Many theme parks, including SDC, used to fill small fruit shaped plastic containers filled with various fruit juices and target them to sale to kids. At SDC the concessions department was responsible for hand filling these little six to eight ounce containers each night. It took about two hours to do so. They were filled in the commercial kitchen area behind the Mill Restaurant. (I did this task myself a time or two) Then, the lids were popped on. The sippers were put into big dairy crates or five gallon plastic buckets or on big trays, and put into a refrigerator all night to chill. In the morning, out on the streets, large cart like vending displays would be filled with ice, then the sippers brought in on a small Cushman electric cart before rope drop. Somebody would man the three or four locations around park and sell them for a buck or a buck and a half each (late 70s/early 80s price) and when a guest bought one, a plastic curly straw would be punched through the foil circle on the lid, and the kids would start drinking. These novely containers could be washed out and kept, taken home as a cheap souvenier. Problem was, many of the sipper containers would not be taken home. Some were dropped on the street, and many, many times, people would throw them in the pools of water in front of Grandfathers Mansion, Flooded Mine, and the Float Trip, or into Lake Silver. I personally also had to put on waders and grab a big net more than one time to fish a bunch of old sipper containers out of the water in front of the float trip...part of my duties later as a "river rat" at the ride. The sippers came in grape, apple, orange, and a few other flavors/shapes. Every now and then at my local grocery store I still see three packs of sippers (orange shaped) for sale so I guess they are still around to some extent. Believe it or not, sippers at SDC were phased out due to an employee campaign. All employees were given surveys to fill out by management to express ways of improving the park. Employees complained about picking up these tossed off containers so much they were removed from the concessions. They would have been phased out about 81 or 82. The change around park was noticiable within two or three weeks. The cast off sipper containers were all fished out of the SDC waterways, the streets were cleaner, and that was the end of it. However, those sippers were VERY popular with the kids, everyone wanted them! So it seemed. Any memories from some of you older folks about drinking sippers at SDC? Any old family photos in your scrapbook you could post of people drinking from them? Anybody still have some old sippers in your memories box in the closet? Let's see them! Post! Post! Post!
