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"Yu-Gi-Oh is sponsored by Yugi-O's. They're Yugi-licious. Wait a minute — 'Yugi-licious?' Is that even a word?"

A variation of Absolute Comparative that shows up mostly in children's commercials. An advertiser uses completely made-up adjectives to describe their product. Whether this invokes Totally Radical or Weasel Words is up to the reader.

Almost always parodied outside the advertisements.

Portmanteaus with "delicious", "terrific", and "fantastic" see the most use; it's easy to append -icious, -ific, or -tastic to the end of any other word. This trope is often paired with Lite Crème.

Compare with Perfectly Cromulent Word.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Advertising 
  • "Fruitilicious". In fact, -licious derivatives have been coined to well beyond the point of exhaustion.
  • Some of the Trix flavors, including "orangey orange" and "grapety purple."
  • "Crunchitize", from Cap'n Crunch.
  • "Crunchtastic", obviously.
  • Some years ago now Jimmy Nail used to advertise Kodacolour Gold film as "Clicknologically superbluous" before the tag line "Kodak: We have the clicknology. (SFX: camera clicking)".
  • Kraft Cheese Crumbles used "Crumbelievable", to the point of employing a re-recorded version of EMF's "Unbelievable" as its jingle. The commercials themselves were memorably mock-celebrated by Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report.
  • Wonka-brand "Scrumdiddlyumptious Bars". The "Wonka-brand" is actually made by Nestle, but it's also a clear send up of a product from Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, in a case of Defictionalization. Interestingly, Dahl coined the term "scrumdiddlyumptious" as a means of satirising this type of language, but the 1971 film adaptation was specifically greenlit to market candy bars (including this one), so the marketing people totally missed how Dahl was skewering them.
    • Dairy Queen had the remarkably similar "Scrumpdillyicious".
  • "Crispity-Crunchity-Peanut-Buttery Butterfingers!"
  • Taco Bell and other fast-food restaurants advertising "melty cheese" on their products — which is about as meaningful as hawking "pourable water."
  • Taco Bell also had a commercial where three patrons attempt to come up with the perfect adjective to describe the chain's latest item: a combination taco/burrito with melted cheese between the two shells. They go through "smunchy" (soft/melty/crunchy) and "crufelty" (crunchy/soft/melty) before settling on "cruncheweesy" (crunchy/chewy/cheesy).
  • Comcast is, apparently, "Comcastic!" Fun fact: Users of Comcast have described their service as "Comcastic" before it became the ad slogan. And when they said it, they meant "My internet is going down and/or being slow for absolutely no discernible reason." It's Comcastic!
  • One Subway ad calls its sandwiches "freshalicious". Another referred to its meatball sandwiches as "splodgilicious". A more recent ad at one point describes the sandwiches as "flavorocious".
  • Hubba Bubba Bubble Gum decided that the words 'funbelievable' and 'unbelievabubble' just weren't crazy enough for their product, so they took pride in informing us that it was "FUNBELIEVABUBBLE!"
  • One that actually became a real word is "dependability," invented by the Dodge brothers to sell their trucks in the 1910s.
  • Budweiser gives us "drinkability". Way to set the bar low there, guys.
  • There are a couple of porn sites that have used the word "MILFtastic"...
  • The Volvic commercials, source of many a YouTube Poop: "I'm filling my water with Volcanicity!"
  • ESPN did a series of NBA commercials. One of them featured Shaquille O'Neil's vocabulary.
  • Dairylea used to be called "calciyummy", without ever indicating why that might be a good thing.
  • Chuck E. Cheese's is now apparently "funified".
  • This can of nightmare fuel from Kinder Surprise contains mostly gibberish, but "chockadooobie" could qualify.
  • Nestle Crunch used to use this following jingle:
    "Scrumptuous! 'Cause it's crunchous! That's why I like Nestle Crunch!"
  • Nissan ran an advertising campaign around the concept of combining words to make new ones, such as "Luxurious" and "Durable" to make "Luxurable". The best was undoubtedly "Spafe" (a combination of spacious and safe". Top Gear (UK) naturally pointed out that it was just "Shiny and Bright"
    • Also leading, in some areas, to the car in question immediately becoming known as "the Fugly"
  • Why does Avo Classic Frozen Guacamole taste so good? Because it's Fresherized!
  • Snickers' most recent campaign not only makes up words, but gives them definitions. Such as substantialiscious: the weight of something when you weigh it on your tongue.
  • Coco Pops (The UK's equivalent of Cocoa Puffs) briefly changed their name to "Choco Crispies", because, according to the accompanying advert, they are "crispalicious"
  • Ariel washing capsules are "Brrrr-illiant" because they will clean at a low temperature.
  • "Swapportunity" - the opportunity to swap a higher-calorie dessert out for a low-fat cup of Yoplait Light. This one may have been tongue-in-cheek Lampshade Hanging, since at least some of the ads show someone pushing it waaayy too hard.
  • Apple Cinnamon Cheerios - "It's Applelicious..." "...and Cinnamoncredible!"
  • Early McDonald's ads called Ronald McDonald "the world's newest, silliest and hamburger-eatingest clown!"
  • During The '70s, Chrysler advertised their luxury cars as being upholstered with soft "Corinthian Leather". Corinth is a highly industrialized Greek city that has never hosted cattle farming or a leather-working industry — it was in fact the perfectly normal leather from their Newark supplier. ("Joisey Leather" probably didn't have the same ring to it.)
  • A local flooring company in Pennsylvania has a commercial in which a baby is used as the "spokesperson" to advertise that the new floors in her home are resistant to "Kidtastrophes."
  • An advertising campaign by the dairy industry featured an anthropomorphic "Magic Cow" who suggested using drink mixes to flavor milk. note  The concoctions were described as "Stirrific".
  • Chuck Wagon dog food was once advertised as "crunchewy", since it included both crunchy and chewy kibble.

