Thing-O-Matic

JJ: Can you two make a device capable of tracking time trails?
Andy: How?
Casey: You make no sense.
JJ: OK, then can you make a "time-trail-track-O-mat"?
Andy: Totally!
Casey: We'll be done by lunch!

—Casey and Andy

A common way for mad scientists to name machines, devices, and gadgets: take the thing's function and add -O-Matic or inator to the end. These tend to do exactly what they sound like they do. Usually, they won't give any explanation at all how they do what they do, and no matter how outlandish the science, or specific the purpose, they won't be able to do anything else.

See also To the Bat Noun, Expo Label, NameTron, Trope 2000, Thing-O-Meter.

Related to IProduct and all those others by way of Zeerust (and also, of all things, Radio Flyer toy wagons which came along in the '20s); in the golden age of the B-Movie in The Fifties one of the latest gee-whiz technologies was automatic transmissions in cars, hence naming related to that.

This item is available in the Trope Co catalog.

Examples of Thing-O-Matic include:

Comic Books

• The Simpsons: One of the comics makes reference to the Baked Bean-O-Matic 3000 Electro-Flatulator.

Film

• Many of the inventions in the Wallace and Gromit films, such as the Knit-O-Matic from A Close Shave.
• In The Lorax, Ted's family has an Oak-a-matic, the only tree with its own remote control. It has four settings: Summer, Fall, Winter, and Disco!

Literature

• Need someone not just dead, but really really dead? Don't want to bother with another AKA-47? Then just visit the world of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for a handy Kill-O-Zap gun! Not to be confused with a kilozap gun, I hope.
  • There's also the Nutrimatic Drinks Dispenser and that invaluable hitching device the Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic (or "Electronic Thumb").
  • Does the Bistromathic (sic!) Drive count?

Live-Action TV

• The Super Bass-O-Matic 76 from a Saturday Night Live skit.
• In Buffy the Vampire Slayer Xander wonders why the inventor of the Du Lac Cross gave it such a weak name, and suggests 'The Cross-O-Matic' instead.
• In Mighty Morphin Power Rangers almost every Monster of the Week from before Lord Zedd's debut came from a machine named "Monster-O-Maric".

Newspaper Comics

• The Dobie-o-Matic from the Far Side

Recorded and Stand-Up Comedy

• The (in)famous prop comedian Gallagher, fond of ending his shows with a fake ad for SLEDGE! O! MATIC! Slight parody, since it's not really a complex device ...

Tabletop Games

• The card game Munchkin has an actual "O-Matic" card that improves whatever it's applied to. This can lead to devices like the Magnificent Hat-o-Matic, the Eleven Foot Pole-O-Matic, the Familiar-O-Matic, and the Chainsaw of Bloody Dismemberment-O-Matic.
  • Also in the game the original "Stab-O-Matic" which allows one to backstab other players. You can technically make a "Stab-O-Matic-O-Matic" because of this.

Video Games

• Dr. Fred's Sludge-O-Matic in Day of the Tentacle, which had no purpose except to pump out a sufficiently impressive stream of toxic sludge. (No mad scientist's lab is respectable without one).
• Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic had the "Succ-U-Bus" system, which was essentially a air-tube-capsule-delivery-thing with robots on the ends.
• Gruntilda has a Big-O-Blaster (nicknamed B.O.B.) in Banjo-Tooie, which can remove and store life force
• Space Station Silicon Valley has the Rat-O-Matic and the Doomsday-O-Matic Shrinkray.

Web Comics

• Casey and Andy have gadgets like: the Time-Trail-Track-O-Mat, the Casey Vaporiso-Annihilatomat, and their "ultimate" project, the End-Of-The-World-O-Mat!
• In what is probably a reference to Casey and Andy, this Lightning Made Of Owls strip. (And it mentions the TV Tropes version of this page!)
• Girl Genius: The Dropinator™ escape pod and the Voodoo-matic (patent denied).

Web Original

• This device could have been the For-A-Minute-Matter-Dematerializ-O-Mat, but got this "cumbersome" name instead.

Western Animation

• Most every product offered by the Looney Tunes ACME Corporation.
• On Phineas and Ferb, all of Dr. Doofenshmirtz's evil inventions end in the suffix '-inator' (to the point where they do a Lampshade Hanging on it by Doofenshmirtz giving his weapon a name not ending in _inator, giving Agent P the reason for his not doing so by saying that he has worn out the _inator name too much). Occasionally, he use Trope-inator-inator. His first ever invention was just The Inator and his second was the Even-Bigger-Inator.
  • He believed his second attempt to revert Earth's rotation would have a different result from the first one just because he added the suffix '-inator' to the invention's name.
  • In the Clip Show episode, Doof believed the suffix was the reason of his failures so he gave an invention a name that ended with "non-inator".
• Rocko's Modern Life had the Suck-o-Matic vacuum cleaner. The word-O-word device was used commonly. It's not called O-Town for nothing, after all.
• Veggie Tales had the Forgive-O-Matic.
• The Sphere-O-Boom from Futurama.
• Clyde Cosgrove's "Meal-O-Matic" from Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers.
• In one episode of Strawberry Shortcake's Berry Bitty Adventures, Lemon Meringue orders a Salon-o-matic. Blueberry Muffin orders a Clean-o-matic from the same catalog.
• One of Edd's failed inventions in Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy was the Opera-Matic.
• In a non-canon episode of The Simpsons, Abraham Simpson's spirit enters Moe's love tester machine and he becomes the Love-Matic Grampa.