing.