Remembering “Slug Bug”

I never cease to be amazed at how games, myths, jokes, and rhymes get passed down through the ages and across the country.  My husband grew up in Texas and I grew up in Iowa, yet as kids, we both knew every word to the Batman version of Jingle Bells, long before the Internet and Cable TV.  And, we both played the Slug Bug game.

“I think I still have marks on me from all the slugs I got from my brother,” says a Volkswagen public relations representative who wishes to remain unnamed. While  Volkswagen of America, Inc. has no official printed history or rules for the game (the unnamed PR representative said they wouldn’t want to associate with anything where children could get hurt),  a local VW enthusiast says it originated at least 40 years ago. 

“I remember first knowing the Slug Bug game in the early 1960’s,” says Louis Harris, 61, of Dallas, who, along with his wife, Janet, is the local representative for the Vintage VW Club of America. He says though the Beetle was first brought to the U.S. in 1949, the game probably didn’t become popular in the United States until there were enough Beetles on the road to make Slug Bug playable.  “The Beetle really took off in popularity in the middle to late 1950’s.”  He says his two daughters, now aged 25 and 30, loved to play the game as kids, and says his wife credits the game for helping the girls learn colors. “They’d call out ‘Slug Bug!’ and she’d ask them to identify its color.”  

New Slug Bug-ers (or even “veterans” like myself) may not know that for each year that the Beetle has been around, there are probably just as many interpretations of the game, based on the Slug Bug websites I found. One says that if you grew up on the East Coast, you may know it as “Punch Buggy” (yep, that sounds pretty Ivy League, all right). Another discusses the finer points of the rules, such as “you can not slug the owner of a Beetle if you see their car” and “looking away from the Beetle and looking back does not give you the chance to slug again”.  (But walking away from one in a parking lot and seeing the same one again when you leave is eligible for slugging again.)   Another website extols the fun of the “adult” version of the game (using points, not slugs) and lists a printable point chart, including more points if the Beetle is yellow or if it’s a convertible (you really hit the jackpot if it’s a yellow convertible), and negative points for shouting out when a Beetle’s not there. This site even has a Slug Bug Council which you can contact for a ruling on Slug Bug game disputes, such as “Does the Beetle count if it’s on TV?” (yes, they say, as long as the other players are present).  

While some of you may be thinking, ‘Get a life, people’, the Slug Bug game, even in its simplest version, can sure make riding in traffic or on long car trips a lot more interesting, and even fun, provided any slugging is done with restraint.  And it must be a marketing and advertising bonus for Volkswagen. Think about it. Kids delight in spotting the brightly colored cars while playing the game and may dream of someday driving one. 

Based on the amount of daily slugbugging that has been going on within earshot of me lately, a lot of people ARE driving them.  Even Barbie drives one.  And now that our neighbors across the street have a bright greenish-yellow one, I get to hear the word yelled inside my house as well as in the car (and I get to experience getting slugged in the leg while opening the front door!).  All pain and noise aside, in this world of fast changes and sophisticated technology, it’s nice to know that some simple things stick around. 

There is a new game in town, however.  Just when I was wondering if another car manufacturer would ever try to start up a game like Slug Bug, it seems they (or their kids) already have.  A teenager riding in our car the other day yelled out “P.T. Cruiser Bruiser! No tag-backs!” and elbowed my six-year-old when she saw the unique-looking car rolling along beside us.