Slurpee Buttons

First and foremost, the Slurpee is a trademark of the 7-11 Corporation.  You can read about the history of the Slurpee here: http://www.wikipedia.orgSlurpee, 

With that said, the purpose of this little site is to document my collection of Slurpee buttons or pinbacks.  These advertising buttons were issued as free premiums with the purchase of a Slurpee during summer promotions in the 1968 to 1970 time frame.  This basic information is conjecture as there is a surprising lack of information about these vintage flavors and their marketing.  Several survived from my childhood and I have since accumulated 28 different buttons. Despite contacting the 7-11 Corporation and searching the web relentlessly, I really have found very little about these flavors and their associated buttons.  When were they issued?  Is there a complete list of these?  A few flavors have been recreated recently - such as Gully Washer - but little else seems to be available on the subject.

I have posted pictures of each of these buttons I've collected.  They are all 1 1/2 inches in diameter and have a typical pinback construction. There appear to be two distinct types - both somewhat late sixties pop-art styled (i.e. groovy).  I do have two matching large buttons which I suspect were produced for the 7-11 clerks to wear during the promotions.  All of this is guesswork.  Many buttons seem readily available but some seem much rarer than others.  Most of these advertise a specific flavor but a few are generic.

If you have some other similar pinback examples, please send me a picture.  Better yet, trade me for anything I'm missing (yes, I do have extras for many of these buttons). You can email me at vintagepinbacks@gmail.com.

If nothing else, enjoy this trippy trip through pop-art marketing with these oddball Slurpee flavors of yesteryear.  I've also posted a few other pinback galleries of some other issues that I've enjoyed pursuing.  My apologies in advance for the quality of the photographs. 

Here are a few bits of information that I've culled from various sources while chasing these things:

• • the flavors Blue Blunder Berry and Gully Washer were developed by the Coca-Cola Company.

  • Gully Washer was reissued for the Slurpee 40th anniversary  Gully Washer reissue 

  • the flavor Yankee Doodle is reported to have been available around the Fourth of July (I've seen a comment that it may have been cherry-flavored)

  • The Slurpee mark was created in May of 1967 during a brainstorming session at 7-11's in-house ad agency.  While drinking the product through a straw, agency director Bob Stanford commented that it made a slurping sound.  Listen to a few of Bob Stanford's radio commercials on the Slurpee Radio Spots page.

  • When introduced in 1965, there were 3 sizes:  10 cents, 20 cents, and 30 cents.

  • The 7-11 stores would hang banners on the outside of the store to announce a new flavor and radio stations aired radio spots for the new frozen concoctions.

  • KBHK (Channel 44) in San Francisco had a horror movie show hosted by a character called "The Glob" in the early seventies.  Locals remember small billboards on the front of the 7-Eleven stores that advertised this flavor that included a picture of the host of this show (actually a puppet of an alien head).  Whether this TV show host was the inspiration for the flavor or was a local addition to the standard store advertising is not known.

  • According to a blog poster from Seattle, Aw-Wa Aw-Wa Ukelele was orange-flavored.

  • Another blogger indicated that Gully Washer was grape-flavored.