    Fan Works 
  • Characters in My Immortal occasionally say things "preppily" or "gothically". Ebony and Draco regularly do things "sexily" - mostly things which aren't particularly sexy, such as crying, summoning broomsticks, and jumping in front of bullets. Tara also likes to attach "wisely" to Dumbledore's actions. Apparently, "You dunderheads!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" can be screamed "wisely".

    Film 

    Literature 
  • Older Than Radio: In Le Père Goriot (1835), by Honoré de Balzac, set in 1819, some characters have a habit of adding "-orama" to the ends of words, for example (in translation from the French) "souporama", "healthorama" and so on. Apparently this was based on a real linguistic fad of the time that followed the invention of the "diorama" and the "panorama".
  • Enid Blyton often used "delumptious" and "scrumplicious", two different portmanteaux of "delicious" and "scrumptious". These were also referenced in Goodnight Mister Tom.
  • Roald Dahl made fun of this in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with sweets like the "Scrumdiddlyumptious Bar" and the "Whipplescrumptious Fudgemallow Delight."

    Live-Action TV 
  • Arrested Development: Tobias wants to remind everybody that he is educated as both an analyst and a therapist, and thus his business-cards reads: Tobias Fünke, M.D.: Analrapist.
    "It's 'aNALrapist'!"
  • Variation: In a Saturday Night Live sketch parodying Inside the Actors Studio, Will Ferrell as James Lipton feels that Charles Nelson Reilly's acting is so incredible that he must invent a word to describe it. The word: "Scrumtrillescent."
    • The practice was parodied in another Saturday Night Live sketch involved an advertising jingle for the "Nuterrific" bar. The jingle consisted largely of this kind of descriptor, ending with "It's NUT very good!"
    • In the "Taste Test" sketch with Melissa McCarthy as an overly enthusiastic focus group member. She makes up the word "Jacktastic!" to describe Hidden Valley Ranch's new Pepper Jack Ranch salad dressing, in an attempt to win $50 for the best comment.
  • This is a recurring sketch on Late Night With Conan O'Brien called "Fantastic!" Conan will describe what guests/band is going to be on the show the next day and an enthusiastic "audience"' member says "That's fantastic!" and proceeds to add "'tastic!" on to every thing he describes. ("Omar Epps? That's Epps-tastic!"). However, when Conan describes the normal show's events from the show (such as the "hilarious monologue" and "zany comedy bits"), the man goes quiet or starts doing something unpleasant (such as drinking from a bottle of bleach). Finally, Conan asks the man if he likes the guest but thinks everything else is some negative adjective and the man adds a "-tastic!" to that too. "Not crap. Craptastic!" Or "Not boring, Bortastic!"
  • Dr. Cox from Scrubs: "I megaloathe you all."
  • Eureka Nathan Stark about Carter: "Yes, he said invisibling."
  • Doctor Who: "Oi, chavtastic again!"
  • Season 5 of Project Runway had Blaine, who constantly applied "-licious" to words.
  • During a Mr. Show sketch in which San Francisco is being renovated into "New San Francisco" by the MegaCorp GloboChem, a corporate executive gives a lifeless speech telling the audience, "When you see the New San Francisco... you'll say... 'San Frantastic.'"
  • One perp on Barney Miller is a Grammar Nazi who vandalizes an ad agency office out of frustration with this trope. He sarcastically suggests calling kosher dill pickles "the ko-ko-kosherest'', which the agency rep thinks is a seriously good idea. The man's appalled, even though the agency drops charges out of gratitude. (Episode "The Psychic")
  • In the CBeebies programme Grandpa In My Pocket, Jason often calls things 'Fabodicalous!' and 'Wonderbubble!'.
  • The first year of Power Rangers introduced the word "morphenomenal"; that one faded out pretty quickly, though the phrase gets a nod every now and then, usually during episodes celebrating series milestones. note 

    Music 
  • Destiny's Child has (and is) "Bootylicious".
  • Fergie is Fergalicious.
  • Parliament-Funkadelic should probably be canonized as the patron saints of this trope, insofar as it refers to music. Supergroovalisticprosifunkstication!
    • Outkast named their debut album Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, presumably on influence from Clinton & co.

