Corporate naming rights for great works of literature : University of Dayton, Ohio

Thursday September 8, 2016

Corporate naming rights for great works of literature

(This piece first appeared in Huff Post Comedy. Reposted by permission of the author.)

National Parks, sports venues, you name it - a corporation has its name on it. So, c'mon, stuffy world of literature, get off your high horse and cash in with the corporate naming rights craze:

Tinder is the Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Johnny Walker Red and the Johnny Walker Black - Stendahl

Moby Dick's Sporting Goods Whale of a Sale - Herman Melville

Henderson the Rain King of Mattress Sales (Specially ½ Price Deals for Labor Day) - Saul Bellow

The Lord of the Burger King Onion Rings - JRR Tolkien

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Flying Southwest Airlines - Ken Kesey

All Quiet on the Western Front So Get A Netflix and Chill - Erich Maria Remarque

The Sun Also Rises Be Prepared with Coppertone - Ernest Hemingway

The Big Sleep On A Sealy Posturepedic Mattress - Raymond Chandler

Gulliver's Travels Booked by Travelocity.com - Jonathan Swift

The Sherwin-Williams Painted House of Mirth - Edith Wharton

Full Metal Jacket and Pants from Men's Warehouse - Michael Herr

One Hundred Years of Solitude Or Go To Match.com - Gabriel García Márquez

The Golden Microsoft Notebook - Doris Lessing

Lolita, The Original 'To Catch a Predator' as Seen on Friday nights on MSNBC - Vladimir Nabokov

Lonesome Dove Bars - Larry McMurtry

The Farmer John's Dodger Dogs of War - Frederick Forsyth

The Jose Cuervo Goldfinch - Donna Tartt

A Room with a View at a Marriott - E.M Forster

A Clockwork Orange Julius - Anthony Burgess

The Del Monte Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

- Paul Lander

Paul Lander is not sure which he is proudest of - winning the Nobel Peace Prize or sending Sudanese peace activist, Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim, to accept it on his behalf, bringing to light the plight of central Africa's indigenous people. In his non-daydreaming hours, Paul has worked as a writer and/or producer for shows on ABC, NBC, Showtime, The Disney Channel, ABC Family, VH1, LOGO and Lifetime. In addition, he's written stand-up material that's been performed on "Leno," "Letterman," "Conan" and "Last Comic Standing." His humor pieces have appeared in Huff Post Comedy, McSweeney's, The New Yorker, Santa Fe Writers Project Journal, Humor Times, The Higgs Weldon and Hobo Pancake. In 2015, he placed second in the National Society of Newspaper Columnists' annual column contest in the online/blog/multimedia category for his pieces in Humor Times and was named the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop's "Humor Writer of the Month."

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