WYOOS YOOB: WTF?

September 29, 2022 2:34 PM

I found a badge pin bearing the cryptic inscription "Would you believe ... WYOOS YOOB" and would like to know what it means.

I found this pin last year when I replaced the insulation in my attic. It was buried in the old fiberglass insulation, along with some cigarette butts and an old PBR can.

Here's what little context I can offer:

The house is in Petaluma, CA, and was built in 1969 by its first occupants, who lived here for about 50 years. I am fairly confident that this pin comes from one of those original occupants. We're the third owners; the second owners, who lived here from about 2018-2021, made few changes or improvements, and surely did not re-insulate the attic. I doubt they even entered the attic. My guess is that the original owners installed the fiberglass-and-shredded-denim/paper insulation in the 1970s, maybe the '80s. The stuff was very old, desiccated, and compacted -- neglected for decades.

I know almost nothing about the original owners, except that the husband was a tinkerer and chain-smoker. I don't know their politics, family history, place of origin, etc. They've both died, so I can't ask them anything.

Honestly, that's about it! The pin itself offers few clues other than those age/dirt spots. (Doesn't seem to be rust; just age and grime.) Googling "WYOOS YOOB" calls up but one hit, which appears to be a text file of the entire contents of the 1969 yearbook from Gloucester (Connecticut?) High School. Quite random.

I assume "WYOOS YOOB" is an initialism/acronym of some kind, but I can't puzzle it out. The phrase "would you believe" doesn't really suggest anything specific to me.

Any ideas for solving the least important mystery of our times?

posted by Dr. Wu to Grab Bag (12 answers total)

Best answer: Googling "WYOOSYOOB" without the space is more fruitful. It appears to mean "When you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer."

Here's another button with the full slogan and a very similar visual style.
posted by teraflop at 2:40 PM on September 29, 2022 [29 favorites]

Response by poster: Holy. Shit. Six minutes. For a pretty damn obscure thing.
I never would've thought to remove the space. Well-played, teraflop.

And here I thought they were PBR devotees. I guess as long as it was watery and made in Milwaukee, these folks drank it, bless their hearts.

Huzzah!
posted by Dr. Wu at 2:44 PM on September 29, 2022 [17 favorites]

The buttonmuseum site says that Pabst bought out Schlitz so there must have been an association! :)
Well played indeed!
posted by TwoWordReview at 2:45 PM on September 29, 2022 [2 favorites]

I could hear the jingle in my head, so I went searching on youtube and found an audio clip.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 3:23 PM on September 29, 2022 [5 favorites]

I remember that jingle.
posted by theora55 at 3:26 PM on September 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: kitten kaboodle, that's what we call "adding value"!

As an enjoyer of beer and former resident of Wisconsin, I'm mildly ashamed not to have been able to solve this mystery on my own. But I'd never heard (or heard of) that slogan before!
posted by Dr. Wu at 3:36 PM on September 29, 2022 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Okay, but this raises the obvious question of why someone wants to know if you would believe "WYOOS YOOB"?
posted by Reverend John at 4:11 PM on September 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

I bet the Button Museum would be interested if you're minded to donate it.
posted by essexjan at 4:16 PM on September 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

That jingle is permanently burned into my brain.

Along with Hamm's "From the Land of Sky Blue Waters"
posted by Windopaene at 5:16 PM on September 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I was wondering if the "Would You Believe..." part of the slogan was an attempt to tie into the catchphrase from the "Get Smart" TV show. Don Adams (actor from Get Smart) evidently did a series of Schlitz commercials, so I guess the answer is yes.
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 5:42 PM on September 29, 2022 [12 favorites]

Response by poster: Reverend John and Larry David Syndrome, thank you for raising the point about the "Would you believe ..." part of this pin. I'd been focusing on the acronym because it's the weird part, but this part is equally important. Kudos.

Of course I knew Agent 86's catchphrase, but it never occurred to me that it might be relevant to figuring out this pin. And, honestly, I'm not 100% sure that the "Would you believe ..." text explicitly refers to Don Adams/Get Smart, if only because cursory searching suggests that Adams only made this one Schlitz ad, and it's an ad not for Schlitz's flagship beer, but for its malt liquor. I mean, maybe, yeah -- even probably -- the pin refers obliquely to Adams's association with Schlitz, but it doesn't seem absolutely certain to me. Still, incredible find, LDS!
posted by Dr. Wu at 9:55 AM on September 30, 2022 [2 favorites]

It's certainly possible that the phrase "Would you believe..." was just part of the zeitgeist and was coincidentally included, but having found a commercial for another Schlitz product which features Don Adams and the phrase- would it be safe to say that if I'm wrong, I missed it by that much?
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 10:28 AM on October 1, 2022 [3 favorites]