    TV Tropes 

    Video Games 
  • Spiky Joe, a side-character from, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, has this to say: "When I thinks something's cool, I always say it's "spiketastic'! ...It might catch on."
  • The three beach fish girls in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. Some of the words they came up with? 'Wonderfied' and 'Grandular'
  • "It's Qwarktastic!"
  • Deus Ex advertises the cigarette brand Holy Smokes! as "savioriffic".
  • A variation used in Final Fantasy X-2:
    Brother: How things going down there?
    Rikku: The situation...it's disasterrific!
    Brother: (over com device) Disasterific not a real word! Say "disastrous" like the rest of Spira!
    • Yuna then takes the word and the trope is played straight via this exchange.
    Brother: [over com, hysterically] What happened? Is Yuna okay?!
    Yuna: Things are, ow, [slight sarcasm] disasterrific.
    Brother: Disasterrific? I am on my way!
    Rikku: [staring up in disbelief] What about me?
  • Netting 5 kills in a row in Halo multiplayer earns you a "Killtacular" medal. Things escalate from there:
    • 4 kills: Overkill
    • 5 kills: Killtacular
    • 6 kills: Killtrocity
    • 7 kills: Killimanjaro
    • 8 kills: Killtastrophe
    • 9 kills: Killpocalypse
    • 10 kills: Killionaire!
  • Super Robot Wars: Original Generation has Ascended Fanboy Ryusei Date, who believes that one particular Super Robot is "so ridiculously sweet... It's sweetdiculous!"
  • In House of the Dead: OVERKILL, scoring enough consecutive hits without missing a shot sends your character into "Goregasm" mode.
  • In Doc Louis's Punch-Out!!, Doc will sometimes take a break in the middle of a fight to eat one of his beloved chocolate bars, healing himself back up. Upon taking a bite, he proclaims that the bar is "choctastic" or "choclicious".

    Webcomics 

    Web Original 
  • Sailor Moon Abridged's comedy is based largely in mocking the bad (and often downright bizarre) English Dub. Which happened to be full of these. For example:
    Serena: Oh, c'mon, Luna! Don't be such a stoigemeister!
    Luna: A what?!
  • The Powerthirst commercials. Observe: [1] [2]
    Now with preposterous amounts of testosterone. PREPOSTERONE.
  • Strong Bad from Homestar Runner has coined "extracurriculariffic", and his Sblounskched! candy bar has a "crispety, cookety log" in the middle (a cookie center hollowed out to make room for more "candy matter"). There's a lot more. In fact, the Homestar Runner Wiki has a page devoted to all the made-up words!
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series is Yugi-licious! Yami then goes to on to question whether that means that it tastes like Yugi and how they would even go about testing that (besides the obvious method).
  • Dragon Ball Z Abridged
    Reporter 2: Mr Kent, if you had to come up with a word for how dead he is, what would it be?
    Mr Kent: Cadaveriffic!
    • Repeated by Freeza in episode 33.
  • Linkara has taken to making up new words to describe how terrible the comic he's reading is, like Idiostuperific.
  • Cracked writers are also famous for their use of these sorts of words, although Seanbaby and Gladstone are particularly notable.
  • According to a legion of fans he didn't even know he had, Dr. Tran is "Trantastic".
  • Chadam: Ripley coins the term "Drawsome", as a blend of "Drawing" and "Awesome".
  • Digital Foundry's Richard Leadbetter described the Xbox Game Pass subscription service "value-riffic" in "Xbox Series S vs Series X Console Review: Can The Cut-Down Console Cut It?".

