A Brief History of ICEE
From a Dairy Queen in Kansas to a DJ Shadow classic
Decades before it became a staple in suburban Targets and old movie theaters, ICEE was born out of desperation on a hot day in Coffeyville, Kansas. In 1958, Dairy Queen owner Omar Knedlik stashed some sodas in the freezer to cool them off during a hot spell that brought customers to his restaurant in droves. The sugar prevented the sodas from turning into ice cubes, and customers dug the slush. Before long Knedlik had rigged a machine that turned pop into a carbonated frozen beverage that hasn’t changed much. He wanted to call the concoction “Scoldasice” (ugh) but sharper marketing prevailed, and soon ICEE machines were out on the market.
Until a few weeks ago, I thought of ICEE as the weird cousin of the Slurpee, with a rad polar bear mascot but really nothing else going for it. But then I was low-key schooled by ICEE (and an ICEE imposter?) on Twitter, and was surprised to find that the real history of ICEE was far different from what I expected.
If you follow the money in the ICEE story, it will take you straight to Knedlik’s patented machines. In 1965, 7-Eleven licensed Knedlik’s freezer machine and began marketing the beverage with psychadelic packaging and occasionally edgy names that now seem tame, targeting the era’s restless youth culture. By 1970, Slurpee had even yielded “Dance the Slurp,” an earworm that supposedly had a literal dance to match, though I haven’t been able to find it (@ me if you have a video). The convenience store handed out 7'’ vinyls for free, and now they’re worth up to $50 on eBay.
Legend has it that 7-Eleven trademarked the term “brain freeze” in 1994 — but that seems to be just legend. (The notion of an ice cream headache entered the lexicon around 1937.) Nonetheless, Google’s Ngram viewer shows that usage of “brain freeze” spiked after the late 80s. (Ngram isn’t without some issues, but we’re all here to have fun, ok?)
In 1999, DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist released “Brainfreeze,” a strange project that’s been described as “a one-hour throwdown comprised largely of rare funk and soul 45s.” You can listen to the whole record here, and a sample of “Dance the Slurp” at the 35 min mark forms its centerpiece. It’s way groovy, and I wish you luck in attempting to click away before playing through to the end.
At the end of this rabbit hole, I learned that ICEEs are just Slurpees sold anywhere but 7-Eleven. And if you ever wondered where their flavor lab lives, it’s in Plano, Texas, in the same facility that cranks out variations of Dr Pepper and Snapple.
Scavenger is a weekly weird history newsletter with an affection for the mundane. Subscribe to receive a new story every Wednesday morning. Illustrations by Anna Doherty.
