ImagineMDD: The Frog and Blue Peach

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

The Frog and Blue Peach - Naming Ideas

Peaches, Tadpoles and Blue Soup:
For here or To go?

You can hire someone to come up with a name. There's an art and science to naming and depending on what you want to name it can be different.

Naming a domain, a business, a boat, a pet, even your child can become a lot of work. Once you've chosen the right one, you may want to have a naming ceremony.

Dudley Moore, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett from Beyond the Fringe in a 1962 episode of What's My Line is just one of the videos below.

In the days before Bangelina and Bromance a few select couples would take his and her (or his and his, her and her as the case may be) last names and create a single new last name. They'd choose this instead of becoming hyphenated or choosing one over the other.

The naming of pubs and bars has a fascinating history especially if you look around the world. Bar consultant, John Taffer could give us a lesson. We see a lot of double names, The Hog and Prince, The Bubble and Squeak….

In The Eagle Has Landed (1976) you could visit The Bell and Dragon. In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), they featured The Horse and Groom.

Dudley Moore and Peter Cook discuss the restaurant, The Frog and Peach

"And so I had this idea of starting a restaurant specializing in these frogs legs and, er, peaches. And on this premise I built this restaurant."

Be equally leery when receiving a box of Whizzo Chocolates Crunchy Frog Specialties. They just may pierce your cheeks. Thanks to Monty Python.

Considering that Alfred Hitchcock served blue peaches, he probably would have really enjoyed a night at The Frog and Peach. Too bad he wasn't in their focus group.

But color appears in many pub and cafe names. I’ve read that it could be associated with an object used to identify the building.

We have a friend who insists on calling our favorite sushi restaurant The Red Lantern. That's not its name but there is a red lantern outside and that’s how he remembers it. So just goes to show you how true that idea is.

Historically, the color blue could also have been used symbolically to show the owner’s political affiliation. They say that blue and red are the most popular of the colors in the names of pubs. Blue also suggests a mood .... or two.

The Blue Door, Blue Pig, Red Bull or Red Lion.

James and the Giant Peach story by Roald Dahl
Tim Burton film stars Susan Sarandon, Richard Dreyfuss
DVD, Streaming

"My wife does the cooking and, luckily, she does the eating as well. An amazing creature. Of course, she's not a well woman."

I notice the names of pubs, restaurants and hotels and stores in movies all the time. One of my favorites is the 1946 American film noir The Killers with Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner where characters met at The Green Cat.

In The Hucksters, Clark Gable and Deborah Kerr made arrangements to meet at The Blue Penguin. Ava Gardner was also in this film.

Remember The Old Pink Dog in So Long and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams? The Blue Swan was a night club featured in Young Doctor Kildare with Lew Ayres and Lionel Barrymore.

Maybe the most famous would be The Blue Parrot, a bar run by Sydney Greenstreet (Signor Ferrari) in the 1942 film, Casablanca. The Blue Parrot competed with Rick's Café Américain, run by Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine.

Another business lesson. If something hasn't been done before, ask yourself if people want it...

"I thought, 'Where can a young couple, who are having an evening out, not too much money, and they want to have a decent meal, y'know, a decent frog and a nice bit of peach, where can they go and get it?' And answer came there: none!"

The classic game show What's My Line? with Dudley Moore, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett. When the show aired in November 4, 1962 this were the entire cast of the Broadway play, Beyond the Fringe. On the panel Arlene Francis, Bennett Cerf, Dorothy Kilgallen and guest Buddy Hackett. Robert Goulet was mystery guest.