Fall 1973: Have You Had a Squirt Today?

When I was a kid, whenever I had the flu or an upset stomach, my parents would force-feed me 7-Up, the carbonated lemon-lime flavored soft drink.

As a direct consequence, I hated all lemon-lime flavored soft drinks.  I wouldn't go near them unless I was sick.

I still won't.

So I have never actually tasted Squirt, the grapefruit-flavored soft drink that gave 7-Up some competition in the 1960s and 1970s, before fading to the obscurity of the "off-brand" aisle.

But when I was going to Washington Junior High, my friends Dan and Darry and I had some fun with the name.  We were just becoming aware of some other things that squirted, so we greeted each other with dirty-sounding questions like:

"Have you had a Squirt today?"
"Want a taste of my Squirt?"
"Little Squirty has a present for you."

Little Squirty was the advertising mascot, a small blond boy carrying an oversized phallic symbol...um, I mean pop bottle.

Was the company aware of the dirty connotations of its product?

Maybe. This ad is captioned "When taste grows up, Squirt shows up."

The nerd in the striped swim suit and lollipop likes those other soft drinks, but once you grow up, you get muscular and start looking at ladies (or, in the case of the middle guy, your male friends).

And you suddenly find yourself wanting a Squirt.







Little Squirty was quite attached to that bottle, wasn't he?

Maybe he was trying to figure out a way to get to the Squirt without a bottle opener.  Hint: treat it like Aladdin's Lamp.

See also: My Junior High Fantasies of Paul Getty Jr.; and He'll Eat Most Anything.