Fun fact: I first heard of the Kirby vacuum cleaner through those adboards and I thought that it was named after the Nintendo character (you know, a character that has the power to inhale everything that gets in his way could be a perfect testimonial for a vacuum cleaner after all).Had to do a double take, was half expecting to see the beloved Nintendo character.
Then I discovered that J.B. Kirby had designed several vacuum cleaners (and had even died) long before the release of the first game in the series (which I own, by the way) so I thought "OK it's the other way round, the character is named Kirby as a tribute to the inventor".
But even that, I found out, was not true. Mr. Kirby was a lawyer that helped Nintendo in a case about Donkey Kong's rights and had nothing to do with either J.B. Kirby or his company.
Then, here in Italy that name started to become infamous for some, let's say, shady tactics used by their resellers and for their employees reportedly not being treated right (one of my favourite writers published a book about that, and a film was then made from it).
Some resellers (the Kirby company, as far as I know, never sold directly in Italy but there were people that imported the cleaners and then sold them door-to-door) even ended up in court for those actions.
From there, the name started fading away, at least here.
As far as I know the Kirby company is alive and well, and they keep producing vacuum cleaners in the US, but I don't know the market share they have here in Italy now (if any).
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