    Western Animation 
  • Parodied by Freakazoid!, which introduced audiences to the phrase "Toyetic".
  • The Simpsons:
    • Parodied in "Lisa Gets an A", where a cash-strapped Springfield Elementary has resorted to using free periodic tables provided by Oscar Mayer - which, among other things, lists the atomic weight of "bolognium" as "snacktacular".
    • In "Homer Loves Flanders", Homer describes a waffle he thought was God as "sacrilicious."
    • In the episode 'Homie the Clown', Krusty had an informercial in which late NFL player Johnny Unitas showcased a mustache trimmer for women:
    Unitas: So what do you think of the 'Lady Krusty Mustache Removal System', Angelique?
    Angelique: It's Krustariffic, Johnny Unitas, but is my upper lip supposed to bleed like this?
    Unitas: Probably.
    • In "King Size Homer", Homers turns to Dr. Nick for help gaining weight so that he can work at home on disability, and Dr. Nick points him to "the neglected food groups, such as the whipped group, the congealed group, and the chocotastic".
  • Parodying his commercial work toward the end of his life, The Critic had Orson Welles shilling for frozen peas, which were full of "Country goodness and green pea-ness," which the legendary actor himself realizes is a terrible slogan.
    • Based on a real life event, although the original lacks the pea-ness.
    • The Critic also features this phone call from Ted Turner Captain Ersatz Duke Phillips: "What about that other word I invented: 'Dukelicious'? Nobody's using it? What a Duketastrophe."
    • Jay Sherman once described Lorenzo's Oil as a mixture of fantasy and crap. "I dubbed it 'Fantacrap!'"
  • Rappers Gangstalicious, Thugnificent, Macktastic, and Flonominal in The Boondocks.
  • In The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, Hugh says stuff like "funkariffic" and "puppetastic". Lampshaded by Jimmy who asks if they are real words.
  • In SpongeBob SquarePants, Patrick talks about the word wumbo, citing "Wumborama" and "Wumbology: The study of wumbo."
  • In the big musical number of the first season finale of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Applejack mentions her "Appletastic" treats.
    • Even before that, in the episode "Applebuck Season," Pinkie Pie refers to Applejack diverting a stampede of cows from Ponyville as "Appletastic."
    • The eponymous Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 is apparently "Icantbelievable". Mind you, what kind of advertising did you expect from the Flim Flam Brothers?
  • Done in Avatar: The Last Airbender when Sokka was on his Mushroom Samba thanks to Cactus juice. Apparently nothing is quenchier.
    "It's the quenchiest!"
    "Nothing's quenchier!"
  • In the Futurama episode "Fry and the Slurm Factory", Glurmo, owner of said factory, talks like this.
    Glurmo: I'm Glurmo, your golly-rific guide to the splen-tacular Slurm factory!
    • As shown in "A Head in the Polls", the two main political parties of the United States apparently mutated into the Fingerlicans and the Tastycrats.
  • The madly grinning cheerleader in Fillmore! at one point describes an X-shaped cookie as being "X-Middle-Schoolicious!" She subsequently manages to get away with "snackabacktacular!"
  • In an episode of The Fairly Oddparents, a doll version of Timmy that Vicky gives to her dog says "I'm low fat and boylicious!".
  • In an episode of House of Mouse, the Bimbettes from Beauty and the Beast describe Donald...er...The Duck Formally Known as Donald as being "super-duper duckariffic".
  • The Funtastic World Of Hanna-Barbera was a 1985 syndicated umbrella package of three new shows (Yogi's Treasure Hunt, Galtar and the Golden Lance and Paw Paw Bears.) It would expand as the years went on and include off-network repeats of old HB shows. The term "funtastic" is even used in the opening of Yogi's Treasure Hunt.
    • Going back even further, CBS used "funtastic" as their tagline for their 1969-70 Saturday morning line-up.
  • Muffy on Arthur has used the word "vomitrocious."
  • In the Teen Titans episode "Employee of the Month", Raven finds the steak mascot at Mega Meaty Meat quite disturbing.
    Steak Suit (in falsetto): "It's MEEAT-TASTIC!"
  • Rosie's Rules: Rosie frequently uses 'supertastical' and 'wowmazing.'

    Real Life 
  • Common internet slang includes words like "suck-tastic", "failtacular", "craptacular", and many others.
  • Salman Rushdie created "delectabubble" and "incredibubble" for the Aero chocolate bar.
  • The word "Spooktacular" is becoming more and more common around Halloween time.
  • During a review of an extremely bad game in Australian magazine PC Power Play, the reviewer noted that describing how bad it was could leave him open to a being sued by the developers. As a result, he (re-)invented 2 (not at all) new words to circumnavigate this problem- skanktacular and craptastic.
  • In Souvenir of Canada, Douglas Coupland describes how bilingual packaging shows how much easier it is to advertise in English (rather than French). English: "Unbelievably, indescribably chocalicious!" French: "Pour bon goût." Which translates literally to "For Good Taste". Hm. Loses something there.
  • Former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos has the word "imeldific" made due to her highly extravagant lifestyle.

Alternative Title(s): Perfectly Cromulent Slogan

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